Erik
718c72dde1
All checks were successful
build-apk / build (push) Successful in 18m52s
A single fix at mount went stale the moment you walked a block, which is
most of the time you'd be looking at the map.
useLocation takes { intervalMs, active }: it polls only while active,
reads immediately on becoming active (re-opening the tab is when the
held fix is most stale), asks for permission once rather than every
poll, and stops polling on a hard denial. The last-known-position
shortcut now runs only before there is anything to show — on a later
poll it is usually older than what we hold, so it would make the dot
jump backwards. It also returns updatedAt.
MapScreen gates the poll on screen focus AND app foreground; focus
alone isn't enough, since a backgrounded app stays "focused" on its
last tab and Android won't hand location to one that isn't in front.
"Park here" / "My location" took nativeFix.current ?? coords, so the
MapLibre dot's cached fix won unconditionally and never expired — a
fresher polled fix could never get past it. Both now use bestFix(),
which takes whichever source is under 45 s old (a poll and a half, so
an on-schedule fix never reads as stale), forces a read if neither is,
and falls back to a stale fix rather than nothing.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_017DE83epHK8WbkppNszG3A2
|
||
|---|---|---|
| .forgejo/workflows | ||
| app | ||
| docs | ||
| parksmarter-client | ||
| scripts | ||
| server | ||
| tools/citymap | ||
| .gitignore | ||
| INSTALL.md | ||
| package-lock.json | ||
| package.json | ||
| README.md | ||
BigBrainParking
An unofficial, de-Googled client for the ParkSmarter (IPS Group) parking system, built to run on GrapheneOS with UnifiedPush notifications and distributed via Obtainium — no Google Play Services, no Firebase, no app store.
Install it (users)
BigBrainParking installs and updates through Obtainium — no Google Play, no account. Works on GrapheneOS. On your phone (with Obtainium installed), tap:
➕ Add BigBrainParking to Obtainium
or follow INSTALL.md for the manual steps.
Monorepo layout
bigbrainparking/
├── parksmarter-client/ # Zero-dep TypeScript API client (reverse-engineered, live-verified)
├── app/ # Expo / React Native app (BigBrainParking)
└── .gitea/workflows/ # CI: build signed APK -> publish release for Obtainium
parksmarter-client— the API layer. All ~40 endpoints, the custom-header auth model, and response models (most verified against production). Runs anywhere; the app imports it directly. See its own README for the API details.app— the phone app. React Native (Expo prebuild), MapLibre maps, VisionCamera QR scanning, expo-secure-store token storage, local session-expiry reminders, and UnifiedPush wiring.
Features
| Feature | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Phone + password login | ✅ wired | tokens in OS keystore |
| Map of nearby meters (clickable, zoom, live GPS) | ✅ wired | MapLibre + OpenFreeMap tiles (no key) |
| City parking map overlay (2h/3h/4h/no-limit/lots) | ✅ wired | the city's printed map, georeferenced — never touches the IPS API |
| "Park here" pin + time tracking on any city area | ✅ wired | GPS or hand-placed pin, auto-detects the area, local countdown |
| Last-lot + My-location search | ✅ wired | opens on your last session's lot; GPS sent only via explicit "My location" |
| QR kiosk scan → meter lookup | ✅ wired | on-device VisionCamera |
| Save / share kiosks | ✅ wired | local (no server favorites API exists) |
| Active / past sessions | ✅ wired | list views + tap for full receipt |
| Start a paid session | ✅ works | confirmed live end-to-end (real $0.10 DL-zone charge); declines surfaced |
| Ongoing parking countdown | ✅ wired | foreground service; ticks down, End / Extend buttons, survives reboot |
| Session-expiry reminders | ✅ wired | local on-device notifications — no server, no push |
| UnifiedPush (ntfy) | ⚪ optional | not needed for reminders; stub for future server-initiated msgs |
The city parking map
The City map layer on the Map tab is the City of Sandpoint's printed Downtown & Waterfront Public Parking map, georeferenced and drawn in the same colours as the legend: 2-hour free, 3-hour, 4-hour, no time limit, and the paid city lots. 49 areas in all.
The free areas never touch ParkSmarter. They live in the local database (bundled with the app, refreshed from the zone-labels server, cached on-device), the countdown is the phone's own clock, and the notification is the same foreground service every other session uses. So tracking your time on a free city spot works with no account, no signal, no payment, and in Anonymous Mode.
