OP
- Thread Starter
- #101
If you had sent me the product, that is exactly what would happen. I would have shown you the measurements and asked you for feedback prior to publication. This is a courtesy I provide to manufacturers who volunteer to have their products tested. To the extent you did not do that and left it to me and membership to fund acquisition of the product, then I publish what I find as a service to that member and the membership at large.
Had you sent me a product and then told me an app had caused the levels to go down, I would have scolded you for a) not being clear in documentation this could happen and b) not providing for a hardware reset. Plenty of products have persistent settings like active professional speakers and AV Receivers. In all cases, they allow you to do a factory reset which I always do prior to testing.
For your product, I thought there would be such a thing but all I found was the USB button. I played with that but it didn't obviously solve this problem. You need to update the firmware to allow that button to be used as a reset, e.g. by holding it down 10 seconds or something like that.
Ideally there would also be an indication on the device that the volume is not at default level, say with an LED, but I understand that increases power consumption.
Your are a small company and could disappear tomorrow. This hardware can't become obsolete if your app disappears with it with the next update of Android OS. There must be a hardware reset.
Remember, almost no other dongle works this way. So there can't be an expectation that the user figures all this out especially given lack of documentation. I appreciate the benefit it provides but you need to be very strong in documenting and providing work-arounds. Throwing this at my feet as if you have done the perfect thing is not proper. I tested your dongle just like all other dongles. It is not my job to think of possibilities that simply don't exist with countless competing products.
I actually went searching for this online. Read a bunch of posts, etc. but nothing came up. With this thread available, people running into this at least can find out what is going on. It also helped me figure out what was going on when member kindly post the possibility of the Android app changing this. Had I not post this, that information would not have come to light -- again because of incomplete documentation and indication on the device.
Note that the article clearly says it is "aborted" and finishes with it is an "FYI." And that is what it was. My attempt to test your device and not being able to get it to work like dozens of other dongles have.
I suggest going back and improving the documentation. While you are at it, please put a copy on your website.
