Take your Android to 11
Get that extra Android edge, with Charles Handmer.
Android 11 has been around for some months now, but unless you have the latest Pixel phone the chances are you are running an earlier version. If your device is on Android 10 that’s good, but it would still be great to get that extra push and turn it up to 11.
The new features in Android 11 are mainly incremental improvements, but that doesn’t stop us wanting the latest. So in this article we look at the most desirable of those features, and explore how to implement similar functions on your current Android device. We ran our app evaluations on a mid-range UMIDIGI phone running stock Android 9.0 – a good test bed.
A year or so ago we also took a look at Android 10 and found that by raiding the Google Play Store for third party apps we could get our old Androids to do a lot of the same tricks, for example:
• The ActionDash or Screen Time apps add similar functions to Android’s Digital Wellbeing.
• The MAX Battery app provided a version of enhanced battery management.
• Google Assistant can be added to any phone running Android 5.0 or later, or a tablet on 6.0 or later.
• The Screen Master app provided a powerful screenshot editor, plus floats a screenshot button over whatever your device is displaying. Android 11 has further improved screenshot editing capabilities compared to 10, but apps like Screen Master provide similar features on older devices. So what can we add to take it into Android 11 territory?
Conversation bubbles
Google has really focused Android 11 on communication, and many new features relate to notifications, chat apps, and conversations. Conversations of all sorts are prioritised over other notifications and are made more visible.
Facebook Messenger on Android already has a chat bubble feature that does this. With Messenger, a ‘chat head’ icon appears on your phone and floats above anything else on the screen, and you can move it around to wherever you want it. A tap on the icon launches the chat and when you close
Messenger the icon remains visible to relaunch the chat, until you swipe it off the screen.
Android 11 introduced systemwide bubbles that work for any chat app, not just Messenger.
But can you add this functionality to earlier versions of Android? Not as seamlessly perhaps, but we found apps on the Google Play Store that set out to do just that.
Bubble notifications | chat heads
This app displays notifications briefly as they come in, then leaves a bubble on the home screen that you can tap on to directly access the conversation and continue it through the app that it came from. It seems to work well, and supports everything from WhatsApp to Twitter. If you use a lot of different chat channels, as we do, this is pretty useful.
Built-in screen recording
Android 11 introduced built-in screen recording, with a simple system that does a reasonable job. Fortunately there are other
options for older phones, and we think the AZ Screen Recorder app is among the best.
AZ Screen Recorder is lightweight and easy to use, with quite comprehensive capabilities. It features a button that floats over your screen for quick and easy access, plus a wide range of settings to suit different recording scenarios. The free version is comprehensive, and the pro version costs US$2.99 which is reasonable for an excellent screen recorder.
Smart device management
Having multiple smart devices in your home is fun, but can be a pain to manage. Google Assistant can help but sometimes it helps to have a universal interface rather than having to delve into a range of different apps for the various devices.
Android 11 lets you access all your smart gadgets right from the power button menu. Simply long-press on the power button and you’ll see controls for all the smart lights, locks, thermostats, and whatever other gadgets you have in your home or office. That makes multiple device management much simpler.
Even without Android 11, if you have a Samsung phone you may have their multi-device controller app pre-installed, but it has mixed reviews. In fact, most of the Internet of Things (IoT) device manufacturers have their own apps, which are of varying quality, plus there are many commercially focussed apps available on the Play Store. It’s early days for the IoT, so a bit of experimentation will be required to match controls to your particular devices.
COGCONS
You really need to test apps on your device to see what works best for you, but we were particularly intrigued by the apps from the Indian automation company COGNOS. They have a free app called Smart Devices: Smart World that enables users to securely monitor and control compatible devices and appliances from “anywhere in the world”. We had some difficulty installing it, but suspect it was user error because it appears to be a sub-set of the larger COGNOS app, which we had no problems with.
COGCONS is very broad in scope, combining management of compatible smart device with a social network function designed for families, and perhaps businesses. Within COGCONS people can share their location and activities, with a range of permission levels. Individuals can also be given access to control your devices, with different access levels allocated within one family for example.
There is a capability to set Trigger events that result in automated Actions by connected devices, in a similar way to the MacroDroid app that we recently explored. Plenty of scope for experimentation.
COGCONS also gives a glimpse into an even more connected future where your social network is tightly integrated through IoT technology. For example, knowing exactly where everyone in our circle is, and what they are doing – no Facebook post required!
Wireless Android Auto
This is a feature that we have been waiting for. Android Auto is a useful system, but it requires your phone to be plugged in via a USB lead, which seems so old tech. Thankfully, in Android 11, every smartphone with 5GHz WiFi can take advantage of wireless Android Auto connection, as long as the head unit in your vehicle supports it.
So far we have not found an app that can provide wireless Android Auto. However, we have found a technical work-around that might make it doable with older phones and vehicles, but it is complex.
To be investigated for a future article...