I currently own a pair of Farina branded headlights. Great lights on there own, however, they originally had the ability to connect to an app to provide additional features. Sadly, the company or app is no more. Has anyone found a secondary app that allows communication with these lights?

If they made Ant+ compatible lights, then they'll probably be operable by any Garmin Edge or other brand of GPS/cyclometer that uses the Ant+ standard. If they are Bluetooth or other wireless connection, then less chance that there'll be anything not made by Farina that will control them.

I didn't find any Farina lights that boasted Ant+ capability of the very few I found. If they published the API's needed to code for them, then maybe someone has written something. Or they could.

I'm more curious to know what 'apps' you need for a headlight (or taillight). I just use basic battery-powered lights where you press the switch to turn it ON, then repeatedly to go through a few blinky or solid beam modes till you find what you like, and finally press for OFF. Pretty simple electronic circuitry, no software, they do what I need them to do. Mine are all Cateye brand lights..

Some want to control brightness, flashing or not flashing. The flash pattern. Turn signaling and much more.

So, the company started selling stuff in 2020.

https://www.autoevolution.com/news/f...ne-148036.html

Requiring an app that could be discontinued is a basically bad idea.

Now you know why.

Unless the lights were popular or the company published the communication protocol (neither of these appear to be the case), it likely wouldn’t be worth the effort to create a secondary app (that most people likely would want to be free).

One button can do all that.

It makes some sense to not require having to buy a Garmin (or similar) unit.

But, in hindsight, that would have been better than how things ended up.

There is no motivation for releasing the API beyond being nice.

Writing the code to use the API would likely be a lot of work. It’s not likely this would be worth doing for a proprietary API for not-commmon lights produced by a dead company.

Majority of lights don't need an app to control those functions. This is the first time I heard of a light that can't be used without an app.

I can control brightness on my Piko 3 with a button. An app would be more work and unnecessary.

We are entering a weird era where it's going to be cheaper and easier to put a wireless chip inside the light, than a physical switch that's exposed to the elements and wears out. Better get used to it

Mine has two brightness levels and a flash mode, all controlled by one button.

In general I agree with all you said. But maybe differ a tad on a few things.

I don't think any requirement to buy Garmin was stated or implied. Though Garmin does have the Ant+ standard that is well defined. And it allows for the monitoring and control of many things we use as cyclist or other sporting activities. And if things haven't changed since I last ever looked at the Ant+ programming toolkit, it's free for those that are only writing their own apps and sharing them on a non-commercial level.

No big motivation. But some do provide it. And sometimes you have to dig for it. I'm surprised at the ones that do.
Not really for someone that is use to programming. If it's for oneself, then it doesn't have to be pretty or coded to prevent crashes from the foolish things users do. But it's definitely something the average person wouldn't be doing. Most that could would probably just get a new light from a current manufacturer. It's certainly nothing one would do for monetary gain.

Unless the OP is wanting to pay a few thousand dollars for it. <grin>

I don't think the OP said that the light had to have an app. Just that it's use was more limited without the app.

???

You definitely are not following some basic stuff.

We aren’t talking about supporting ANT+. We are talking about supporting a little-used protocol created by a defunct company with (I guess) not many users.

ANT+ is a good standard.

But you need some sort of head unit to use it. (There are/were a few phones that support it but it’s not common.)

The Farina lights used the phone you already owned (no extra head unit was required).

While “fancy” lights don’t (shouldn’t!) need a phone/head-unit to work, the OP wants to be able to use his phone.

???

The issue is that whatever the hell the Farina lights are using, it isn’t ANT+.

ANT+ is a reasonable standard for programmers.

But users still need a head unit that supports it (they won’t generally be able to use the phone they already have).

So what? In this case, they haven’t published the API. It’s very unlikely they are going to.

You don’t program. I do. I’ve written Garnin IQ apps. It’s a lot of work.

It appears supporting the Farina lights would be a waste of time.

For personal use, it would be much cheaper (in terms of time) to chuck them and buy new lights (and, maybe, program for ANT+). For supporting other users, there probably aren’t that many users and, since the company no longer exists, it’s a dead end.

My Christ, an app for a damn bicycle light.

Next you will need a app to flush the toilet

That’s when I stop flushing.

That’s the whole point, it does that for you!

Wifi Crapper

Thread moved from General

You seem to mix up the times I'm talking in generalities and not specifically the Farina unit. Or Garmin. Or Ant+.

I did program. I wrote code for IVR's and to integrate call centers with their phone switch using what then was IBM's CallPath telephony integration software. It's not that hard to write a usable program for oneself. Though it depends on the API set being available. C# probably wouldn't be too difficult porting something to a phone app. Writing a program that I'd give to anyone else to use is quite a different thing. And is somewhat difficult.

I agree. I only suggested it as a flippant comment along with the rest. Not that it was "the" solution.

But then you came in and got pedantic about it.

Yeah. A few years ago I bought a new TV. Got it home. Could not find the on/off switch. Next day I was near the store where I bought it, stopped in and asked where the on/off switch is. They said it is on the remote.

Over time fewer controls have been available on the actual tv as they migrated to the remote, until finally you can't even turn a tv on or off without the remote.

I really hope the same does not happen to a bike light.

You were all over the place. Not my problem. Do better.

The OP is talking about a program “you’d give to other people to use”.
It could 10+ hours of work to get something useable (not just for dealing with the API. It’s not likely to be worth it.


Nothing you said indicated you thought it was a waste of time.

Again, with the ad hominems. If you can’t take people commenting about your post, you shouldn’t post.

You started out OK. Even if you what you wrote was more confusing and unfocused than it should have been.

My spouse bought a Tesla car 2-1/2 years ago, and many of the car's functions are accessed from the big touch screen. It's so stupid, and I think it's dangerous and should be illegal. You can use your vision -- even your peripheral vision -- to locate a knob or button, and you can push it or turn it without looking. To use onscreen controls, you need to watch your finger, as there is no tactile feedback. I believe Tesla is not the only maker going this way. They save money this way. They might claim higher reliability because knobs and switches wear out. There is more versatility because an area of the screen is used for different functions at different times. But for a car, this is terrible in my view.

I read sometime back that several car makers were re-thinking their use of digital and switching back to buttons and analog gauges instead of touch screens for the exact reasons you cited.

But I really hate it when a gauge is a fake gauge. My 2003 Land Rover D2 had a temp gauge with an actual needle that moved. But, the needle stayed on low until the engine temp rose to about 145 (F), then the needle would move up to the middle position where it stayed. You would think that it would actually show a rough estimate of the temperature, but no, the physical needle had three positions, L M and H. (Fortunately, I never saw the hot position on the gauge, I just assume there was one.)

Manufacturers differ. Nissan and Mazda notably still have a lot of knobs and switches. I got a rental Mazda a while back that had the doorknob switch/knob down by the interior armrest for the entertainment and nav screen, and the AC had a pretty old fashioned control panel in front of the console. My wife has a 2020 Infinity CX60 and it has plenty of buttons, but they are badly arranged.

I think the screen gauges are here to stay. I like them.

Still, this isn't exactly the same thing. No one is asking a cyclist to use their phone on the fly to control their lights