Are there limitation with "private space" - Aranet app issue

deelee

Are there any limitations with what you can do within Private Space?

I am trying to get the Aranet Home app working. It installs from Aurora Store ok but I can not add/pair any of my Aranet sensors too the app.

I can add these devices with no issue from the owner profile and a User account, both of which work with just GSM Compat.

All with the same Allowed permissions in all 3 of the setups and bluetooth working in the 3.

Is there any good way of troubleshooting why connections in the Private Space may not work as expecting unlike the other two?

Novalissoide

deelee now this is just a guess, but are your sensors still paired by the Owner profile? If so, you could try to first unpair these from any profile, then try from Private Space.

gristle-cause

The singular limitation I've found is an inability to install PWAs. Otherwise, it's functionally identical to the primary profile

How are these sensors supposed to interface with the phone? I see an app, but no details on Bluetooth or connectivity

deelee

sorry for lack of details @Novalissoide and @gristle-cause

The sensors connect via a bluetooth connection. It should be pairable from within the app on other android version. For Graphene OS I have found I need to pair via the OS bluetooth settings for the app to see them. This is as simple as pair new device, add pin, done they show up in app.

For the private space it does not appear to recognize the sensor paired via phone wide setting and pairing with the app just does an endless "searching for sensor". I will note that I have a garmin bluetooth paired in this same method within the same private space so I don't believe it's a limitation of the private space and bluetooth.

I have remove the app and pairings completely from owner and user accounts before trying in the private space. Unless I am misunderstanding, the Private Space shares BT settings from the owner space - or at least I can not see a way to specifically pair within the private space.

gristle-cause

deelee Your reasoning seems sound to me. You are correct - all profiles share the singular Bluetooth interface, no unique pairing mechanism is needed within any particular profile or private space

My suspicion: it's an app issue, not a private space issue. Have you granted this app the necessary permissions for Bluetooth access, location + nearby devices? Is it dependent on Play Services; if so, are those running properly? Is there some kind of conflict against GOS that may be resolved with exploit mitigations?

Novalissoide

deelee and in line with the apps grants

gristle-cause necessary permissions for Bluetooth access, location + nearby devices

you should have device location toggled ON, if not already.

gristle-cause

Novalissoide The fact that the devices are appearing in the app at all is throwing me for a loop:

deelee pair new device, add pin, done they show up in app

Is it possible for an app to retrieve a list of Bluetooth devices from the OS, despite insufficient app permissions, only to then fail when attempting to communicate from the app due to these lacking permissions? Or would the app need to have proper permissions to even poll the OS for connected devices at all?

de0u

deelee Is it known whether or not the app works in Private Space on Google's stock OS? If not, alerting the app's authors seems like the next step.

deelee

de0u gristle-cause that's an interesting point. I am not sure. I'll see if I can find someone with a non grapheneOS install that could test.

gristle-cause I'm not actually sure, bit of a noob at this

Probably9857

From https://support.google.com/android/answer/15341885

In private space, you can’t...

Pair and manage smart home devices.

No explanation is provided, and it's not clear why this would only affect smart home devices rather than all Bluetooth.

Anyway...FYI

schweizer

SMS does not work in private space which is an issue if you have links that must be called from an sms app.