OSCAR mobile app

[David Clark]

Do you think OSCAR could be offered as a mobile app for Android/iOS? I guess instead of inserting the SD card into your phone the machine could transmit the data through your wireless network/wifi the same as it transmits to your doctor. 
Then again...I really don't know that much about how it works, it was just a random thought.

[Jeff8356]

Short answer......No

Your machine sends its data to ResMed using a cellular connection (like a cell phone).  It doesn't use wifi.


I believe there were other obstacles regarding mobile app(s) also, but I don't recall what they were at the moment.

[pholynyk]

Unfortunately, the machines use the cellular network to get the data to the manufacturer, and that can't be 'intercepted' or copied.

Aside from that, the data display would need a complete redesign to fit a phone screen...

So I think it is highly unlikely.

[sawinglogz]

There’s always Bluetooth, but, as others have said, porting to mobile is not currently feasible.

Maybe some day.

[blubaju]

I would appreciate an Android App too, for sd-cards, there are plenty of small card readers/docking stations to plug in the phone. I control my entire sailboat, including navigation and radar from my cellphone, Garmin & others put charts on a watch, yacht control too. When traveling I can throw my cellphone display on any monitor/tv, need to write more I use a small foldable keyboard. Why carry a laptop, notebook that can not do more than my cellphone? Android is Linux, Chromebook OS too. For a programmer porting should not be such a problem. Please!

[SuperSleeper]

Android is Linux, Chromebook OS too. For a programmer porting should not be such a problem. Please!

Nothing personal, but it is a problem.  As pholynyk said above, the problem is it would involve a complete redesign to make all that data fit on such a small screen, and trying to read detailed  OSCAR charts on a cell phone screen would be an exercise in futility.  It's relatively easy to create a "dumbed-down" mobile app that shows very basic data such as compliance hours, AHI and a few other details.  But that's not OSCAR's niche.  OSCAR is designed for much more detailed display of a whole lot more data that can help patients fine-tune their own therapy.

I'm not trying to discourage people coming up with suggestions for OSCAR - the developers welcome all suggestions and have done a great job implementing many of them into the code.  But not every suggestion is feasible, unfortunately.

Nothing is impossible, of course, but some things would take too much time, effort and money, unless y'all have a hundred thousand dollars or so to hire on paid mobile developers to assist the OSCAR Team in making such a thing a reality.     As it is right now, everyone here on Apnea Board and the OSCAR Team are all unpaid volunteers.  We all do what we do to help people, but everyone's time is limited as are the financial resources.  And, given those facts, what has been accomplished on Apnea Board and with OSCAR is amazing to me.

I wish everyone could see what goes on behind the scenes in the staff areas of Apnea Board and with the OSCAR development forums here.  The degree of dedication, effort and talent is amazing.

[Manizhe]

Unfortunately, the machines use the cellular network to get the data to the manufacturer, and that can't be 'intercepted' or copied.

Aside from that, the data display would need a complete redesign to fit a phone screen...

So I think it is highly unlikely.

thanks for your information, it help me a lot.

[blubaju]

I wouldn't cut into Bluetooth, just use a simple card reader, cost next to nothing.

Else, I understand out of many good reasons it is rejected.

 Garmin puts the world on a watch, medical navigation and a million technical data is shown and computed on cellphones, have a look at openCPN, marine navigation, one cellphone version is free, I use the pay-version, maybe some ideas for small screen could be used

[Jimmid713]

Mobile apps are the way of the future.  

With the event of smart watches and other devices many good apps are out there to display a lot of data.

I have a Huawei smart watch. in the phone app it displays sleep (deep, light, rem) stress, heart rate, O2 levels and much more. The new ones display blood pressure as well
 Lots of graphs that you can open in their own pages etc.

with usb c OTG cables and card readers its no trouble to upload data to mobile phones, tablets and now Android TV's and Amazon Firestick to view on a big screen.
I have sideloaded quite a few apps to Android TV and Firestick to enable me to view them on the big screen TV.

I just hope that a enterprising coder will do a Android app so Oscar can be expanded into these areas.

[dec3169]

Everyone seems to be focused on cellphone screen size.  Remember - some phones are HUGE now like my Samsung Z Fold 3, and what everyone is forgetting is Android tablets (or Apple but I use Android).  In fact the big phones are often called phablets because of their size.

I could've really used an Android version today when I sent to the Dr to have my card read.  Their system couldn't read my card so I could've been stuck coming back again but I was lucky enough to have my work laptop with me.  I was able to use a special remote utility I use over Linux to get into my home network, display the Linux box I run OSCAR on, and give the Dr my data.  Being able to just display on my phone would have been way easier.

As for getting the data - I still use one of the Toshiba flash cards (with wifi).  I modified some scripts I found here over the years to download the sdcard data remotely over wifi using the Toshiba card's webdav server.  It does it a couple times a day, and I can manually run if I want to view OSCAR before it automatically pulls the data.  The flash cards still work although they are more expensive and harder to find now.  

Unfortunately my RedMed AirCurve 10 VAuto does not have wifi/bluetooth/cellular remote monitoring hardware (in 2022!) so unless I convince my provider to get me a different machine I can't use the myAir stuff.  Having the Toshiba flash card makes a huge difference for me monitoring my therapy - having it available on a phone would be huge.

Since my phone can mount a windows/smb share on my home network over wifi it would be trivial to point OSCAR for Linux running on a phone to that share.  It should also be easy enough to use one of those USB-C hubs with an SDCARD slot to load data that way if I wanted to import my card manually.  I think I might try to load (over my Christmas break) OSCAR for Linux on my old Samsung Note 8 to see what if anything works.  I bought that phone a while ago direct from S Korea mainly because the bootloaders are not locked so you can get root access - you aren't locked out by your carrier.  That means once I have the software loaded I can actually try to see what can run.  If by some miracle the software runs I'll post back here.  I'm not an app developer (more of a Linux expert) so I'm not the guy that could package it up to be able to load on a non-rooted phone but if it works that way it would show it would be easy for a developer to do that part.  I'm not holding my breath but it doesn't hurt to try.  We'll see.