Scrcpy v4.0
github.com
github.com
During this delay, I met neighbors who accepted to share their WiFi with me. They live a bit far, across the way. The best way I found to get a stable connection with decent speeds was to hang my phone at the top of a window using a salad bag, and share the phone connection to a computer via USB.
I didn't find a way to automatically enable the USB connection sharing before plugging in the USB cable (didn't look for a solution neither, admittedly), so I had to plug the cable, enable the sharing and then put the phone in the bag and adjust the position, all that making sure the cable doesn't disconnect or everything needs to be redone from the start.
I discovered far too late that my distro now has a scrcpy package, which makes enabling the sharing conveniently from the computer.
Yes, I could have tried to ask immediate neighbors instead, probably. I should get my own line this morning, as it happens.
scrcpy is fantastic. I used to write longer texts with it, and now that I can use it again, I'll probably start doing it again.
In recent version of Android, it appears one needs to unlock blindly as the screen is black at this time, I suppose for security reasons.
> A virtual display can now be made flex using --flex-display (or -x), meaning it can be resized dynamically along with the client window.
Amazing.
Recording a video via scrcpy works on the other hand. Amazing, agreed.
I believe that unless your phone already has debugging enabled and the machine was already added a trusted machine for debugging, you're out of luck for controlling a phone with a dead screen?
I have immense respect for those that are blind and need to interact this way. In the few days I used my phone this way I noticed multiple apps, especially my bank app with a keypad, had completely broken navigation and iirc not even numbered the actual buttons?! So it was a 'swipe right 9 times, double tap, swipe left 6 times' while the TTS was yelling nonsense!
Plugging in a display via USB also doesn't work because that also requires screen interaction to output to it (at least on Pixel phones).
The last thing I tried was plugging in a keyboard/mouse which do work automatically, but unfortunately I was using pattern unlock and there's no way to enter that via the keyboard (and good luck doing it with a mouse blind).
Finally the thing that you'd think should work - plugging in a new phone and transferring everything across ALSO requires you to confirm your pattern/PIN on the old phone.
It's absolutely insane. If anyone from Google is watching this.... people break screens!! Give them a way to access their stuff when the screen is broken.
The obvious easy solution is for the "transfer to a new phone" flow to allow entering the old phone's PIN/pattern ON THE NEW PHONE. Jesus.
The old phone's screen was OK though, and I don't remember if I had to use it to initiate the transfer.
Eventually I solved the issue by blind navigating to screen brightness and turning it all the way up, this made the screen act normal until I could replace it.
The lesson here is to not have a single point of such large failure, like I did.
Inb4 google somehow blocks it, because of "security" or some other bullshit.
First thing I do when getting a new phone is enable ADB and set up permanent trust for my PC's ADB keys so I have this trick available if/when the screen dies. PERMANENT trust - you need to disable "automatically revoke keys" on the phone or they poof.
I've had several Android phones become unusable after a drop due to screen death over the years, and this saves a LOT of hassle.
I narrowed down the search for the root cause off this issue, it seems to be VIRTUAL_DISPLAY_FLAG_ALWAYS_UNLOCKED: https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy/issues/6007#issuecommen....
That process cost me a couple of days and a similar working phone for testing, but it worked and I could save all the data on the phone.
Only gripe with scrcpy (and an extremely minor one at that) is that tab doesnt automatically advance input fields in the app, while it does in iphone mirroring
iOS screen sharing isn’t available in the EU. Thanks Apple.
1) Remove access from Android phone to macOS.
2) Remote access from iOS to Windows.
Then if both doesn't the EU regs also require remote access from Android phone to Windows
Plus same questions for Linux.
scrpy is lucky as not regulated so does not have to provide iOS.
Could Apple package this and thus allow its iOS version to be released in EU. Or would they still need 2.
Scrcpy was a very hot contender, but I never got it to work well enough with low enough latency.
If you feel you should try this, just buy an audio interface and a cheap XLR mic.
Don't do that. There are plenty of good USB microphones that don't need you to faff around with shitty XLR.
Droidcam and wo-mic are some good options in this space. Droidcam if you need both a webcam and mic. Wo-mic used to work on lower android versions.
I remember plugging Droidcam to my win 7 (1gb-ram) crt tv computer and then taking an really old mostly junk phone outside and my parents were watching the monitor. It was really awesome :p
Though after an year, I ended up buying a webcam because that unused phone used to get quite heated and was really a finnicky setup to do everyday but It was a very fun experiment that I did for quite many months.
It's been a few years since covid now and I have a mac laptop now but on my desktop I still don't have webcam, and so I also use https://obs.ninja sometimes now
So TLDR if someone really wishes to do this: Droidcam,wo-mic,(https://obs.ninja + OBS live camera option)
I think its a good way to make use of old phones that you might not be using but imo battery life and its consumption seems to be the biggest hurdle imho
> mirrors Android devices (video and audio) connected via USB or TCP/IP and allows control using the computer's keyboard and mouse. It does not require root access or an app installed on the device. It works on Linux, Windows, and macOS
Similarly, the other features for the Googlebook are just normal features from Google's Android builds. The announcement is really that there will be a Chromebook Plus class of devices running the new Android-based ChromeOS, so everything in Android now comes to these devices for free, and apparently, most of the features from the current CheomeOS will be ported too. I just hope this means that Linux app support in Android will match Crostini by the end of the year.
Makes me wander what works or doesn't with AndroidXR too.
"""Court documents and executive statements reveal a plan to retire the existing ChromeOS software stack by 2034. This legacy system is expected to be replaced by a unified platform internally codenamed "Project Aluminium," which migrates ChromeOS fully onto the Android tech stack."""
...so this is effectively the first pass at "Project Aluminium" hardware? The death knell of the year of linux on the desktop? w/ 8-year EOL, that does put us right at the 2034 date.