Android touch data logs

Question

For the research I am doing, I need to some way to track user touches when they are using the phone in general daily basis. The user will be fully aware about what they are recording. Any method to do would be great.

What have I tried so far?

Method 1. Create an service with overlay transparent view.

Problem Due to obvious security flaws this is prevented starting with ICS. The input touches on the transparent view is not transferred to background and hence user is not able to interact with phone normally. I tried various methods with overlay view defining as type phone or type system alert or switching between them during program execution.

Method 2. View with 1% screen size make with touch outside model

Problem As problem as previous. Touch outside only returns the if touch event happened outside without even initial x, y coordinates.

There are other methods I tried but those are highlighted. Currently, I am thinking about other options:

Option 1 - The pointer location option in developer options: In settings there is this pointer location option that I can utilize. When that option is on, all the info about touch are shown in the top panel. If I can have access to those data afterwards that would be fine too, despite the fact that there will be drawings on the screen when user is using the phone. I have traced the source code of ICS and found the core class that is making that tracking possible. I recreated that class into an service. The logcat shows all the info about touch when I am running it from app. Only problem is the same as problem 1. I cannot track it outside current app. So, if it logs the tracking info even when pointer option is turned on, how will be able to get the information later to use?

This option seems the easiest.

Option 2 - Android NDK If above method is not possible is it possible to do so using NDK? Right direction to this route is also great.

Option 3 - Custom ROM Do I really need to go for Custom ROM while doing this? I am pretty sure this is 100% sure way to do it. But it is seeming very impractical in this particular research.

I would appreciate any suggestion to the path that I can follow. Thank you all in advance.

Answer 1

You can use rooted phones and RepetiTouch for your research. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cygery.repetitouch.free