Movesense Plus

A Flutter plugin for the Movesense family of sensors (Movesense MD, Active HR+ and HR2), made by CARP.

The plugin bundles the native Movesense MDS libraries for Android and iOS and talks to them through typed Pigeon channels. On top of the raw MDS API it provides a strongly typed device API for the most commonly used parts of the Movesense API.

Features

scan for Movesense devices (and stop scanning again)
connect and disconnect, with a connection status per device
device info, battery level and system states
typed streams of sensor data:
- heart rate and R-R intervals
- ECG
- 9-axis IMU
- temperature
- state events (movement, connectors, tap, double tap, free fall)
raw MDS GET, PUT, POST and DELETE requests and subscriptions to any resource
Mds and MdsAsync compatibility classes for code written against mdsflutter

Getting started

Add movesense_plus to your pubspec.yaml. No native setup is needed: the Movesense mdslib AAR (Android) and MovesenseMDS.xcframework (iOS) are bundled with the plugin.

Requirements: Dart 3.12 or later, Android minSdk 24, iOS 15.0.

Permissions

The plugin does not request runtime permissions. Use the permission_handler plugin to request Bluetooth scan and connect permissions on Android, see the example app.

Android: the required BLUETOOTH_SCAN, BLUETOOTH_CONNECT and legacy Bluetooth and location permissions are declared in the plugin manifest and merged into your app.
iOS: add NSBluetoothAlwaysUsageDescription to your Info.plist. Add bluetooth-central to UIBackgroundModes if you want to keep streaming in the background.

Upgrading from `movesense_plus` 1.x or `carp_movesense_flutter` 0.1.x

Version 2.0.0 is the Pigeon-based plugin previously published as carp_movesense_flutter, and replaces the mdsflutter-based 1.x releases. When upgrading from 1.x, remove the manual Movesense SDK setup from your app: the pod 'Movesense', :git => ... line in the iOS Podfile, and the vendored android/libs/mdslib-*.aar with its flatDir repository.

The API is new. The most common changes:

1.x	2.0.0
`Movesense().scan()`, `Movesense().devices`	`Movesense().startScan()`, `Movesense().scanResults`
`MovesenseDevice(address: ...)`, `connect()`, `hr`, `ecg`, ...	unchanged
`DeviceConnectionStatus`	`MovesenseDeviceStatus`
`DeviceBatteryLevel`	`MovesenseBatteryLevel`
`SystemStateComponent`	`MovesenseSystemState`
`MovesenseDeviceType.MD`, `HR_PLUS`, `HR2`	`MovesenseDeviceType.md`, `hrPlus`, `hr2`
`MovesenseHR.average` as `int`	`double`, plus the full `rrData` list

Code written against carp_movesense_flutter only needs to rename CarpMovesenseFlutter to Movesense and the imports to package:movesense_plus/movesense_plus.dart.

Usage

Import package:movesense_plus/movesense_plus.dart. Movesense is the entry point for scanning and raw MDS access, and MovesenseDevice is the typed API of one sensor.

Scanning for devices

final movesense = Movesense();

movesense.scanResults.listen((device) {
  print('Discovered ${device.name} [${device.address}]');
});

await movesense.startScan();

// Stop scanning at some later point.
await movesense.stopScan();

Connecting to a device

A MovesenseDevice comes from the scan, or can be created directly when the address is known:

final device = MovesenseDevice(address: '0C:8C:DC:1B:23:BF');

device.statusEvents.listen((status) {
  print('Connection status: ${status.name}');
});

await device.connect();

NOTE: The address format is platform dependent:

On Android, the address is the Bluetooth MAC address (e.g. 0C:8C:DC:1B:23:BF).

On iOS, the address is the UUID of the peripheral (e.g. 89BD8BF8-C9E7-0395-3B1D-119082516DDE).

The connection status is available in status and emitted on the statusEvents stream. On connection the plugin fetches the device info and battery level, and isConnected becomes true.

Device information, battery status and system states

Once connected:

deviceInfo / getDeviceInfo() - the full device info as a MovesenseDeviceInfo.
deviceType - the hardware variant (md, hrPlus, hr2), derived from the device info.
batteryLevel / getBatteryStatus() - the battery level, which Movesense reports as ok or low.
getState(MovesenseSystemState) - the current system state of a component (movement, connectors, tap, double tap, free fall).

print('Product: ${device.deviceInfo?.productName}, serial: ${device.serial}');
print('Type: ${device.deviceType.name}, battery: ${device.batteryLevel.name}');

final connectors = await device.getState(MovesenseSystemState.connectors);
print('Strap: ${connectors?.state.name}');

Streaming sensor data

The following streams are available on a connected device:

hr - MovesenseHR with the average heart rate (bpm) and R-R intervals (ms), at 1 Hz.
ecg - MovesenseECG with raw ECG samples, at 125 Hz.
imu - MovesenseIMU with synchronized accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer samples, at 13 Hz.
temperature - MovesenseTemperature in Kelvin (with a celsius getter). Movesense MD only.

final subscription = device.hr.listen((hr) {
  print('Heart rate: ${hr.average}, R-R: ${hr.rr} ms');
});

// Stop streaming.
await subscription.cancel();

Each stream opens an MDS subscription when listened to and closes it when the listener cancels. Listening before the device is connected emits a StateError.

