empatica_e4link

Description:

empatica e4link

Empatica Flutter plugin #
Flutter plugin for the Empatica E4
wristband on Android. iOS coming soon.
Install (Flutter) #
Add empatica_e4link as a dependency in pubspec.yaml or run flutter pub add empatica_e4link
For help on adding as a dependency, view the pubspec documenation.
Android #
The package uses your location and bluetooth to fetch data from the eSense ear plugs.
Therefore location tracking and bluetooth must be enabled.
Add the following entry to your manifest.xml file, in the Android project of your application:
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.BLUETOOTH"/>
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.BLUETOOTH_ADMIN"/>
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION" />
<uses-feature android:name="android.hardware.bluetooth_le" android:required="true"/>
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Also make sure to obtain permissions in your app to use location and bluetooth.
See the example app on how to e.g. use the permission_handler for this. Note that the plugin does not handle permissions - this has to be done on an app level.
Set the Android compile and minimum SDK versions to compileSdkVersion 33,
and minSdkVersion 28 respectively, inside the android/app/build.gradle file.
iOS #
Due to compatibility issues with Empatica's SDK, the iOS implementation is not able to function with new CocoaPods and iPhone architectures.
Usage #
The Empatica E4 Flutter plugin has been designed to resemble the Android
Empatica API almost 1:1. Hence, you should be able to recognize the names
of the different classes and class variables.
For example, the methods on the EmpaticaDeviceManager class is mapped 1:1.
See the Empatica Android documentation on how it all works.
However, one major design change has been done; this Empatica Flutter plugin complies to the Dart/Flutter reactive programming architecture using Streams.
Hence, you do not get callbacks to an Empatica device (as you do in Java) -- rather, you obtain a Dart stream and listen to this stream (and exploit all the other very nice stream operations which are available in Dart).
Below, we shall describe how to use the Empatica streams.
But first -- let's see how to set up and connect to an Empatica E4 device in the first place.
Setting up and Connecting to an Empatica Device #
All operations on the Empatica device happens via the Empatica plugin
At first one must connect to the Empatica backend via an API key given by
Empatica using the authenticateWithAPIKey method.
import 'package:empatica_e4link/empatica.dart';

...

// create a device manager that will handle method calls
EmpaticaPlugin deviceManager = EmpaticaPlugin();

await deviceManager
.authenticateWithAPIKey('your api key goes ');

...

// first listen to status events before trying to connect
deviceManager.statusEventSink?.listen((event) async {
switch (event.runtimeType) {
case UpdateStatus:
//the status of the device manager
print((event as UpdateStatus).status)
break;
case DiscoverDevice:
await deviceManager.connectDevice((event as DiscoverDevice).device);
break;
}
});

// when status is READY we can start scanning for devices
await deviceManager.startScanning();

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Everything with the Empatica API happens asynchronously. Hence, the connectDevice call merely initiates the connection
process. In order to know the status of the device manager, you should listen to
status events statusEventSink.
This is done via the statusEventSink stream.
Note, that if you want to know if your connection to the device is successful, you should initiate listening
before the connection is initiated, as shown above.
Listen to physiological data #
When the status is CONNECTED the device will be sending all data events to
dataEventSink. To get ALL data one should start listening on this stream
before it is connected, e.g. when the status is CONNECTING.
deviceManager.dataEventSink?.listen((event) {
switch (event.runtimeType) {
// update each data point with the appropriate data
case ReceiveBVP:
event as ReceiveBVP;
break;
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The possible data events in the dataEventSink are:

ReceiveBVP
ReceiveGSR
ReceiveIBI
ReceiveTemperature
ReceiveAcceleration
ReceiveBatteryLevel
ReceiveTag
UpdateOnWristStatus

Contributing #
Android #
The Gradle task useAar in ./android has to be run for the Empatica SDK to be
modeled and used in the Android code.