Our game utilizes Bluetooth to connect to the MSP430. However, there can obviously be problems with connectivity that have to be conveyed to the user so they can address the problem. (For the most part, power-cycling the button device, or charging the battery if it is too low. However, we have a separate error message for the battery being too low.) Our error message tells the user to restart the button device. We will make it clearer to turn off and on the power switch on the button.

Another way we indicate to user if connection is established is through the green start button on the menu. It is a little hard to see in this video (which was cast directly from Android to a computer screen) but the button starts out a dark, greyed out color which cannot be clicked on by user. The button is disabled until connectivity is established. You can see that in this video– when the message says “ready and connected” the start button illuminates and becomes clickable.

Demo of Bluetooth Connectivity

When connectivity is not established (for whatever reason), the script will automatically attempt connection two seconds later. This will repeat until connection is established.

We may want to put an additional error message which times out after connection fails too many times. We may also want to alert user that they may need to charge their battery. After all, the only way we can send a low battery message to the Android is through Bluetooth… which does require power. It is possible the user may leave the battery running for an extended period of time (with or without use of the phone), and then try to start the game, at which point the battery will be too low to send a message anyways.

 

We also utilized the button to pause the game (the skybox shown in the video). We need to make a much more visible “pause” for the user to see. When the game is paused, a stop signal is sent to the MSP430 to tell it to stop reading gyroscope data until the game is unpaused. This stop signal helps to reduce unnecessary current consumption.