Tweet
As I commented in another thread, I have my iphone setup to automatically fire a few actions when connected to the 500 (calling this an “integration” is probably too much). I believe this can be helpful to others with the same device so I’m posting this how-to (bare with me… it’s a bit long just because I’m detailing each step for JB noobs, for anyone who already feels comfortable with iphone’s Activator, it’s just a couple of minutes!)
For other platform users; let’s not get into childish fanboy comments, I know the iphone is a closed platform by default, that’s why this is needed.
I use the phone for the functions I mostly need in a car stereo; music, GPS/camera-alerts, hands-free phone/SMS,
The iphone already functions quite well as a music playing device when connected through USB with the 500, mostly as it is recognized as an iPod, so besides playing you can control it with the wheel buttons, have the track name on the stereo’s strip and even go through the library on the tiny cluster screen (not recommended, quite a cumbersome experience). The telephony part continues to integrate vía BT.
As all runs on the same device, the GPS will mute/fade-out (depending on the app) the music when it has to speak a notification. I use Sygic which is the best of the bunch I tried (especially in my country), also because it let’s me load my own alerts, but this will work with any GPS app.
Lastly; getting notifications (SMS, WhatsApp, etc) spoken out-loud only when connected to B&M.
As a bonus with iOS 8; when charging you can invoke Siri by saying “hey Siri”, so music search, SMS reply, etc, became much simpler.
This is explained with an iphone, but will work even better with an ipad (I would love to integrate one, much nicer/flexible and less fuss than a 2 DIN stereo, while keeping B&M and wheel controls, problem is; the 500’s dash it too tiny to put it in an elegant way, that is, no suction cups or dangling cables, please let’s see other’s ideas on how to get it done nicely!)
Here’s a short demonstration of my setup:
EDIT:
I just noticed that my original, shaky video was “fixed” by Youtube resulting in it shaking like crazy! So, I removed the original one, stabilized it in my Mac and re-uploaded.
The triggers I have are;
- When charging AND connected to Blue&Me do ALL the following; unlock device (even if requires an unlock code), pump-up brightness, fire Music app, fire GPS app (in that order, so music plays and the GPS is in the foreground).
- Spoken notifications over BT while connected to Blue&me
- upon disconnection from Blue&Me; kill GPS app, put brightness for MY normal level (about 50%), lock device.
To replicate this (or better yet, use it as a starting point for your own setup), these are the steps involved:
1. If you still haven’t jailbreaked your iphone… do it! (before the upcoming 8.2 update). There are a lot of sites explaining how to do it, so I’ll leave this to them. As a reference check: http://www.idownloadblog.com/2014/11...-1-on-windows/
If you never jailbreaked before, don’t be intimidated, it’s simply a matter of downloading a program to your pc, connect the iphone and click a button. Don’t forget to backup to your PC vía iTunes (pc not iCloud!) before starting in case something does go wrong, you can just revert to that backup.
2. Once on a jailbroken device, you’ll see a new app installed; Cydia, it’s like the appStore for tweaks. most are free, a few are about a buck. Go there and download the following:
- Activator
- ActIf
- Activate Command
- ByPass
and if you want spoken notifications, highly recommended, one of these (all 3 are remarkably similar, just download one!):
Speak-Notification OR Aloud OR Secretary (these are the only paid one in this setup, again, not a big deal, about $1 to $1,50)
I have other tweaks installed, but these are the main ones in the demo.
3. Setting up the spoken notifications is done by just going to the app’s setting (you’ll see a new option in the Iphone’s setting for each new installed tweak).
Here I show Speak-Notification, but it’s almost the same for the other two;
- Applications: set for which app’s notifications you want this tweak to read them out-loud (SMS, WhatsApp, etc)
- Speak options; set volume, speed, language, select over BT and delay before reading (have it set to 2 seconds)
- Speak conditions; set it to read only when connected to BT (I also have it set to when headphones are connected, not relevant for car use, but saves me from getting the phone out of my pocket when listening to music in the street and a message arrives)
4. Set the conditions for all the automatic behavior when connecting/disconnecting from car.
This involves a few tweaks, without going into much detail; Activator is possibly the best tweak available for the iphone, here you setup a series of triggers in pair of event/action, just as an example; when tapping twice on the status bar (event) lock the device (action).
As you can only have one condition/event with Activator, and we need a combination of two (in our case; charging AND connected to Blue&Me, otherwise these actions would fire even if we have the phone in our pocket in a short journey, or when charging the phone at home), ActIf comes to rescue!
