News

The big update has arrived: phyphox 1.1.0

Finally, after much more time than anticipated, the big update has been released: Version 1.1.0

This one includes interactive graphs (zooming, picking points, measuring differences between points), new graph types (multiple data sets, bar charts, color plots), experiment transfer via QR codes and an extremely versatile Bluetooth Low Energy interface.

We could write entire articles on each of these and there are so many more improvements and small details… Well, here is a video with a quick overview of the big ones.

If this is not yet enough for you, here is the full changelog:

Changelog

Changes on Android and iOS

  • Phyphox is licenced under the GNU General Public Licence from this version onwards
  • Bluetooth Low Energy support
  • Bluetooth Experiments included: Generic heart rate sensor, generic HID mouse, PocketLab One, PocketLab Voyager, Sensirion Smart Humigadget, Texas Instruments SensorTag CC1350/CC2650
  • Interactive graphs (zooming, picking points, linear fit)
  • New experiment: Applause meter
  • Multi-line plots
  • Bar charts
  • Color plots (used in spectrum experiments)
  • Open experiments from zip files or QR codes
  • Raw sensor experiments now feature a multi-line version
  • New languages: Chinese (simplified script), French, Vietnamese
  • Acoustic stopwatch has a new “many” tab , which allows measuring of an unlimited number of events, giving each interval and calculating the rate (Hz or bpm) and average interval of all events
  • Improvements to make the sonar more reliable
  • Performance optimizations for several experiments
  • Distance from start info for GPS-Experiment
  • Inclination experiment now features several different reference systems
  • Removed the libraries jquery and flot from the remote interface, which now uses chart.js instead
  • Remote interface now starts with a font-size recommended by the browser and allows changing the font size
  • Picking data points in the remote interface
  • The remote interface allows to show a single graph filling the full screen
  • Remote interface now communicates through a queue to avoid missed requests by the single-threaded webserver on the phone
  • Introduced a default color palette, which is used for coloring multiple graphs and can be referenced to by using names (red, blue, etc.) instead of RGB-values
  • Experiment configurations can be loaded directly from BLE devices
  • New device info report from menu on main screen
  • Add color to special categories (saved states and simple custom experiments)
  • Allow external experiments to define icon and category colors
  • Allow renaming of saved states
  • Use experiment title as default file name when exporting data, saved states or screenshots
  • Show state title in experiment info
  • Add hint to start button and add logic to hint bubbles, so they only show up until the user has used the specific function a few times
  • Fix: Wrong scaling of data in Doppler experiment due to outlying points
  • Fix: Consider available precision in remote interface to avoid retrieving the same value multiple times
  • Improve magnetic ruler for longer measurements
  • Fix inelastic collision experiment only working after pressing “reset”
  • Disable export and explain it to the user if an experiment configuration does not define an export

Changes on Android

  • Fix calculation of GPS height above geoid (MSL) if non-GPS satellite systems (GLONASs) are used
  • Vertical accuracy in GPS data if supported by some Android 8+ devices
  • Support temperature and humidity sensors
  • Support vendor-specific sensors by guessing their function by name
  • Improved performance by using native code for some operations
  • Improved Fourier transform performance by using the FFTW library
  • Allow screen rotation during measurement (now consistent with iOS)
  • Prevent adding identical experiments multiple times
  • Add notice when no address for the remote access is available
  • GPS now also uses network data by default and offers to force GPS only in the menu
  • Fix: Crash on malformed icon data
  • Fix: Sort categories case-insensitive
  • Fix loading experiments from URLs without query strings
  • Fix: Result response from webserver used broken JSON format.
  • Limit state title length

Changes on iOS

  • Complete rewrite of experiment parser. Much faster and much more stable when loading external experiments with errors.
  • Buffer rewritten. This should fix previous crashes in long-term measurements due to a race condition when accessing the buffers.
  • Respect save area guides to avoid drawing the UI in areas used by system buttons or the notch (iPhone X and similar)
  • Fix: Missing parts of a translation fall back to English defaults
  • Fix: Pick experiment language according to app language and avoid using unreleased languages already present in the experiment definition files
  • Fix: Re-saving states crashes the app
  • Fix: Power function fails for negative exponents