Streaming state change events

device.getStateEvents(MovesenseSystemState.tap).listen((state) {
  print('State: ${state.state.name} at ${state.timestamp}');
});

NOTE: The Movesense firmware only allows one state subscription at a time, and not all components are supported on all devices. Only the connectors and tap states have been confirmed on the Movesense MD and HR2.

Raw MDS access

Any other Movesense resource can be reached with REST-style requests and subscriptions. On a connected device the serial is filled in for you:

// Turn the LED on.
await device.request(MdsRequestMethod.put, '/Component/Led', contract: '{"isOn": true}');

// Accelerometer at 52 Hz, as raw JSON notification bodies.
device.subscribe('/Meas/Acc/52').listen(print);

// ECG at 256 Hz, parsed with the typed model.
device.subscribe('/Meas/ECG/256').map((body) => MovesenseECG.fromMovesenseData(jsonDecode(body))).listen(print);

Without a MovesenseDevice, use the Movesense client with full URIs:

final response = await movesense.request(MdsRequestMethod.get, Mds.createRequestUri(serial, '/Info'));
print(response.body);

movesense.subscribe(Mds.createSubscriptionUri(serial, '/Meas/HR')).listen(print);

Requests fail with an MdsError carrying the MDS status code. Connection events for all devices are available on movesense.connectionEvents.

mdsflutter compatibility

The static Mds and MdsAsync classes mirror the mdsflutter API (Mds.connect, Mds.get, Mds.subscribe, MdsAsync.subscribe, ...) so existing code can switch to this plugin by changing the import.

Example app

The example/ folder contains a tester app that exercises the whole API: scanning, connecting, sending requests, subscribing to resources and viewing the log.

Scan	Device	Request	Subscriptions	Logs

Contributing

Please file feature requests and bug reports as issues. Pull requests are welcome.

Architecture

lib/src/movesense_client.dart - Movesense, the public client over the platform interface.
lib/src/movesense_device.dart and lib/src/movesense_data.dart - the typed device API and data models.
lib/src/mds_compat.dart - the mdsflutter-compatible Mds and MdsAsync facades.
lib/movesense_plus_platform_interface.dart and lib/movesense_plus_pigeon.dart - the platform interface and its Pigeon-backed implementation. Pigeon DTOs never leak into the public API.

Pigeon

Dart/native transport is generated with Pigeon. The contracts live in pigeons/ and are split by responsibility (movesense_scan_*, movesense_connection_*, movesense_request_*, movesense_subscription_*). After editing a contract, regenerate the bindings:

tool/generate_pigeon.sh

Generated code is written under gen/ folders:

lib/src/gen/pigeon/
android/src/main/kotlin/dk/carp/movesense_plus/gen/
ios/movesense_plus/Sources/movesense_plus/gen/
macos/movesense_plus/Sources/movesense_plus/gen/

The original mdsflutter callback message schema is kept in protos/movesense_mds.proto for reference; the runtime uses Pigeon DTOs instead of protobuf byte arrays.

Movesense SDKs

Android uses the vendored Movesense mdslib AAR under android/vendor. iOS uses the vendored MovesenseMDS.xcframework under ios/movesense_plus/Vendor, which can be rebuilt from the Movesense SDK with tool/generate_movesense_mds_xcframework.sh (the framework must be signed with a valid certificate, see the script). The compiled SDKs come from the movesense-mobile-lib repository.

macOS registers the same Pigeon channels but returns unsupported errors, because no macOS Movesense MDS binary is bundled.

Credits

The native MDS bridging is based on mdsflutter and the improved fork at petri-lipponen-movesense/mdsflutter.

License

This software is copyright (c) the Copenhagen Research Platform at the Technical University of Denmark and is available 'as-is' under a MIT license.

Movesense Plus

Features

Getting started

Permissions

Upgrading from `movesense_plus` 1.x or `carp_movesense_flutter` 0.1.x

Usage

Scanning for devices

Connecting to a device

Device information, battery status and system states

Streaming sensor data

Streaming state change events

Raw MDS access

mdsflutter compatibility

Example app

Contributing

Architecture

Pigeon

Movesense SDKs

Credits

License

Libraries

movesense_plus package

Movesense Plus

Features

Getting started

Permissions

Upgrading from movesense_plus 1.x or carp_movesense_flutter 0.1.x

Usage

Scanning for devices

Connecting to a device

Device information, battery status and system states

Streaming sensor data

Streaming state change events

Raw MDS access

mdsflutter compatibility

Example app

Contributing

Architecture

Pigeon

Movesense SDKs

Credits

License

Libraries

movesense_plus package

Upgrading from `movesense_plus` 1.x or `carp_movesense_flutter` 0.1.x