Airplane Wifi Location Tracking to Tasker to Compass

On my recent trip, I took Southwest Airlines for the first time in many years. At Indiewebcamp New Haven, I set up Aaron Parecki’s compass project to send my location data to. I have 59MB of location data since March 3oth, 2019.

The problem is transforming the input from Southwest into the format another system can accept. I did not want to write an Android app for this…I wish there was one.

So, instead I used Tasker,  an automation app for Android that does have scripting in it.

So, if you retrieve http://getconnected.southwestwifi.com/current.json, you get the following JSON data.

 {
  "pcent_flt_complete": 0,
  "altVal": "-24",
  "lon": "-73.867",
  "satcomm_status": {
    "commlink": "active",
    "linkparams": "not-stale"
  },
  "dtzone": "CDT",
  "within_us": true,
  "etad": "09:20 AM",
  "lat": "40.775",
  "gspdVal": "10",
  "ttgc": "2h 15m",
  "dist_remain": "888",
  "actime24": "07:05"
}

The Task I created consists of three actions. It uses the HTTP Request action to get the above JSON. Then it uses the below JavaScriptlet(Tasker allows you to write JavaScript, to convert the data into the GeoJSON that Compass expects. The third action posts that to Compass.

var parsed = JSON.parse( http_data );
var gmt = new Date().toISOString();
var alt = Math.round( parsed.altVal * 0.305 );
var feature = {
      "type": "Feature",
      "geometry": {
        "type": "Point",
        "coordinates": [parsed.lon, parsed.lat, alt]
      },
      "properties": {
        "timestamp": gmt,
        "percent_complete": parsed.pcent_flt_complete,
         "dist_remain": parsed.dist_remain,
         "source": "flight",
         "airline": "wn"
      }
    };
var compass = { "locations": [feature] };
var featurejson = JSON.stringify( compass );

Now, I am known for not doing much JavaScript work, preferring PHP. But this was simple enough. I could have added more of their parameters, or, since Southwest does not put the flight number into their JSON, allow it to be set.

It is triggered when I am connected to SouthwestWifi, in Airplane Mode, and every 5 minutes. I wasn’t sure if I should poll more often, but 5 minute intervals seemed reasonable. Regrettably, Southwest does not provide more parameters like speed.

I wish some developer would write an app that would do this, partially because, if the wifi goes down, the request will fail and I’ll lose it. I’d rather cache and retry. Also, GPS Logger has some limitations. I wish there was an Android version of Aaron Parecki’s Overland app. Being as he wrote Compass, it works well with that and has those caching features.

I have two flights on two different airlines in the next month, and will see if I can write similar scripts. I enjoy the challenge of trying to write and test it on my phone live.

Next, I need something to display a visualization of this with altitude.

Converting Google Location History into GeoJSON for Compass

After a lot of procrastinating, I finally decided to import all of my Google Location History into Compass. This meant I had to convert Google’s export format into Compass’s GeoJSON.

A few notes

  • timeStampMs is the timestamp in milliseconds.  Most functions use the timestamp as seconds, so this needed to be converted into an ISO8601 date format.
  • latitudeE7 and longitudeE7 are the coordinates, and must be divided by 1e7 in order to get the more conventional format. Also, there was an issue where some of the numbers were incorrectly exported, so there is a sanity check on that below
  • accuracy is, as suggested, the accuracy of the location
  • Finally, there is activity. I considered doing more with this, but I’m just storing it. Will explain why below the example of my simple PHP code to export.
json = json_decode( $file, true );
$json = $json['locations'];
foreach( $json as $item ) {
	$date = date_create_from_format( 'U', round( $item['timestampMs'] / 1000 ) );
	if ( $item['latitudeE7'] > 900000000 ) {
		$item['latitudeE7'] = $item['latitudeE7'] - 4294967296;
	}
	if ( $item['longitudeE7'] > 900000000 ) {
		$item['longitudeE7'] = $item['longitudeE7'] - 4294967296;
	}
	$output = array(
		'locations' => array(
			array(
				'type' => 'Feature',
				'geometry' => array(
					'type' => 'Point',
					'coordinates' => array(
						( $item['longitudeE7'] / 1e7 ),
						( $item['latitudeE7'] / 1e7 )
					)
				),
				'properties' => array(
					'timestamp' => $date->format( DATE_W3C ),
					'horizontal_accuracy' => $item['accuracy']
				)
			)
		)
	);
				
	if ( array_key_exists( 'activity', $item ) ) {
		$output['locations'][0]['properties']['activity'] = $item['activity'];
	}

