How to rename your devices in Webkey?

When you have a large number of devices to control, it is important to be able to identify them. With Webkey it is possible to rename your devices and even name device groups. 

This will allow you to personalize the overview of your devices. 

Normally, our app will attempt to identify the device based on the below factors:

– Network MAC address. If there are more than one interface, we will use a select list for this.

– Android Serial. This is a deprecated function on more recent Android versions.

– Additionally, there is a public ID (in uuid format). This is generated by Webkey and is unique for all devices. 

To name your device, go to your dashboard and click on the device you wish to rename. 

After clicking on the sandwich menu, you will see the following:

On the top of the next screen, you will see the default name of your device. Simply clicking on the edit, you will be able to rename your device.

Location Tracking

Webkey’s location tracking feature allows you to locate and track your devices added to your account using your device’s GPS data. In addition to this absolutely vital information about your device, this feature also opens a lot of opportunities; you can display information on your device depending on its location or gather information from the movement of devices in your fleet among many other things. No rooted device is necessary to be able to use this feature which is available across all editions of Webkey.

Let’s have a look at how it works!

When pairing your device with your Webkey account, you have to make sure that the location data can be used by the Webkey app on your device. You should also allow Webkey to use your device’s location data. This will be shown like this:

After this, Webkey is ready to locate your device on a map, track its path. This feature is directly available from your dashboard (https://webkeyapp.com/dashboard/devices), by simply clicking on the location icon on the top:

After clicking on location tracking, your dashboard view will change to a map view. Here Webkey will give you the option to track your device on a map or get a view of their path drawn on a map. The data output for both of these features depends on the settings, so it is worth having a look at these in advance.

When you open up your settings, you should see the above panel. The different color-coded arrows stand for the following settings: 

Yellow: With these, you can select when you want to track the location of your device. Select the specific days of the week and set the time period in the day that you’d like to use this feature

Green: In this field, you can set how often the location is saved by Webkey. Simply put; the lower the number, the more continuous the data of the location of the device will be. 

Red: This is how often the location of the device is computed. The more often (lower number), the more accurate the location.

It is important to note here that the above settings can affect the battery life significantly; it is worth using the settings best suited for the data you would like to have, but with having battery life in mind at the same time.

When you are done with setting up the details for this feature, you should click “tracking” on the left-hand side of the screen (red circle shown above). Here, you can select the device you would like to track on the map. If you have multiple devices, you may select them to be shown and, if you have grouped your devices, the groups will appear here as well. You may select the devices from a group individually or the group as a whole, or different devices from different groups. 

After you select your device, Webkey will automatically locate it and show it on the map (the green circle above). The pin on the map will be named after the name you have set for the given device: if you have multiple devices, they may be shown at the same time. The tab associated with the device will show the last saved GPS data and the date and time this was recorded.

You can also find the path tool on the left-hand side of your screen. To use this, you first will need to select a time range (green arrow). Data here will be recorded from when the device have been added to your Webkey account and the location information enabled. The position of the device will be shown on a map with a pin (blue arrow), coloured in green when the device is online, and red when it was offline. The accuracy and continuity of the data will be influenced by the settings (see above). There is a search field for you to search for the device that you would like to get information about. 

Track history is also shown on the left side of the screen (red arrow). When you select and click on an entry, the map will automatically move to show the location where your device has been at that given time. 

The track history may also be exported and saved. Webkey will automatically create a CSV file from the location data in the selected date range for the given device; this will open in an excel file and will by default give you the timestamp and the correlating GPS data in an excel file.

Screen mirroring explained simply

Screen mirroring is duplicating the screen of a mobile, tablet or laptop on a different screen. It can be a useful tool for providing remote support or centrally overseeing a fleet of devices. With Webkey, it is possible to mirror the screen or screens of the connected Android devices in the central Dashboard. 

What can we know about the screen mirroring feature of Webkey? 

Webkey offers you the ability to mirror the screens of the connected devices in real time. We have worked on improving the quality and lag time of the screen mirror (and the screen stream) recently. With Webkey you only need a stable connection to have a full view of your Android device’s screen, running smoothly in real time. No rooted devices are required for this feature. 

We offer the screen mirroring feature as part of our standard app. You may also combine the screen mirroring feature with other Webkey features such as the remote screenshot or screen recording. 

What can I use the screen mirroring feature for?

This is one of the most important features of our app. It is the simplest way we can provide to check the controlled phone’s screen remotely. But you can also think about a tablet for example with a broken screen: in this case the screen mirror feature will give you back the visibility of what you stored on your tablet, thus allowing you to continue to use it or save files etc. 

In the business environment, this feature is the basis of providing remote support as it allows you to centrally monitor the connected devices and what is on their screens, all in real time.  

You may also find important notes about the Legacy Screen Stream setting in this article.

Webkey believes that a transparent and easy to follow pricing is the basis of the customer satisfaction. 

Therefore, we would like to give you a little bit more information on our pricing plans and how to best read our website’s pricing page

First, it is important to note that we have two main different pricing categories:

• Individual users 
• Business users 

Individual users

For individual users, we offer our Free version for one device and the Home version for upto 5 devices. In these pricing plans, only our Standard, Cloud based edition is available. The main difference is the device limit.

The Home version is the only version that we offer with a monthly billing plan, however we do recommend choosing the yearly subscription plan – this way you can save 4 months.

These two plans are also ideal for testing purposes before making a decision on a larger subscription.

Business users

For Business users, we offer a stair-step pricing plan, based on the number of devices. The Professional Plan includes our Standard Edition of the app, while the Professional Plus version comes with the Business Edition. The main difference between the two Editions is that the Business edition is a tailormade app, with special features, priority support and possible unique developments. 

If you need to make any changes to increase the device limit, you may do this from the app at any times. 

