Guard Mutt Free

About Guard Mutt Free Android App

This app In basically dead. In early 2017 this app will be unpublished. It has now been replaced GuardMutt WS that uses a website to remotely monitor your boat (or caravan?).

Please see Guard Mutt WS to view the updated app.

This app is currently being re-written to remove "Javamail for Android" (a 3rd party project), which seems to be an old and defunct project and doesn't get on with modern versions of Android.

I wrote this app out of a need I had to remotely monitor the status of my boat. At the time of writing could find nothing that gave me the following features in a single app.

Turn an old Android phone into a security monitoring device.

•Remotely monitor the status of the mains electricity supply (to fully drain the fresh water system is a real pain so I leave some low powered tubular heaters in strategic places). This app alerts me if the mains electricity fails, a frequent event in a boatyard, and allows me to query the status of the mains electricity.
•Remotely monitor the position of the boat. I can remotely query the position of the boat and will alert me if the boat should move more than a preset distance. The email you will get from your boat contains a KML document which allowed you to view the position report on Google Earth (free to download) .
•Remotely take a picture from your boat (if your Android device has a camera) using either the front or rear facing camera (if your device has both).
•Communication is by email. Internet access is required and you need to register an email account for your boat (which can be completely different to your phone's primary email account).

What this application is not
This app is a security app, it is not a snooping app. I have designed it to be as difficult as possible to use the app for snooping (e.g. hiding a phone in somebody's bedroom), particularly regarding the feature that allows a picture to be remotely taken.


If you want to use the remote photo feature you must
•Set the app up correctly on the target device (that has to be done for any feature to work)
•The app must be left running in the foreground
•A charger must be connected to the target device (leaving the app running in the foreground with the app running would flatten the device's battery in a short while anyway).

There is a deliberate latency between sending a request for a photo and the picture actually being taken, so you can never capture an exact moment.

Remotely Querying the App
Once the device is set up, you can query the security Android device you left on your boat.
From another device, e.g. a desktop computer, with any of these subjects

GM power
GM Picture
GM picture 1
GM where
The body can be left empty; the app won't look at it.

Please see the instructions at

https://sites.google.com/site/madmuttsoftware/instructions


3rd Party Software
This app uses JavaMail for Android to send and receive email. The project can be found here.
https://code.google.com/p/javamail-android/