Updates from the Dev Cave: The Consumer Side of Things

Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at XY and XYO! With Black Friday coming up tomorrow, we wanted to give you an update on where things stand on the consumer side of things — thanks to Maryann, XY Locate Project Manager, for helping put this together!

Say Goodbye to XY Find It, Say Hello to XY Locate

In all the excitement surrounding XYO Network and Spatial, our consumer product division — XY Findables — may not be something you’ve had your eyes on. But here at XY, we never stop moving forward.

It’s with a twinge of sadness that we’re announcing the impending end of life for the flagship XY Findables app, XY Find It. Before we say goodbye, the final versions for Android and iOS will be released for the holiday season. We’ll ensure it’s a merry one for our company, customers, and investors.

Most of the changes being made are improvements to functionality. XY Findables products are something we expect our customers to rely on, so each feature is being optimized for reliability. KeepNear, Find My Phone, and Find It will all run more smoothly. And for iOS users, we’re making sure XY Find It’s background services offer more connectivity than ever before.

Lead Android Engineer Bob Nies has had to split his time between software for XYO Network and demos for Spatial, but he’s now tackling a fresh version of XY Find It.

Version 4.2 for Android improves significantly on one of our most innovative (and imitated) features, KeepNear™. This function keeps your XY Finder on a wireless “leash” with your phone. It works by sending a push notification through your phone’s system when XY Find It can no longer detect the BLE signal coming from your XY Finder.

KeepNear™ has always been a delicate balancing act. If the phone is too sensitive to minute changes in the signal coming from your XY Finders, it can produce false positives. If it isn’t sensitive enough, it can miss a dropped signal. XY Find It allows for customizability — if you look in the app settings using an Android device, you’ll see you can change it to low, regular, or high sensitivity. High sensitivity will trigger faster but produce more false positives due to environmental changes, such as interference in the radio signal from the XY Finder. Low sensitivity takes longer to trigger because it checks to make sure the signal really has been dropped.

In addition to improving KeepNear, XY Find It will be improving upon other types of background connectivity, meaning that Find My Phone will be more responsive and map locations will update with ideal consistency.

Lead iOS Engineer Darren Sutherland has been hard at work making XY Find It version 3.9 for iOS. Already completed is a rebuilt BLE library, ensuring the most up-to-date connectivity standards.

But our most important focus for iOS users is going to be maintaining connectivity when the app runs in the system background. By default, iOS doesn’t permit apps to run in the background when not being used. This helps conserve battery life for a better user experience. Certain kinds of apps — such as music apps — are permitted to run passively in the background if a need can be demonstrated.

While we always want to be as gentle on your phone’s battery life as possible, our users have spoken and there’s no doubt, your priority is connectivity. With persistent background services, KeepNear, Find My Phone, and location updates will all become more responsive than ever before. The first improvements will be most noticeable when using XY3 model finders, but XY4+ owners will be happy to know that development will remain ongoing and we plan on releasing further improvements for your model during the holiday season.

XY Find It for iOS version 3.9 has now been approved by Apple and is being released right alongside this very update!

If you would like to try it out, please open the App Store on your iOS device, search for “XY Find It”, and install the app. If you’re already using XY Find It, open the App Store and select “Updates” and then “XY Find It.”

If you have any feedback or questions, please let us know at support@xyfindit.com. If you like it, please give it a 5-star rating on the App Store!

So what happens after XY Find It? Get ready to say hello to XY Locate, the most versatile IoT app ever created, with full XYO Network integration, coming in 2019.

XY Locate will replace XY Find It. Rebuilt from the ground up to exceed current industry standards, it will set a new bar for XY Findables software. Better still, the XYO SDK will be built into XY Locate, allowing XYO to tap into the network our company has already created and, with user permission, has the potential to turn every XY4+ Finder in the world into an XYO Sentinel.

This is possible through an over-the-air (OTA) firmware update from a bridge device (phone) to the potential sentinel device (XY4+). Updating a device’s firmware via Bluetooth is no small task; achieving it took a great deal of persistence and perseverance — and a few all-nighters — from our development team.

We’re excited for you to see the breakthroughs that we’ve made, but before we get to that, we’re going to make sure that the experience we create for our customers this holiday season is the best it’s ever been. We hope you join us in making the upcoming holidays merry and bright!

Johnny Kolasinski
Head of Community
XYO Network