Google Maps on Herelink

Hi All,

We have built a custom flight app for Andriod devices. It runs great on smartphones with Google Maps SDK support. I flashed this android app on Herelink remote device with some mods for better compatibilty but it requires Google services for the Map to load.

I need to install Gapps for it work but Herelink does not come with native recovery to flash additional packages. External package flashing apps like Flashify needs root permission to install Gapps.

It will be great if someone can help us in installing Gapps on Herelink or atleast guide us to root the Herelink device.

Thanks in advance,
Ashutosh.

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Have you tried ./adb method and simply installing the apps onto Herelink? Also, you can activate developer mode similar to any android device, which should help as well.

Have a look at the QGC app code, there are examples on how to get the maps without any of that additional material

Yes, I had flashed our android app using adb tool itself with USB debugging on in Developer mode.

The problem is our App is based on Google Play services and for that, we need to flash Gapps via recovery mode.

Thanks,
Ashutosh

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Hi Philip,

Thanks for your input.

The problem with this is that QGC uses MapBox as its map provider. We can use that, but we’ll have to shift a considerable amount of logic from Google Maps to MapBox. On Android, I have personally seen that Google Maps SDK has better compatibility and support than MapBox SDK, especially for the services that we want to use a map for.

Apart from this, soon enough, we’ll also have to use some other Google services. So we need to figure out a way to install Google Play Services on HereLink.

Is there a way to flash Gapps on Herelink? Or can we get root access to the device so that we can flash it ourselves?

Regards,
Ashutosh

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@philip @Michael_Oborne @MadRC

Can someone suggest a way out of this situation?

Thanks in advance.

In QGC settings, recently I found that you can select between service providers like Google Maps, Bing Maps. In the top left corner when you select the QGC icon, you have a few options like General, Comms etc. Under one of them, there was an option to change provider. Maybe that helps?

I was trying to use herelink offline. That’s when I came across this option.

QGC implements a URL based map tile query for the map. It does not provide the same level of performance as compared to native map libraries for the application we are looking for.

Regards,
Ashutosh

Oh, I see, QGC customization does not help? It uses Qt or something right? Would it not be possible to change the map provider there?

@Ashu_k

Did you find a solution to this problem of installing Gapps? I’m having the same issues as you experience.

Best regards,
Kaspar

@kasparjj

It is not possible to run Gapps on Herelink unless Cubepilot registers it as a google play certified device.

Thanks @Ashu_k.

I hope Cubepilot would consider doing that to extend the Herelink’s use and customization.