Requirement

There are events which need to be sent to server while the vehicle is in motion or not, such as:

• Send IN_MOTION event when the vehicle is currently moving
• Send NO_MOTION_BEGIN event while the vehicle begin a physical stop. ...

And some actions can happen when the vehicle changes the motion state (ie: NO_MOTION -> IN_MOTION, ...) :

• Turn off tablet screen
  • Client is Kiosk Mode component

Therefore, we need to research solutions for motion detection

Expectation

• Find out at least 2 options for the solution.
• Point out the pros and cons of each solution.
• Choose an option and the reason why.

Proposed Solutions:

Google Play services location APIs

We should use this solutions because:

Pros:

• According to Google document, this is recommended way of adding location awareness to our app
• Provide handy way to detect current speed (not tested yet): Location.getSpeed()
• High accuracy

Cons:

• Require data connection, GPS enabled to work properly

Android framework location APIs

Pros:

• Provide handy way to detect current speed (not tested yet): Location.getSpeed()
• High accuracy

Cons:

• Require data connection, GPS enabled to work properly

Note: Both frameworks support update current location after specific period of time, see GoogleApi's LocationRequest#setInterval and Android location framework's LocationManager#requestLocationUpdates for more details

Use Accelerometer sensor

Pros:

• No need of data connection and GPS

Cons:

• Sensor framework only provide raw data (displacement, time), we need to do some math and physics to calculate speed at a specific time
• Low accuracy