The green city lots are the exception — they're the map's only paid category, and paying
for them means ParkSmarter. They're hidden entirely when you're not signed in, since parking
you can't actually buy is worse than no parking at all. (Standing in one and tapping "Park
here" says so rather than reporting nothing nearby.) A single lot can be flipped back via
the server's requiresAccount field if it turns out to take payment another way.
Two ways to start:
- Park here — pins your car from GPS and works out which area you're in. No GPS fix (garage, indoors, radio off)? It asks you to tap the spot instead and pins that. The pin stays on the map until you end the session, because "where did I leave the car" is half the point.
- Tap a coloured segment — pick the block directly, no pin needed.
Either way you choose how long to track, capped at the posted limit (a 2-hour space won't offer to run a 4-hour timer — that's just scheduling a ticket). The ongoing notification's second button reads +1 hr here rather than Extend: there is nothing to buy, so it edits the local timer and says so.
The Sessions tab shows and manages these under Tracking on this phone — add an hour, end it, and see recent ones — with no account and no network, because that is the only place they exist. ParkSmarter's own sessions are layered on top when you're signed in, and failing to reach them (offline, or signed out) never hides the local half.
The georeference was fitted to OpenStreetMap street centrelines and lands within ~4 m
(see tools/citymap/ to regenerate it from a new edition of the PDF).
Because a few metres is the difference between two sides of a street, Account → Align city
map lets you nudge the whole overlay against a live GPS fix and save it — on the phone, or
published to the server for every device if you hold the admin token.
Privacy
BigBrainParking sends your location to ParkSmarter only when you explicitly tap "My location" and search; it opens on your last parking lot instead of your GPS, and ships no analytics/tracking (no Segment/Amplitude/Firebase/Sentry, no ad-ID, no Google services). For a plain-language comparison with the official app — which auto-sends your GPS on map open and bundles that tracking stack — see docs/OFFICIAL_APP_PRIVACY.md. What reaches the API and what never does is also spelled out in the app's About page.
Build & run (dev)
Requires Node 20, JDK 17, Android SDK, and a GrapheneOS device (or any Android device) with USB debugging.
npm install # installs both workspaces
npm run build --workspace parksmarter-client # compile the client
cd app
npx expo prebuild --platform android # generate native project
npx expo run:android # build + install a dev client
The app talks to prod (apiv2.parksmarter.com) by default — change extra.psEnvironment
in app/app.json to point elsewhere.
Notifications on GrapheneOS
Everything here is entirely on-device — no server, no push, no FCM, no Play Services — so it works fully offline. UnifiedPush (ntfy) is wired only as an optional, no-op stub for any future server-initiated messages; nothing time-based needs it.
The ongoing parking countdown. Whenever a session is active — a paid one you bought or
a free check-in — a persistent notification shows the time left and ticks down, with
End and Extend buttons. It is held up by a real foreground service
(modules/bbp-notify, type specialUse), which is what makes it stick on GrapheneOS the
way ntfy's does: it survives the app being killed, can't be swiped away, and a
BOOT_COMPLETED receiver brings it back after a reboot. The service's life is exactly the
session's life — it stops itself, removing the notification, on End, when the meter
runs out, or whenever there's no session to show.
The countdown itself costs no battery: the end time is handed to Android as a chronometer, and the system redraws the ticking text with the app closed and no timer of its own.
- End stops tracking and clears the notification. On a free check-in that genuinely ends it. On a paid session it only stops the display — ParkSmarter has no stop-session endpoint, so time you already bought keeps running at the meter either way.
- Extend (labeled Pay on a free check-in) opens the purchase screen for that exact zone. The active session is stored locally with its zone, so this works offline, in Anonymous Mode, and after a reboot. Extending doesn't end anything until the purchase actually goes through.
Expiry reminders fire a configurable lead time (default 15 min) before the end, via
AlarmManager. Configure them in Account → Notifications, where a "Send a test
reminder" button lets you confirm they fire on your phone; the same screen has a toggle
for the ongoing countdown.
Distribution via Obtainium (self-hosted)
Tag a release and CI builds a signed APK and publishes it to this repo's releases; your
phone's Obtainium tracks the repo and offers updates. See
docs/DISTRIBUTION.md for the full server + CI + keystore setup.