AWAREFramework

AWARE is iOS and Android framework dedicated to instrument, infer, log and share mobile context information, for application developers, researchers and smartphone users. AWARE captures hardware-, software-, and human-based data (ESM). They transform data into information you can understand.

Supported Sensors and Extensions

Default Sensors

• Accelerometer
• Gyroscope
• Magnetometer
• Gravity
• Rotation
• Location
• Barometer
• Battery
• Network
• Call
• Processor
• Proximity
• Timezone
• Wifi
• Screen Events
• Fitbit
• Google Login
• Memory
• NTPTime
• OpenWeatherMap
• Headphone Motion (iOS 14 or later)

Extensions

The following sensors can be used under extension(s)because these sensors need additional permission(s) into Info.plist and take a review by apple. You can get detail information from here.

• Motion Activity
• Pedometer
• Bluetooth
• Heartrate (BLE)
• Microphone (Ambient Noise)
• Calendar
• Contact
• HealthKit

Installation

0. (Option) Open Xcode with Rosetta to enable running the developed app on a simulator

If you can develop the application with a physical device, you can skip this step.

1. Install AWAREFramework-iOS

AWAREFramework-iOS is available through CocoaPods. To install it, simply add the following line to your Podfile:

pod 'AWAREFramework', '~> 1.14.10'

And run pod install in your Xcode project.

2. Edit confgurations

For collecting data in the background, you need to edit Info.plist and Capabilities/Background Modes in the project as follows.

[NOTE] The following settings are a minimum condition, so then you might need to do more modification if you are using special sensors (e.g., Ambient Noise, HealthKit, Activity Recognition and more). Please check this link about the configuration.

2-1. Info.plist

• Privacy - Location Always and When In Use Usage Description
• Privacy - Location When In Use Usage Description
• Privacy - Location Always Usage Description

2-2. Capabilities/Background Modes

• Location updates

3. Request permissions and activate AWAREFramework

To use AWAREFramework in the project, you need to (1) import AWAREFramework into your class and (2) request permission for accessing the iOS location sensor always. After the permission is approved, you can (3) activate AWARECore. (4) AWARECore,AWAREStudy and AWARESensorManager are singleton instances for managing sensing/synchronization schedules in the library. You can control any sensors by the way which is described in How To Use session.

We recommend you to activate AWARECore at -application:didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:launchOptions: in AppDelegate which is called one time when the application is launched.

/// AppDelegate.swift ///
import UIKit
import AWAREFramework /// (1) import `AWAREFramework` into your source code.

@UIApplicationMain
class AppDelegate: UIResponder, UIApplicationDelegate{

    override func application(_ application: UIApplication, didFinishLaunchingWithOptions launchOptions: [UIApplicationLaunchOptionsKey: Any]?) -> Bool {
        
        ////////////////////////
        let core    = AWARECore.shared()
        let study   = AWAREStudy.shared()
        let manager = AWARESensorManager.shared()
        
        /// (2) request permissions
        core.requestPermissionForBackgroundSensing{ (status) in
            core.requestPermissionForPushNotification(completion:nil)
            
            /// (3) activate AWARECore
            core.activate()
            
            /// (4) use sensors 
            /// EDIT HERE ///
        
        }
        ////////////////////////
        
        return true
    }
}

How To Use

Example 1: Initialize sensors and save sensor data to the local database

Just the following code, your application can collect sensor data in the background. The data is saved in a local-storage.

/// Example1  (Swift): Accelerometer ///
let accelerometer = Accelerometer()
accelerometer.setSensorEventHandler { (sensor, data) in
    print(data)
}
accelerometer.startSensor()
manager.add(accelerometer)

Example 2: Sync local-database and AWARE Server

AWAREFramework-iOS allows us to synchronize your application and AWARE server by adding a server URL to AWAREStudy. About AWARE server, please check our website.

