Discussion: SI-Droid on Chromebook

I like using SI-Droid software for small events; it's simple, flexible and cheap. So far I have used it with an old Android phone and then a second hand 10 inch tablet. Both of these devices are a bit limited by only having a single micro-usb socket. I can use a Y shaped adapter wire to simultaneously plug in the SI download station and an external battery, but occasionally the micro-usb plug will fall out of the socket. I don't have a chromebook but I realised recently that later model chromebooks can run Android apps.

Has anybody successfully run the SI-Droid Event app on a chromebook, with the SI download unit and a bluetooth printer connected ? Does it need to be a touch screen chromebook or will a keyboard only one work ? Which chromebooks and which printers have worked ? Anybody know ?

It is not available to install from Google Play for my 2 year old 14" Acer Chromebook. It's possible it is compatible with some other Chromebooks with smaller resolution screens, but then they might not be able to use the Google Play store if they are too old.

I've seen links to various articles saying you could run Android apps on other platforms including Chromebooks, in every case I've checked out, they are referring to running the software via an Android emulator - and emulated software frequently runs into compatibility issues with external hardware devices so I usually don't bother trying. But later model chromebooks may actually run Android apps natively, I don't know. Just my 2 cents.

Yes, later model Chromebooks can run most Android apps from the Google Play Store and other sources such as open orienteering mapper or maprun6. But SI Droid does not seem to be one of them because of the way it appears to only be displayed on a small screen. Or there might be other reasons why it's not compatible, at least on my Chromebooks.

I went to a big computer sales place near us and tried to install SI-Droid Lite on three different Chromebooks. Each one failed with the message "SI-Droid is not available on this device". I then emailed the app developer and asked if it is likely that SI-Droid will become available on Chromebook. He, very kindly, looked into the problem and discovered that Chromebooks won't allow USB-OTG support for peripherals, such as the SI download unit. Apparently any app which uses "android.hardware.usb.host" is not be supported by ChromeOS. That's a shame. I suppose that there may be some way that we could contact Google and make a change request, but the ways of Google are a mystery indeed.