Finally, there’s also one action that can take place with Activator (well, not completely true, there are a few combinations allowed, but you can’t for example fire two apps for an event), to overcome this limitation we use Activate Command (which essentially sends commands directly to the iphone upon an event). Lets put it all together:
- Go to Actif settings page
and in Bluetooth / Device name put Blue&Me
- Go to Activate command’s setting page
scroll down the settings page and turn “Show Output” to OFF
Then up for Command 1 put the following;
killall -9 SygicNaviNative
if you use Waze instead of Sygic, replace SygicNaviNative with Waze (mind the upper/lowercase!)
if you use google maps, replace SygicNaviNative with “Google Maps” (it would be: killall -9 “Google Maps” )
for Command 2:
activator send com.bd452.bypass && sleep 2 && activator send com.apple.Music && activator send com.sygic.world && activator send libactivator.screen.brightness.90
Again, if you use Waze replace com.sygic.world with: com.waze.iphone
and if you use google maps with: com.google.Maps
if you use another music app, for example Spotify, replace com.apple.Music with com.spotify.client
- Now head for Activator’s settings page, a few steps here… but the last ones!
If you want the brightness of the device to be modified when connected/disconnected from this “car mode”, you have to create two brightness actions.
In case you don’t want to affect the brightness, remove the last part from Command 2 in the previous point (this part; && activator send libactivator.screen.brightness.90) also if your high brightness level is not 90, put the correct number in that line.
Go to “Anywhere” then any event, for example in bluetooth devices “Connected to Blue&Me” then “More” (upper right corner)
There is an option Set Brightness, set 1 for 50%, save it, and another for 90% (or the level you want as long as you then put the correct number in the command 2 for the brighter level as explained above), save it.
Again to the main Activator settings page, from there “Anywhere” -> “ActIf Conditions” -> “bluetooth condition passed” (note there are 3 bluetooth conditions, set the one with no number) search for the action “Activate Command 2” and tap it to assign it.
Go again to the main Activator settings page, from there “Anywhere” -> “ActIf Conditions” -> “charging condition passed” search for the action “Activate Command 2” and tap it to assign it. We do the same action for both conditions as we want to have both scenarios covered; when 1st connected to B&M and then to the USB and viceversa.
Now we have to assign these actIf conditions to events, so; again to Activator´s main settings page -> Anywhere -> Bluetooth Devices / Connected to Blue&Me -> ActIf actions: Charging condition
then; Activator main settings page -> Anywhere -> Power / Connected -> ActIf actions: Bluetooth condition
now to the actions when disconnecting;
Activator main settings page -> Anywhere -> Bluetooth Devices / Disconnected from Blue&Me -> Activate Command 1
for the SAME event you can optionally do; (scroll down on the same page) Brightness level 50%
(Activator will ask if you want to assign multiple actions to this event, reply Yes!)
and finally, if you want your phone to lock, still on the same page, select: Lock Device (and again confirm you want multiple assignments).
That’s all! I have a few other setting (like two finger swipe to switch between music and gps apps), but these are the important ones and I don’t want this post to become (way) too long.
Sorry if my English isn’t that great…
cheers!
For other platform users; let’s not get into childish fanboy comments, I know the iphone is a closed platform by default, that’s why this is needed.
I use the phone for the functions I mostly need in a car stereo; music, GPS/camera-alerts, hands-free phone/SMS,
The iphone already functions quite well as a music playing device when connected through USB with the 500, mostly as it is recognized as an iPod, so besides playing you can control it with the wheel buttons, have the track name on the stereo’s strip and even go through the library on the tiny cluster screen (not recommended, quite a cumbersome experience). The telephony part continues to integrate vía BT.
As all runs on the same device, the GPS will mute/fade-out (depending on the app) the music when it has to speak a notification. I use Sygic which is the best of the bunch I tried (especially in my country), also because it let’s me load my own alerts, but this will work with any GPS app.
Lastly; getting notifications (SMS, WhatsApp, etc) spoken out-loud only when connected to B&M.
As a bonus with iOS 8; when charging you can invoke Siri by saying “hey Siri”, so music search, SMS reply, etc, became much simpler.
This is explained with an iphone, but will work even better with an ipad (I would love to integrate one, much nicer/flexible and less fuss than a 2 DIN stereo, while keeping B&M and wheel controls, problem is; the 500’s dash it too tiny to put it in an elegant way, that is, no suction cups or dangling cables, please let’s see other’s ideas on how to get it done nicely!)
Here’s a short demonstration of my setup:
EDIT:
I just noticed that my original, shaky video was “fixed” by Youtube resulting in it shaking like crazy! So, I removed the original one, stabilized it in my Mac and re-uploaded.
The triggers I have are;
- When charging AND connected to Blue&Me do ALL the following; unlock device (even if requires an unlock code), pump-up brightness, fire Music app, fire GPS app (in that order, so music plays and the GPS is in the foreground).
- Spoken notifications over BT while connected to Blue&me
- upon disconnection from Blue&Me; kill GPS app, put brightness for MY normal level (about 50%), lock device.
To replicate this (or better yet, use it as a starting point for your own setup), these are the steps involved:
1. If you still haven’t jailbreaked your iphone… do it! (before the upcoming 8.2 update). There are a lot of sites explaining how to do it, so I’ll leave this to them. As a reference check: http://www.idownloadblog.com/2014/11...-1-on-windows/
If you never jailbreaked before, don’t be intimidated, it’s simply a matter of downloading a program to your pc, connect the iphone and click a button. Don’t forget to backup to your PC vía iTunes (pc not iCloud!) before starting in case something does go wrong, you can just revert to that backup.