/// Example2 (Swift): Accelerometer + AWARE Server ///
study.setStudyURL("https://api.awareframework.com/index.php/webservice/index/STUDY_ID/PASS")
let accelerometer = Accelerometer(awareStudy: study)
accelerometer.startSensor()
accelerometer.startSyncDB()
// or
manager.add(accelerometer)

Example 3: Apply settings on AWARE Dashboard

Moreover, this library allows us to apply the settings on AWARE Dashboard by using -joinStuyWithURL:completion method.

/// Example3 (Swift): AWARE Dashboard ////
let url = "https://api.awareframework.com/index.php/webservice/index/STUDY_ID/PASS"
study.join(withURL: url, completion: { (settings, studyState, error) in
    manager.addSensors(with: study)
    manager.startAllSensors()
})

Experience Sampling Method (ESM)

This library supports ESM. The method allows us to make questions in your app at certain times. The following code shows to a radio type question at 9:00, 12:00, 18:00, and 21:00 every day as an example. Please access our website for learning more information about the ESM.

/// Swift ///
let schdule = ESMSchedule()
schdule.notificationTitle   = "notification title"
schdule.notificationBody    = "notification body"
schdule.scheduleId          = "schedule_id"
schdule.expirationThreshold = 60
schdule.startDate           = Date.init()
schdule.endDate             = Date.init(timeIntervalSinceNow: 60*60*24*10)
schdule.fireHours           = [9,12,18,21]

let radio = ESMItem(asRadioESMWithTrigger: "1_radio", radioItems: ["A","B","C","D","E"])
radio.setTitle("ESM title")
radio.setInstructions("some instructions")
schdule.addESM(radio)

let esmManager = ESMScheduleManager.shared()
// esmManager.removeAllNotifications()
// esmManager.removeAllESMHitoryFromDB()
// esmManager.removeAllSchedulesFromDB()
esmManager.add(schdule)

Please call the following chunk of code for appearing ESMScrollViewController (e.g., at -viewDidAppear:).

/// Swift ///
let schedules = ESMScheduleManager.shared().getValidSchedules() {
if(schedules.count > 0){
    let esmViewController = ESMScrollViewController()
    self.present(esmViewController, animated: true){}
}

Supported ESM Types

This library supports 16 typs of ESMs. You can see the screenshots from the link

• Text
• Radio
• Checkbox
• Likert Scale
• Quick Answer
• Scale
• DateTime
• PAM
• Numeric
• Web
• Date
• Time
• Clock
• Picture
• Audio
• Video

Example Apps

We are providing several example applications. You can refer, or modify these applications for your purpose.

• RichClient (aware-client-ios-v2)
• SensingApp
• SimpleClient
• DynamicESM
• ScheduleESM
• CustomESM
• CustomSensor
• Visualizer

Author

Yuuki Nishiyama yuukin@iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp

Citation

Please cite the following paper(s) in your publications if this library helps your research.

@InProceedings{aware_ios,
    author={Nishiyama, Yuuki and Ferreira, Denzil and Eigen, Yusaku and Sasaki, Wataru and Okoshi, Tadashi and Nakazawa, Jin and Dey, Anind K. and Sezaki, Kaoru},
    title={IOS Crowd--Sensing Won't Hurt a Bit!: AWARE Framework and Sustainable Study Guideline for iOS Platform},
    booktitle={Distributed, Ambient and Pervasive Interactions},
    year={2020},
    pages={223--243},
    isbn={978-3-030-50344-4},
    doi={10.1007/978-3-030-50344-4_17},
}

@inproceedings{aware_ios_in_the_wild,
    author = {Nishiyama, Yuuki and Ferreira, Denzil and Sasaki, Wataru and Okoshi, Tadashi and Nakazawa, Jin and Dey, Anind K. and Sezaki, Kaoru},
    title = {Using IOS for Inconspicuous Data Collection: A Real-World Assessment},
    year = {2020},
    doi = {10.1145/3410530.3414369},
    booktitle = {Adjunct Proceedings of the 2020 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing and Proceedings of the 2020 ACM International Symposium on Wearable Computers},
    pages = {261–266},
    numpages = {6},
    series = {UbiComp-ISWC '20}
}

License

AWAREFramework is available under the Apache2 license. See the LICENSE file for more info.