For activity, it only appears on some entries, and is for the most part, accurate enough..

  "activity" : [ {
        "type" : "IN_VEHICLE",
        "confidence" : 100
      }

It notes the type of activity, and the confidence level.   However, in this example…

  "activity":[ 
    {"type":"UNKNOWN","confidence":50},          
    {"type":"ON_FOOT","confidence":36}, 
    {"type":"ON_BICYCLE","confidence":11},  
    {"type":"IN_VEHICLE","confidence":2}
  ]

In this example, Google thinks I am either doing something unknown, walking, riding, or on a bicycle. I promise, never a bicycle. So, for now, I consider the information to be less than useful, but am storing it for future use only.

Looking forward to using the data in interesting ways.

Simple Location Version 4.0.0 Released

The Simple Location plugin adds location support to WordPress posts, users, and comments.

Version 4.0.0 adds/rewrites a lot of the plugin.

  • The timezone handling functions were updated to use backported versions of functionality introduced for WordPress 5.3.
  • Fixes related to when WordPress’s default timezone is set to a UTC offset over a timezone string. This only works if the site is running PHP5.5 or greater.
  • Add support for WeatherBit as a weather provider
  • Add support for LocationIQ as a geo and map provider
  • APIXU is now WeatherStack
  • Add elevation support to geonames provider
  • Improve sunrise and sunset functions to account for elevation and introduce new class to handle astronomical functions…plan in future to add additional for weather purposes.
  • Improve Settings page and settings page text. Page is now tabbed.
  • Add airport weather widget and refresh airport data.
  • Last Seen Widget now optionally shows local time, sunrise/sunset times and map.
  • Comments are now adjusted with the timezone of the post they are attached to.
  • Nominatim geo provider now gets admin email as required by the service
  • Timezone overrides are cached.
  • A completely redesigned settings page
  • Previously, maps were set based on width and height, now width and aspect ratio. There are several presets there. This allows for the introduction of responsive images in the future.
  • Enhanced styles for HERE Maps
  • The default map zoom level for a post will be automatically adjusted based on altitude or the accuracy of the GPS information.
  • Adding /map to a WordPress archive page will load a custom template called map-template.php, which will show all of the locations in that archive on a map, along with a location list. The map-template.php file can be added to any theme to override this.
  • The timestamp data extracted from attachments is now adjusted for the correct timezone based on the picture location if set.
  • The creation timestamp of media is now displayed if set on the media modal and edit attachment admin screens.
  • The location is now displayed on the media modal.
  • Historic location lookup in supported location providers(currently only compass). This means when you set the publish date to the past in the Classic Editor or in Micropub, it will look up the historic location if this functionality is available. Not currently in Gutenberg.
  • Default Map Zoom settings now describe scale(City, Town, Village) instead of using Zoom number levels.
  • You can now update the location of a user using geojson over the REST API, allowing it to be automatically updated by an external service.
  • Compass as a location provider can be set on a per user basis, instead of globally.
  • Weather is no longer added if the publish time is not recent. Will look into historic weather in a future update.
  • Misc bug fixes and validation checks.
Travelled

Aer Lingus
104

  • Departs: JFK
  • Arrives: DUB

Aer Lingus
330

  • Departs: DUB
  • Arrives: TXL

Aer Lingus
339

  • Departs: TXL
  • Arrives: DUB

Aer Lingus
109

  • Departs: DUB
  • Arrives: JFK