You are currently viewing Initial Setups for Connecting SUSI Smart Speaker with iPhone/iPad

Initial Setups for Connecting SUSI Smart Speaker with iPhone/iPad

You may have experienced Apple HomPad, Google Home, Alexa etc or read about smart speakers that offer interactive action over voice commands. The smart speaker uses the hot word for activation. They utilize Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and other wireless protocols.

SUSI.AI is also coming with Open Source smart speaker that can do various actions like playing music etc over voice commands. To use SUSI Smart Speaker, you have to connect it to the SUSI iOS or Android App. You can manage your connected devices in SUSI iOS, Android and Web clients. Here we will see initial setups for connecting SUSI Smart Speaker with iPhone/iPad (iOS Devices).

You may aware that iOS does not allow connecting to wifi within the app. To connect to a particular Wi-Fi, you have to go to phone settings, from there you can connect to Wi-Fi. SUSI Smart Speaker create a temporary Hotspot for initial setups. Follow the instruction below to connect to SUSI Smart Speaker hotspot –

  1. Tap to Home button, and go to your iPhone Settings > Wi-Fi
  2. Connect to the Wi-Fi hotspot for the device that you are setting up. It will have name “susi.ai”, like in the image below
  3. Come back to the SUSI app to proceed with setup.

These instruction is also available within the app when you are not connected to SUSI Smart Speaker hotspot and click `Setup a Device` or plus icon on Device Activity screen navigation bar.

Devices Activity and getting current Wi-Fi SSID:

Devices section in Settings screen shows the currently connected device. In Devices Activity screen, the user can manage the connected device. Only a logged-in user can access Devices Activity. When the user clicks on Device Accessories in setting, if the user is not logged-in, an alert is prompted with Login option. By clicking Login option, user directed to Login screen where the user can log in and come back to device section to proceed further.

If the user is already logged-in, Device Activity screen is presented. We use following method to scan if iPhone/iPad is connected to SUSI Smart Speaker:

func fetchSSIDInfo() -> String? {
var ssid: String?
if let interfaces = CNCopySupportedInterfaces() as? [String] {
for interface in interfaces {
if let interfaceInfo = CNCopyCurrentNetworkInfo(interface as CFString) as NSDictionary? {
ssid = interfaceInfo[kCNNetworkInfoKeySSID as String] as? String
break
}
}
}
return ssid
}

Apple’s SystemConfiguration API is used to get current Wi-Fi SSID. SystemConfiguration Allow applications to access a device’s network configuration settings. Determine the reachability of the device, such as whether Wi-Fi or cell connectivity is active.

import SystemConfiguration.CaptiveNetwork

The method above return the SSID of your device current Wi-Fi. SSID is simply the technical term for a network name. When you set up a wireless home network, you give it a name to distinguish it from other networks in your neighborhood. You’ll see this name when you connect your device to your wireless network.

If current Wi-Fi match with SUSI Smart Speaker hotspot, we display device in TableView, if not we display “No device connected yet”.

if let speakerSSID = fetchSSIDInfo(), speakerSSID == "susi.ai" {
cell.accessoryType = .disclosureIndicator
cell.textLabel?.text = speakerSSID
} else {
cell.accessoryType = .none
cell.textLabel?.text = "No device connected yet"
}

SUSI Smart Speaker is coming with very exciting features. Stay tuned.

Resources –

  1. SUSI iOS Link: https://github.com/fossasia/susi_iOS
  2. Apple’s SystemConfiguration Framework Documentation
  3. Bell’s article on What Do SSID and WPA2 mean

Jogendra Kumar

Jogendra is pre-final year student at Indian Institute of Technology (BHU) Varanasi. He is an iOS Developer and an active Open Source contributor, also have experience in developing Android, Web and Windows Apps. Currently, he is focusing on Machine Learning and Blockchain Technology. Apart from Coding, he loves coffee, going hackathons, attending conferences, and traveling. You can find him on twitter here https://twitter.com/imjog24

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