How can I wake my android application at certain regular time intervals?

Question

My intention is to make an application that will track the movement of my android phone for every few minutes and send it to my server. I have read a lot online on how to do it with a service, AlarmManager and Partial_WakeLock. I have also gone through the commonsware examples in github.com but I was a bit confused because I am still not experienced in android.

I have been successful in getting my application to [get location and send it to my server]. How do I make my service wakeup every few minutes and do [work mentioned]? In the Wakeful example in commonsware, in which method do I mention my [work] and in which method do I keep calling it?

Answer 1

You need a Service and an AlarmManager. Your Service will handle getting the position and posting it to the server and AlarmManager will invoke your service basen on an interval you decide. You should initialize your AlarmManager with your Service roughly like this in onCreate or other place you want:

AlarmManager alarmMgr = (AlarmManager) this.getSystemService(Context.ALARM_SERVICE);
PendingIntent pendingIntent = PendingIntent.getBroadcast(this, 0, new Intent(this, YourAlarmReceiver.class),PendingIntent.FLAG_CANCEL_CURRENT);

// Use inexact repeating which is easier on battery (system can phase events and not wake at exact times)
alarmMgr.setInexactRepeating(AlarmManager.ELAPSED_REALTIME_WAKEUP, YOUR_ALARM_TRIGGER_AT_TIME,YOUR_ALARM_INTERVAL, pendingIntent);

YourAlarmReceiver gonna start your service

public class YourAlarmReceiver extends BroadcastReceiver {

    @Override
    public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {
          context.startService(new Intent(context, YourService.class));
    }
}

On how to use Services refer to the android website http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/fundamentals/services.html