Question to the Thunkable developers: How does the online/offline detection work?

Questions about Thunkable
1

Hey all

I have been using the “device is online?” block and noticed the following behaviour:

In areas such as the underground railway where there the device is connected to the data network but in practice the reception is so bad that there is no real data connectivity, an app which uses the “device is online?” block is not working as “expected”. Technically speaking, offline would mean that there is absolutely no signal which usually visible by an X next to the coverage bars icon on the top of the screen. Practically speaking though, it would be when the device cannot download data from a source even if the device “claims” that there is data coverage (i.e. one bar).

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that the devs are implementing this the wrong way, but I would like to understand based on which factors the block returns a true or false. Is it based on the a ping reply to a specific server or maybe the TTL needs to be higher than a certain value? Is it based on what the device reports as a strict “Yes, the device is connected to the data network even if no data can be sent or received due to low coverage” or “No, the link is down as marked with an X next to the coverage bars”?

Thanks in advance
K

2

We currently use an underlying library which specifies that is returns true for the following:

If there is an active network connection. Note that this DOES NOT mean that internet is reachable.

We could, in principle, support more detailed information, such as whether the internet is available, or whether the connection if wifi or cellular. Please file a feature request if you are interested in any of that type of information.

Hope this helps.

-Mark

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