File format (version 1.7)

  • New graph types and multiple graphs
  • New Bluetooth Low Energy definitions
  • New “formula” analysis module
  • New “reduce” analysis module
  • New “map” analysis module
  • New attribute to enable analysis optimization (only re-run modules if their inputs have changed)
  • Label and unit can (and should) be separated for graphs to allow giving the right unit when reading a single data point
  • Colors can be names instead of RGB hex values
  • Value and info elements may now be colored
  • Temperature and humidity sensor types

Public test version 1.1.0 for iOS

It took us much longer than expected to bring the new features to iOS. In the meantime Apple has introduced public beta testing, so now everybody can try out the new features.

Please help us to find the last bugs, so we can publish a perfect version in a few weeks. Please report any problems in our forums or via email.

You can find instructions on how to get the test version on our download page.

Archimedes award for the phyphox team

The phyphox team has been awarded the “Archimedes award” 2019 by the “Verband zur Förderung des MINT-Unterrichts” (MNU, loosely translated: association to forward STEM education). The award entails 4,000€ sponsored by the Westermann group. It is awarded yearly, alternating in the fields of mathematics and physics, to decorate innovative concepts and teaching methods as well as particularly commited teachers.

The app has been developed at the 2nd Institute of Physics at the RWTH Aachen University under the direction of Prof. Christoph Stampfer and Dr. Sebastian Staacks statt and it is being continuously refined in cooperation with the 1st Institute of Physics under Prof. Heidrun Heinke and a team of PhD students.

The award does not only mention the app itself, but the MNU emphasizes the value of the accompanying material like the demonstration videos. With more than 600,000 installations worldwide phyphox has been establish in many schools since its first release in September 2016.

Press release by the MNU
Press release by the RWTH Aachen University

Measuring currents with a coil

I’d like to share the work by Christoph Holz and Alexander Pusch from the University of Münster, who have created a 3D-printed coil that can be attached to the phone. This way, you can measure the current through the coil by measuring the resulting magnetic field. The have also created a phyphox experiment configuration, with which the coil can be calibrated, so you get a current-reading directly in phyphox.

This has been published in German in Naturwissenschaft im Unterricht Physik, 169, S.46-47 and a short version (also in German) can be read on physikkommunizieren.de. The phyphox configuration is listed and explained in English in our wiki.

Version 1.0.16: Japanese translation

Thanks to Wakana Okita and Keisuke Takashima phyphox now speaks Japanese. More information about our voluntary translators can be found on our languages page.

Changelog

Changes on Android and iOS

  • Japanese translation.

Changes on Android

  • Fix: The experiment “light” was not available if the list of preferred languages in Android did not support any language supported by phyphox.

Version 1.0.14: Portuguese translation

While we are still working to finalize version 1.1.0, we just published 1.0.14 with another translation: Portuguese. Check out languages page for more information.

Actually, this update has been released on Android more than a week ago and should just be a quick language update on iOS as well. Unfortunately, Apple has rejected the update as they decided that the experiment "roll" might damage the phone. So we had to remove this experiment and resubmit the app. Therefore, the update got delayed.

Changelog

Changes on Android and iOS

  • Portuguese translation.

Changes on iOS

  • Fix flickering of audio scope.

Update 17.11.2018

There was a little error when compiling the new translations that introduced unfinished translations to the iOS version, which should not yet have been released (Turkish and Chinese to be specific). We have uploaded another version (1.0.15) for iOS, which should fix this as soon as it has passed the Apple review process.

500,000 installs!

A little more than two years after our first public release (12th September 2016), we have surpassed half a million installs*. Thanks to all of you, who supported us, gave feedback or just told others about our work.

BTW: Our PhD student Dominik, got the cake from his girlfriend and though we would love to share it with all of you, a picture has to do (technical limitations, you know).

*Combined installs on Google Play (user installs) and Apple’s App Store (app units).