Feature Request: Exploring an Android Version or Companion App

[manish65dss]

First, thank you for creating and maintaining Hopsan. It's a powerful and valuable tool.

My feature request is to explore the possibility of a Hopsan version for Android. Currently, using Hopsan requires being at a desktop computer. A mobile version would open up new use cases for portability, monitoring, and fieldwork. For example, it would be incredibly useful to:

• Monitor the progress of a long-running simulation while away from the desk.
• Make small parameter adjustments and re-run a model while in a lab or in the field.
• Quickly demonstrate a model or its results to a colleague without needing a laptop.

Describe the solution you'd like

I understand that porting the entire desktop application to Android is a massive undertaking, especially redesigning the GUI for a small touch screen and dealing with the limited processing power of a phone.

Because of this, I would like to propose two potential paths for discussion:

1. A Lightweight "Companion App" (Client-Server Model)

This seems like the most practical approach.

• The full Hopsan simulation engine would continue to run on a powerful desktop or server.
• The Android app would act as a lightweight "remote control."
• From the app, a user could select a model, set its parameters, and send the job to the desktop Hopsan to run the simulation.
• When the simulation is complete, the results (plots, data) are sent back to the phone for viewing.

This approach would leverage the desktop's processing power while providing mobile access to the core functionality.

2. A Full-Featured, Standalone App

This is obviously a much more complex, long-term vision. It would involve:

• Compiling the Hopsan C++ core for Android using the NDK.
• Completely redesigning the UI/UX from the ground up for a touch-first interface (perhaps using Qt for Android's QML).

This would provide a true offline, on-the-go simulation experience, but would be a major development effort.

Conclusion

I wanted to start a discussion to see if a mobile app aligns with the project's long-term vision. The "Companion App" model seems like a very feasible and high-value first step.

Thank you for your consideration and for all your work on this project!

[robbr48]

This is indeed an interesting topic, and something we have discussed before. A small interface for monitoring simulations and maybe changing some parameters would be a lot easier than developing a full-featured Android version of Hopsan.

I personally have no experience with Android development, nor do I have time to do the work. But perhaps someone with more experience can give it a try? I don't think it even requires a lot of knowledge about the Hopsan source code, depending of course on the level of ambition.