Walks

Overview

Walks provide the ability for a customer to put the collar in a special mode and store metadata about a period of time identified as a walk. Walks have the differing distinction of other activities in that it's a unique mode that triggers various changes in logic on the apps and devices. This is ssomewhat similar to Live Tracking so many of the same concepts come up.

Remember: Settings are what we want to happen. Status bars are what is happening. In this design, the user tells the services that they want the mode on or off by changing the setting. The device tells the system that the mode is on or off using the status bar.

The big difference is that the Walk is a discrete "thing" where as a live tracking session isn't. So there are some conceptual differences.

Status

Proposal.

Major Changes from Previous

In the previous flow, all of the walks and status information was stored locally on the collar. Walk mode was started on the phone, sent over BT, and then the collar kept track. When the walk ended, the collar consolidated the information and sent it up to the server. If BT failed, or if the collar never started, then nothing would actually come up, or what came up would not be complete or what the customer expects. The server will add a walkModeEnabled of on or off, although that would not be required necessarily. It would, however, make it more consistent with lostMode and liveTrackingEnabled.

This change places creation and finishing as two separate processes that:

Does not rely on Bluetooth connectivity
Is resilient to Bluetooth drops
Allows editing and management

Potential Improvements

Change the collar setting for walk mode to an int identifying the current walk id

Summation of Flow - Full Connectivity

The user chooses Start Walk in some sort of UI.
The Mobile App POSTs to the server for a walk, leaving endTime unset.
The server creates the Walk Object and an ID is created.
The server sets the walkModeEnabled collar setting as on. Note: this can be discussed, perfectly happy with the Mobile App also making this call.
- This will ensure that the Walk will continue post-crash or restart.
The Mobile App receives the Walk and sends a startWalk action to the device with the walkId
The device receives the action, either via Bluetooth OR the server
- This allows the future feature of starting a walk without the phone being connected to the device, such as for dog walkers or other accounts
- If sent over BT and the Walk Id cannot be included for whatever reason, the device will need to make a call to get the latest Walk for the user and assume that it is that walk IF there is NO endTime
- If that last call isn't possible, it will need to rely on the walk id sent during the stopWalk action
The device receives the action and updates the status bar. The device is now in Walk mode
The Mobile App monitors the status bar for the following states, even if they are not currently supported in the UI:
- Setting off and status bar does not report on a walk: No Walk
- Setting on and status bar does not report on a walk: Pending start
- Setting on and status bar does report on a walk: On a walk
- Setting off and status bar does report on a walk: Pending stop
The walk continues as normal. BT dropping or device crashes do not change this as the device knows it is on a walk, knows what the walk id is, and can get that information if it doesn't
The user chooses End Walk in some sort of UI
The Mobile App sends an action to the device over BT or via the server to stopWalk with the Walk Id, just in case.
The device receives the action and sends a PATCH to the server with the locations it has and the end time just in case the locations have not been uploaded anyway
The device updates its status bar to no longer be in walk mode
The Mobile App sends a PATCH to the collar settings turning off the walkModeEnabled setting
The Mobile App also sends a PATCH to the server for the walk with and endTime. This allows redundancy if the device cannot talk to the server.
The server, any time a POST or PATCH is received with a start and end time, currently does a GET on the locations between those times AND takes the body of the PATCH and consolidates the locations. Therefore, sending additional data with a start and end time of a walk is not harmful.

Summation of Flow - No Server Connectivity

The biggest difference in this flow is that a Walk Id cannot be generated since there's no connectivity to the server. This also means that the settings cannot be changed and all information must occur over BT. If at any point connectivity could be established, the Mobile Apps could create a Walk object with the gathered data so far. Alternatively, they could set the Walk information later.

The user chooses Start Walk in some sort of UI.
The Mobile App receives the Walk and sends a startWalk action to the device without a walkId
- The device stores the startTime of the walk locally
The device receives the action via Bluetooth
- Since there is no walk object, it's possible that the data could be lost if we are not careful here; the device will need to rely on the walk id sent during the stopWalk action
The device receives the action and updates the status bar. The device is now in Walk mode
Since there is no internet connectivity, it is assumed the Collar Settings cannot be modified, so the Mobile Apps will only be able to tell if the status bar reports on or off
- Option A
  - The Mobile App kicks off a 1 minute timer where it tells the user the walk is pending start
  - If the Status Bar reports the device is in walk mode, the Mobile App tells the user it is in walk mode
  - If after the timer expires there is no Status Bar indicating the walk mode began, tell the user the walk could not be started
- Option B
  - The Mobile App tells the user the walk has started, regardless of the reported Status Bar
  - Since the Mobile App will make the POST at the end, it means the walk-mode-specific features won't be turned on, but any locations will be back-ported into the walk
The walk continues as normal. BT dropping or device crashes do not change this as the device knows it is on a walk and the Mobile Apps have a startTime
The user chooses End Walk in some sort of UI
The Mobile App sends an action to the device over BT to stopWalk
- Assuming there still is not connectivity, the device can keep any non-uploaded walks or communicate them over BT as a response to this action
The device updates its status bar to no longer be in walk mode
The Mobile App sends a POST to the server with the startTime, endTime, and locations of the walk
The server, any time a POST or PATCH is received with a start and end time, currently does a GET on the locations between those times AND takes the body of the PATCH and consolidates the locations. Therefore, sending additional data with a start and end time of a walk is not harmful.

Note: This flow has the inherent challenge of what to do if the collar has locations it hasn't sent back over BT as part of the walk if the Mobile App sends the information at the end. However, if they are eventually uploaded, we could add a check to the server that if the activity field of the location is set to walk then we can try to handle it and re-associate it.

diagram

Example Architecture Diagrams

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