Other

In addition to these we also offer server solutions  which are recommended to business clients. They can either be dedicated servers and on-premise servers. As both of these solutions are quite unique and will require prior check of the environment and existing infrastructure, please always contact us for a quotation. 

As for our premium in app features, please be referred to an earlier article.

Webkey gives you the possibility to remotely control your devices without rooting them and without add-ons. How? Let’s have a look!

Remotely controlling your devices requires special permission and there are different technical limitations from the developers perspective There were three options to gain control with Webkey and we have now added a new one to allow you remotely control your devices.

You may gain access to remote control by the following steps: 

• If your phone is compatible with Samsung Knox
• If the manufacturer of your device has certified our app
• With rooted devices 

and with the new

• Accessibility service

The accessibility service can be set-up by you and it does not require add-ons or complex processes on your end. 

How to activate?

To activate this service, you need to follow these steps:

Note

Please note that this option has some limitations. For example it only works with Android O (26) and above. There may be device brand specific limitations which can cause the Accessibility permission to be deactivated. For example in some Samsung and Vivo devices this permission may be disabled after the screen is locked. For any brands with limitations we recommend rooting the device for using remote control.

As we continue to develop our app, there may be special cases where you encounter issues with the newer versions. One such issue can be with the screen stream. 

In such cases, we recommend that you switch back to the legacy screen stream mode – an earlier version that worked well for you.

To do this, you will need to go to your settings in your Webkey Android app (on the controlled device). 

After clicking this, you will find a check box, that lets you switch back to the legacy mode. Please note that by switching back to the legacy mode screen stream the quality may be effected. We only recommend doing this if the screen stream has stopped working with the app update.

Webkey is proud to announce a new partnership with Everengine. 

Everengine is a Budapest based digital creative agency that takes on complex marketing campaigns by creating graphics, videos, movies as well as print solutions, branding of events with an emphasis on digital solutions. 

Webkey is proud to have partnered with a forward thinking and solution oriented company like Everengine. We have already received great feedback and insight from working together on a specialized Kiosk mode for Everengine. We are sure that the future of digital marketing and remotely controlled devices will bring more and more success to our mutual clients. 

If you are interested in setting up a partnership with us, we have more than one option for this. 

• If you are an Android device manufacturer, we would be more than happy to have our APK certified with us. This is mutually beneficial as this will unlock more features of our app on your device for the end-users. It is free and a relatively easy process.  If you are interested, please do not hesitate to send us an email.
• If you are interested in setting up a partnership that includes referral codes or other sales incentives then please let us know and we will be happy to start a collaboration. We are open to any ideas that can be beneficial to our clients.

If you are a small business owner, we at Webkey understand your day to day challenges. Difficult decisions need to be made on a daily basis and you need to be able to trust your partners, collaborators and vendors. Unlike our large competitors, we are in a very similar situation ourselves and this makes us ready to offer you the service that truly helps your business grow. 

Across almost all industries, we have seen the rapid growth of Android and the need for remote control go hand-in-hand. The small business owners cannot afford to stay behind in this race: you may need to perform maintenance on the Android devices from a central location or gain insight from the movement of the devices in your fleet with our GPS tracking – The challenges are different, but Webkey has an offer for you. 

The Standard Edition of Webkey has many of these solutions ready for you. We encourage every small business to give it a try – it is free for one device and always will be. Just go to Google Playstore and download it. Easy! The Standard Edition of our app is available for more than one device in our stair-step pricing model both as part of our Home and our Professional Pricing plans.  

If you do not find what you are looking for in the Standard Edition, we are always ready to listen to you and work out a solution. The Business Edition of Webkey (offered as part of the Professional Plus pricing plan) has many tailormade solutions available. This edition of our app practically is an app that is created to your business needs. As such, we are always delighted to listen to you: even if there is no immediate solution, we believe that working together we can achieve more. Feel free to get in touch with us today, we would love to hear from your business! 

As some of you may have already seen, recently a new menu item has appeared in the Webkey app user interface. These are available to all Webkey users, independent of the pricing plan (free version included!)

By selecting the premium features menu option, you will have an instant access to

• Extend the device limit
• Activate your local network connection

Extending the Device Limit

Extending the device limit will allow you to control more devices from your Dashboard. Please find more information about this on our Pricing page.

Local Network

The second premium feature allows you to use your local network connection (wifi) without internet to manage your devices in your plan.

To be able to use this feature, you must know the IP address of your device and you must be able to set up local users on your device. No internet connection is necessary, so this feature can be a really useful tool for controlling devices in a closed environment.

The purchase and the payment for this can be made in the app – one off payment, via Google PlayStore.

The Headless edition of Webkey allows the user interface to be hidden. This means that there is no way to make changes to the client app from the controlled device. In the below post we have summarized some of the main characteristics of this edition of our app.

It is important to note that the Headless edition of our app is a tailor-made application and therefore it is only released as part of our Professional Plus package. This means, that if you wish to use the Headless version, you will need to get in touch with us so that we can create the APK to match your needs.

Main characteristics:

• After the initial launch, the app will automatically register itself on the Webkey server, under the pre-set account.
• The permissions in the Android Webkey client applications signed with Android platform key are automatically accepted and set. (This means that there is no interaction needed from the user of the controlled device.) Screen stream, touch inject, file transfer and location tracking.
• Webkey Icon on the controlled device is hidden in ‘Android Launcher’. In the full list of installed applications, Webkey will be shown.
• Webkey Icon will also be shown in the notification bar. Without this, the devices may go to deep sleep mode and so inaccessible from the internet.

Headless version is recommended for organizations who distribute preinstalled devices and would later prefer to remotely control those with a limited user interaction.

If you have any questions to the above or if you would like to use the headless app, please get in touch with us via info@webkeyapp.com