2. Once on a jailbroken device, you’ll see a new app installed; Cydia, it’s like the appStore for tweaks. most are free, a few are about a buck. Go there and download the following:
- Activator
- ActIf
- Activate Command
- ByPass
and if you want spoken notifications, highly recommended, one of these (all 3 are remarkably similar, just download one!):
Speak-Notification OR Aloud OR Secretary (these are the only paid one in this setup, again, not a big deal, about $1 to $1,50)
I have other tweaks installed, but these are the main ones in the demo.
3. Setting up the spoken notifications is done by just going to the app’s setting (you’ll see a new option in the Iphone’s setting for each new installed tweak).
Here I show Speak-Notification, but it’s almost the same for the other two;
- Applications: set for which app’s notifications you want this tweak to read them out-loud (SMS, WhatsApp, etc)
- Speak options; set volume, speed, language, select over BT and delay before reading (have it set to 2 seconds)
- Speak conditions; set it to read only when connected to BT (I also have it set to when headphones are connected, not relevant for car use, but saves me from getting the phone out of my pocket when listening to music in the street and a message arrives)
4. Set the conditions for all the automatic behavior when connecting/disconnecting from car.
This involves a few tweaks, without going into much detail; Activator is possibly the best tweak available for the iphone, here you setup a series of triggers in pair of event/action, just as an example; when tapping twice on the status bar (event) lock the device (action).
As you can only have one condition/event with Activator, and we need a combination of two (in our case; charging AND connected to Blue&Me, otherwise these actions would fire even if we have the phone in our pocket in a short journey, or when charging the phone at home), ActIf comes to rescue!
Finally, there’s also one action that can take place with Activator (well, not completely true, there are a few combinations allowed, but you can’t for example fire two apps for an event), to overcome this limitation we use Activate Command (which essentially sends commands directly to the iphone upon an event). Lets put it all together:
- Go to Actif settings page
and in Bluetooth / Device name put Blue&Me
- Go to Activate command’s setting page
scroll down the settings page and turn “Show Output” to OFF
Then up for Command 1 put the following;
killall -9 SygicNaviNative
if you use Waze instead of Sygic, replace SygicNaviNative with Waze (mind the upper/lowercase!)
if you use google maps, replace SygicNaviNative with “Google Maps” (it would be: killall -9 “Google Maps” )
for Command 2:
activator send com.bd452.bypass && sleep 2 && activator send com.apple.Music && activator send com.sygic.world && activator send libactivator.screen.brightness.90
Again, if you use Waze replace com.sygic.world with: com.waze.iphone
and if you use google maps with: com.google.Maps
if you use another music app, for example Spotify, replace com.apple.Music with com.spotify.client
- Now head for Activator’s settings page, a few steps here… but the last ones!
If you want the brightness of the device to be modified when connected/disconnected from this “car mode”, you have to create two brightness actions.
In case you don’t want to affect the brightness, remove the last part from Command 2 in the previous point (this part; && activator send libactivator.screen.brightness.90) also if your high brightness level is not 90, put the correct number in that line.
Go to “Anywhere” then any event, for example in bluetooth devices “Connected to Blue&Me” then “More” (upper right corner)
There is an option Set Brightness, set 1 for 50%, save it, and another for 90% (or the level you want as long as you then put the correct number in the command 2 for the brighter level as explained above), save it.
Again to the main Activator settings page, from there “Anywhere” -> “ActIf Conditions” -> “bluetooth condition passed” (note there are 3 bluetooth conditions, set the one with no number) search for the action “Activate Command 2” and tap it to assign it.
Go again to the main Activator settings page, from there “Anywhere” -> “ActIf Conditions” -> “charging condition passed” search for the action “Activate Command 2” and tap it to assign it. We do the same action for both conditions as we want to have both scenarios covered; when 1st connected to B&M and then to the USB and viceversa.
Now we have to assign these actIf conditions to events, so; again to Activator´s main settings page -> Anywhere -> Bluetooth Devices / Connected to Blue&Me -> ActIf actions: Charging condition
then; Activator main settings page -> Anywhere -> Power / Connected -> ActIf actions: Bluetooth condition
now to the actions when disconnecting;
Activator main settings page -> Anywhere -> Bluetooth Devices / Disconnected from Blue&Me -> Activate Command 1
for the SAME event you can optionally do; (scroll down on the same page) Brightness level 50%
(Activator will ask if you want to assign multiple actions to this event, reply Yes!)
and finally, if you want your phone to lock, still on the same page, select: Lock Device (and again confirm you want multiple assignments).
That’s all! I have a few other setting (like two finger swipe to switch between music and gps apps), but these are the important ones and I don’t want this post to become (way) too long.
Sorry if my English isn’t that great…
cheers!
Comment