Determine specific charger input

Question

I am currently trying to make a reliable way to determine a specific charger type, in my case a music dock like this. The problem is that this dock unfortunately does not send a dock event when docked.

Since I am making an app relying on being able to determine when the device has been docked or undocked. I therefore need a way to filter out and separate these events:

• Device is charging through the USB connector(no separate charger)
• Device is not connected to a computer
• Some sort of way to separate the slow charging dock from a standard charger

I have noticed that my device (LG optimus 4x HD) manages to react differently for every one of these actions. When it is connected to a standard charger it gives no notification message, when it is connected to a computer it tells me USB mode has been activated, and when it is connected to the dock it gives me a slow charger warning.

I need to make a system with the same ability to separate these actions and react to them. Until now I have only made a simple BroadcastReceiver that reacts if the device is connected or unconnected to a charger. I have also managed to monitor the charging state using the code found in the documentation.

Is there any way of determine this specific charger input?

Answer 1

Whenever the device is docked or undocked, the ACTION_DOCK_EVENT action is broadcast. To monitor changes in the device's dock-state, simply register a broadcast receiver in your application manifest as shown in the snippet below:

<action android:name="android.intent.action.ACTION_DOCK_EVENT"/>

If a device is docked, it can be docked in any one of four different type of dock:

• Car
• Desk
• Low-End (Analog) Desk
• High-End (Digital) Desk

The dock-state details are included as an extra in a sticky broadcast of the ACTION_DOCK_EVENT action. Because it's sticky, you don't need to register a BroadcastReceiver. You can simply call registerReceiver() passing in null as the broadcast receiver as shown in the next snippet.

IntentFilter ifilter = new IntentFilter(Intent.ACTION_DOCK_EVENT);
Intent dockStatus = context.registerReceiver(null, ifilter);

You can extract the current docking status from the EXTRA_DOCK_STATE extra:

int dockState = battery.getIntExtra(EXTRA_DOCK_STATE, -1);
boolean isDocked = dockState != Intent.EXTRA_DOCK_STATE_UNDOCKED;

You can find the dock state by

boolean isCar = dockState == EXTRA_DOCK_STATE_CAR;
boolean isDesk = dockState == EXTRA_DOCK_STATE_DESK || 
                 dockState == EXTRA_DOCK_STATE_LE_DESK ||
                 dockState == EXTRA_DOCK_STATE_HE_DESK;

EDIT :

If your app still not receiving the broadcast try this code to sent manual broadcast and check the code :

adb shell am broadcast -a android.intent.action.POWER_CONNECTED -n com.jm.monitoringbatterydemo/.PowerConnectionReceiver

Change the name of the broadcast and your receiver.