Z6 keeps waking up [solved]

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wdaehn
Posts: 38
Joined: October 30th, 2018, 5:44 pm

December 2nd, 2018, 7:06 am

The normal behavior is that you are in the Photo screen, camera is turned on and after a few seconds the apps shows the buttons active. Now you wait for a few seconds, camera turns off its metering and stays in this power saving mode.
With the Z6 the dongle wakes up the camera immediately after and it is back on metering.
Samsung Galaxy S8 latest update
Nikon Z6.
Andy
Posts: 225
Joined: October 4th, 2018, 4:18 pm

December 3rd, 2018, 10:32 am

I'm afraid I don't understand what's the issue here. Does the camera never turn the meter off with the Unleashed plugged in?

All Nikons turn on the meter as soon as you plug in the Unleashed. However, if you don't have the app open, the meter should go off after a while (how long after depends on your camera settings).
Andy
Firmware developer at Foolography
Oliver
Posts: 1127
Joined: October 9th, 2018, 4:17 pm

December 3rd, 2018, 12:05 pm

or do you mean that the Unleashed wakes up the Z6 even when the app is in the background (ie when it shouldn't wake it up)?
Founder & CEO of Foolography, Hardware & Firmware developer.
wdaehn
Posts: 38
Joined: October 30th, 2018, 5:44 pm

December 3rd, 2018, 1:49 pm

Turn on camera and app. Both are running and in foreground. After 30 seconds the camera will turn off the metering - you can hear the camera curtain - and two seconds later the camera does wakeup again. Constantly off - on - off - on in that 30 second cycle.
If you do something in the app it remains metering.

With the D610 it is different. After 30 seconds the metering was turned off and stayed turned off until you changed something in the app. Isn't it?
Samsung Galaxy S8 latest update
Nikon Z6.
Oliver
Posts: 1127
Joined: October 9th, 2018, 4:17 pm

December 3rd, 2018, 2:16 pm

So, we have 4 app states:
Active, Foreground, Background, Disconnected.

Active: when you're actively using the app.
Foreground: After two minutes of not using the app (not 30s), but if the app is still visible, and your phone screen stays on, we go to foreground
Background: when the phone screen is off, or another app is in the foreground.
Disconnected: when bluetooth is disconnected.

only in Active do we actively communicate with the camera to get settings, either via USB or through the 10-pin port. Until now, all Nikon cameras kept the Meter on as long as we communicated with them. Which is why after a while (two minutes) we turn off the communication so the camera's meter can go off, to save power.

Now the Z6/7 are a little special, since I'm guessing Meter is coupled with Live-view!

So I could imagine that Live-view turns off automatically after 30s, but since we're still communicating with the camera, it turns on again immediately.
But only if the app is still active. as soon as the app goes to the background, this shouldn't happen.

The D610's meter should therefore stay on for 2 minutes (if you keep the app in the foreground for that long, but not active. As soon as you use it actively, the time extends by another 2 minutes).
Founder & CEO of Foolography, Hardware & Firmware developer.
wdaehn
Posts: 38
Joined: October 30th, 2018, 5:44 pm

December 3rd, 2018, 5:29 pm

I have created a video to clear matters up.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/VRH8LfMRRbP8CCyi9

At
0:07 I turn on the camera
0:18 I click on the Mode button because the unleashed does not connect with the camera by itself although it is connected.
0:47 the camera display dims a bit
0:50 turns off completely. Metering is turned off as well.
0:51 it turns on again display and metering without user interaction.
1:18 the camera dims again
1:23 turns off completely. Metering is turned off as well.
1:25 it turns on again display and metering without user interaction.

Then I clicked the app into the background and yes, after the 30 sec timeout of the camera the camera turns metering and display off and stays in that mode. So that part works correctly.
Samsung Galaxy S8 latest update
Nikon Z6.
Oliver
Posts: 1127
Joined: October 9th, 2018, 4:17 pm

December 4th, 2018, 11:48 am

Thanks for the video!

I looked at it a couple of times.

0:07: at first I thought something is not working correctly and that it should have started getting values- but then we found the reason for this:
basically, while you were setting up your camera, the Unleashed went from active to foreground (two minutes passed since you last interacted with the app.
So when you turn on the camera, we don't change state. Since we don't change state, the settings communication does not happen, and therefore all the settings stay not available (except GPS). until now, unless the setting changes permission (not available, read only, read/write), we don't update the errormessage. However, this is a case where it would certainly make sense, and we'll add it to the next update (it's an easy fix). So basically the error would have changed to
Mode is not available.
Unleashed is idle to save power.
Tap any setting to wake up"


at 0:18 you did exactly that, which is why it woke up and started getting all the settings.

at 0:47-0:50 the camera's 30seconds timeout is up (well, actually it seems to be 40s), and it turns off the screen to save power.
but because our Unleasheds 2 minutes active timeout is not yet up, we keep communicating with the camera. So just as I expected,
at 0:51 the camera wakes up immediately again, because of our communication.
same thing again at 1:25 (now 1 minute is up, but the Unleashed stays active for 2 minutes!)

if you would have waited another minute, I'm guessing that the next time the screen goes off, it would also stay off.

So it's not a bug, it's just due to the Z6 live-view and meter being coupled, since the camera can't meter without live-view... but I can see why it might be annoying.

Now the solution for this would be to either increase the timeout of the camera to 2 minutes instead of 40s, but this will of course result in a higher battery use. Or we could decrease the Unleashed's active timeout to 30-40s to put it in line with the Z6. We'll evaluate this, and check the downsides, and Maybe we will make this timeout a user setting in the app at some point.

Or just turn off the camera when you don't want to use it... :-)
Founder & CEO of Foolography, Hardware & Firmware developer.
wdaehn
Posts: 38
Joined: October 30th, 2018, 5:44 pm

December 4th, 2018, 1:46 pm

I concur with your statements and suggestions.

Now I was writing about a few more thoughts but at the end deleted the entire post. Because actually, the best behavior would be to prevent the camera to go into metering-off while the unleashed is communicating. Can this be done?

Btw, the proper term is not metering-off but, as you said yourself, it is c3: Display Timeout. I have increased that to 5 minutes as 2 minutes are not available. Only 30", 1' and 5' (or longer). Now the metering stays active longer.
Samsung Galaxy S8 latest update
Nikon Z6.
Oliver
Posts: 1127
Joined: October 9th, 2018, 4:17 pm

December 5th, 2018, 12:24 am

Since you say that there's a menu entry, we could change the value from the Unleashed, but only via the USB cable.
But I would rather not do this, as it affects the camera (negatively - by using more power) even when the Unleashed is not actively being used. Of course we could also try to switch the setting back to what it was, but if the camera is powered off, the battery dies, or the USB cable is unplugged, we won't be able to reset the value. The next time it connects, we can't be sure if we should try to reset it anymore. After all, the user might have wanted to change that setting in the meantime.

A simpler solution would be to send a small wakeup signal to the camera every 20 seconds or so. We'll look into that, to see if it works and makes sense.
Founder & CEO of Foolography, Hardware & Firmware developer.
Oliver
Posts: 1127
Joined: October 9th, 2018, 4:17 pm

May 21st, 2019, 3:52 pm

just a short update before I mark this as solved:

we have since updated our timer to 30s, to match the default Display off timer of the Z cameras!
Founder & CEO of Foolography, Hardware & Firmware developer.
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