How to receive the driving start and stop activity with Android in an energy efficient manner which works even offline?

Question

I would like to receive the Android location call backs for Driving Start and Stop. I have tried the Activity Detection API by Google but it doesn't seem to be reliable enough. As well as, I have looked into using Neura's API to detect the location events but it only works when the device is online which is not sufficient in my case.

Answer 1

You could use google's FenceApi in order to declare a driving fence.

Though this approach seems good, i've faced with the fact that this api didn't tell me sometimes when user starts/finishes driving, and sometimes it took a long time after i started driving that the api told me of that event.

a. include dependency to your app's build.gradle file :

compile 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-location:+'

   compile 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-contextmanager:+'

b. Manifest definitions :

 <uses-permission android:name="com.google.android.gms.permission.ACTIVITY_RECOGNITION" />
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET" />
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION" />

    <application
        android:allowBackup="true"
        android:icon="@mipmap/ic_launcher"
        android:label="@string/app_name"
        android:supportsRtl="true"
        android:theme="@style/AppTheme" >

        <meta-data
            android:name="com.google.android.awareness.API_KEY"
            android:value="PUT_YOUR_AWARENESS_KEY_HERE" />

        <activity android:name=".MainActivity" >
            <intent-filter>
                <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />

                <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
            </intent-filter>
        </activity>
    </application>
PUT_YOUR_AWARENESS_KEY_HERE : You need to generate a key here.

c. Your MainActivity class - explanations attached to the code :

public class MainActivity extends Activity {

private GoogleApiClient mGoogleApiClient;
private PendingIntent mPendingIntent;
private FenceReceiver mFenceReceiver;

// The intent action which will be fired when your fence is triggered.
private final String FENCE_RECEIVER_ACTION = BuildConfig.APPLICATION_ID + "FENCE_RECEIVER_ACTION";

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
    mGoogleApiClient = new GoogleApiClient.Builder(this).addApi(Awareness.API).build();
    mGoogleApiClient.connect();
    // Set up the PendingIntent that will be fired when the fence is triggered.
    mPendingIntent = PendingIntent.getBroadcast(this, 0, new Intent(FENCE_RECEIVER_ACTION), 0);
    // The broadcast receiver that will receive intents when a fence is triggered.
    mFenceReceiver = new FenceReceiver();
    registerReceiver(mFenceReceiver, new IntentFilter(FENCE_RECEIVER_ACTION));
    createFence(DetectedActivityFence.IN_VEHICLE, "InVehicleFence");
}

@Override
public void onDestroy() {
    try {
        unregisterReceiver(mFenceReceiver); //Don't forget to unregister the receiver
    } catch (Exception e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
    super.onDestroy();
}

private void createFence(int detectedActivityFence, final String fenceKey) {
    AwarenessFence fence = DetectedActivityFence.during(detectedActivityFence);
    // Register the fence to receive callbacks.
    Awareness.FenceApi.updateFences(
            mGoogleApiClient, new FenceUpdateRequest.Builder().addFence(fenceKey, fence, mPendingIntent)
                    .build()).setResultCallback(new ResultCallback<Status>() {
        @Override
        public void onResult(@NonNull Status status) {
            if (status.isSuccess()) {
                Log.i(getClass().getSimpleName(), "Successfully registered.");
            } else {
                Log.e(getClass().getSimpleName(), "Could not be registered: " + status);
            }
        }
    });
}

// Handle the callback on the Intent.
public class FenceReceiver extends BroadcastReceiver {
    @Override
    public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {
        FenceState fenceState = FenceState.extract(intent);
        switch (fenceState.getCurrentState()) {
            case FenceState.TRUE:
                Log.i(fenceState.getFenceKey(), "Driving");
                break;
            case FenceState.FALSE:
                Log.i(fenceState.getFenceKey(), "Not driving");
                break;
        }
    }
}

}