Notes on initial setup of reflectometer with Android

• Using Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra running Android 15

Get the APK and install SurveyStack Kit

TODO: find the direct APK link and add it here. The instructions below are still useful, as the question set it points to can be used to test the connection is actually working, but the direct link to the APK file on Gitlab will be good to have here.

1. Go to https://app.surveystack.io. This is a Progressive Web App.

   1. If you are asked to 'add to home page', do so (Chrome should ask automatically; other browsers may need prompting, e.g. in Firefox, go to the 3-dot menu in the bottom right and find "Add app to Home screen" (probably under 'more...'))

2. Create an account and sign in.

   

3. From the start page, go to Question Sets and search for "Simple Reflectometer" - there should be 1 entry.

   

4. In the 3-dot menu, tap to "Add to New Survey":

   

5. You'll be taken back to the main page, and you'll see you are now a "CRS Visitor" in the top. I think this is the organisation that added this question set.

6. In the 3-dot menu next to your new Survey, tap "Start Survey"

   

7. Follow through the survey instructions. It will include information on how to pair the device.

   [!NOTE] If you are on a device with Android 12 or earlier, you can install the SurveyStack Kit App from the Playstore, and it should work fine. If you are on a newer version of Android, ignore the instructions to install via the Playstore, as it won't be compatible. Instead, tick the 'Step Completed' for that question and move on.

8. Make sure you have paired the device with your phone via bluetooth.

9. When you get to the question "Have you warmed up and calibrated this device in the past 4 hours?" select "No".

10. Click through to the "Warm Up device" question, and then tap "Install Android App":

    

This will open a dialog box, and ask you to download an APK file. You will probably receive a lot of warnings when doing this, as newer versions of Android quite rightly throw a lot of barriers to prevent you accidentally installing a suspicious app. I got the following:

Before downloading:

After downloading when trying to open the APK file:

To fix this, I went into Settings, and enabled Chrome to install unknown apps:

Even then, when trying to install, I got this:

... the "Install Anyway" button is hidden in the "more details" section:

Setup Device in SurveyStack Kit App

The SurveyStack Kit app is the app that manages the connection between the reflectometer and your Android Device.

Specific 'Script' SurveyStack questions will call the reflectometer using a specific set of JavaScript functions.

TODO: figure out how to write our own script questions in JavaScript (For SurveyStack)

TODO: Figure out how/if we can use the same JavaScript functions to call SurveyStack Kit from somewhere else (e.g. our own PWA).

1. Open SurveyStack Kit.
2. If you have already paired the device, it should appear in the list of paired devices. Otherwise, pair the device through your Bluetooth settings.

3. Click "Connect" next to the device (In this example, it's 527).

Note

The reflectometer auto powers off after 5 minutes of inactivity. If it doesn't connect, check it's still powered on.

4. Go back to the SurveyStack PWA and go back to the Reflectometer Training Survey.

   If you started and did not complete a submission, it will appear in your "Responses" list:

   

5. Get back to the "Warm up device" page, and then tap "Run warm up". It should take you to the SurveyStack Kit app, with a "Start Measurement" button:

   

6. Let it run. You should see a success message and a set of results (which will be meaningless; except for the fact that it successfully sent data to your phone):

   

   

   

When you tap "Done", it will send you back to the SurveyStack PWA, and you should see "Measurement Successful", along with other data shared from the device:

![alt text](<Sceenshot 2025-11-24 at 16.48.48.png>)

Note

I found that, if I stayed in the SurveyStack Kit app too long before returning to the main survey (a few minutes), it would not send the data, and instead of results I would see a loading spinner. Whenever this happened, I tapped "run warm-up" again, re-ran the measurement and then it worked ok.

Now, you can continue the demo survey to scan a leaf and some soil. For each measurement, it should send you to the SurveyStack Kit app for you to take the measurement, then send you back to SurveyStack and populate the results.