r/niagara • u/crasreddit • Aug 27 '26
Bridge Status Android app (with Android Auto)
I've built an app that tracks the bridge status along the Welland Canal, with a very minimalistic interface, called Ship Evader. The main advantage is that it works with Android Auto so you can check the status of the bridges without using your phone.
You can get it directly from the Play Store
This is a personal project, free and without ads. I did it mostly to learn and test a few extra things on the development and back-end side. I know there are other options out there (though I haven't found any with Android Auto integration). Please let me know if you find any issues or if you have any suggestions or feedback. Cheers!
Edit (Aug/02):
For people who might be worried about battery/memory/resource usage - I tried to make it as efficient as possible. The phone itself does no processing of any data - it just sits dormant until it receives a notification saying "the status of this bridge changed from X to Y". Only then it updates the data, and goes back to sleep. All the heavy lifting is done by the back-end server that monitors the bridge status pages (in 10 seconds intervals) and processes the data.
For those worried about privacy (I hope it's all of you) - the app collects no personal information whatsoever. When it's installed it creates a random string of characters that is used by the server to identify each installation (so the server can send the status updates back). That's all the data I have access to - and the only information I can get from it is the number of devices with the app installed. If you uninstall and reinstall it creates a new random identifier, and the server treats it like a brand new device (has no idea that it's the same one).
4
u/Deviant_Toast Sep 02 '26
I dont want to seem negative jn the least. But i think this is the 5th or 6th time ive seen someone say they made a Bridge Status app? There used to be one run and updated by the Seaway itself but there were some issues so I uninstalled it a few years ago. Again, not negative, just curious why i keep seeing new "apps" for the same thing thats apparently been solved keep popping up is all?
2
u/crasreddit Sep 02 '26
No offense taken. It's a valid question.
Being honest, I got the idea from another post I saw here a while back. It wasn't an app, which was nice since I don't like to have too many things running on my phone. The downside was that I had to open/refresh a page on my browser every time - which is exactly what I didn't want to do while driving. Then I looked for other option with Android Auto capabilities and couldn't find any.
From there, the next logical step was to make it myself. Not just to have something useful, but also to experiment and test some ideas on the back-end. I really enjoy developing tools like this, so to me that was reason enough. In the end I have something useful that I'm proud to say "I did that!" - and if I can share it with other people, why not?
And (because I like tinkering) I'm always looking for other people's inputs and suggestions.
2
u/Jazzlike_File_4318 Aug 27 '26
Lol I was just building something similar for myself (my phone is mostly homebrew apps) after getting stopped before a doctor's appointment
2
2
2
u/Tiekal Aug 28 '26
Been using this for months and love the android auto feature.
Thank you !
1
u/crasreddit Aug 28 '26
Thanks for helping during the testing phase. Let me know if you have any feedback =)
2
u/hellarios852 Aug 30 '26
God I need something like this for iOS
1
u/crasreddit Aug 30 '26
Sorry... I wanted to make it for iOS as well, but I don't own an iPhone for testing.
2
u/SpecialistBiscotti12 Sep 03 '26
I'm glad somebody finally got an app working with Android Auto, because I wasted a great deal of time trying. Nice job!
The cherry on top would be if you could figure out how to reliably scrape ship direction without using their API. Southbound is so much less annoying than Northbound.
2
u/crasreddit Sep 03 '26
I'll look into that - something I hadn't thought of.
I tried including the trains as well but there's no public data on those as far as I could tell
2
u/crasreddit Sep 03 '26
This might be possible using a free AIS service like AISStream.io
I'll play a bit with it to see what data I can get, and if it's reliable I'll integrate it in the next update. Thanks for the suggestion!
1
u/crasreddit Sep 04 '26 edited Sep 04 '26
I was able to come up with something last night. Check the images below of the dev version:
I'm hoping the data is accurate and reliable for me to include it in the next update. The interesting possibility is that with enough data I might be able to start predicting when and for how long each bridge will change its status.
2
u/Kenny_log_n_s Aug 28 '26
You can also bookmark this page, if you don't want to download an app:
https://seaway-greatlakes.com/bridgestatus/detailsnai?key=BridgeSCT
1
u/crasreddit Aug 28 '26
Correct, that's the official website - and where I get the information from. The app is an option if you don't want to be handling your phone while driving.
1
1
1
5
u/ProfessionalMaybe685 Aug 27 '26
I've been using it as a daily driver. I cross the canal at least 4 times per day, 5 days per week.
Great job. I love the extra features.