hello, Sean!

how can I help you today?

hi

i had a quick question about using LocationClient

i have multiple activities that need to get a location so i was wondering if there was a good way to globally access the location and reuse it across my app?

currently i have each Activity connecting and using its own LocationClient instance

use an event bus (LocalBroadcastManager, Otto, greenrobot's EventBus)

send an event when you get an updated fix, to distribute it to anyone that is around that needs it

okay so i would have a separate class that implements the LocationClient callbacks which sends the broadcast? and it's always connected?

yes

actually being connected doesn't drain the battery, right?

might be a bound service, so that once all activities unbind, it shuts down

ah okay, i didn't realize a bound service could bind to more than one Activity... that's a good idea

regarding battery, I can't answer that, as Play Services is closed source

and I have no idea if active clients changes its behavior

it *probably* does

oh

i was thinking battery drain would just come from requesting frequent location updates (which i don't need)

my updates would be requested every 5 mins or so

again, I have no idea what Play Services does with a five-minute timeout

one would hope it leverages that timeout to consume less power

yeah i guess i'll just have to do some testing

if it happens that it does drain the battery, i'm assuming the correct way to go would be to use a timer and reconnect every 5 mins or so?

I'd use a ScheduledExecutorService, but, yes, that's an option

ah okay, thanks... i haven't used timers or anything before so i wasn't sure about that

what would be the advantage of using a bound service as opposed to just a regular class that gets created in the main activity? the automatic cleanup?

first, I think you need a Context, and that can't be any of the Activity instances to avoid leaks

which leaves you with Application or a Service

ah

you could do your own reference-counted other class too

the problem with these chats is that I get questions from left field and have to try to answer on the fly :-)

haha, yeah

well thanks a lot for the advice

you are very welcome

see you later, probably in another several weeks... haha

OK, sounds good