[SOLVED] Send data through wifi (no internet) when mobile data on

Send data through wifi (no internet) when mobile data on

I'm developing and application that connects to a hardware device through wifi (generated by the device) and send data to it through a socket connection. The problem is that when mobile data (3G/4G) is activated android tries to send the data through it instead of sending it through the wifi generated by the device, because because the wifi has no internet connection. I was thinking of using ConnectivityManager#setNetworkPreference() but it has been deprecated in api 21.

How can I set it to send data using the wifi generated by the device instead of the mobile data interface?

Solution

After a lot of research and time trying to understand it all I found out that this isn't possible in versions previous to Android 5.0 (Lollipop), the OS only keeps one network interface up at a time and the apps don't have control over this.

So to do this on versions greater or equal to the Lollipop I did the following:

Before doing your socket connection check if android greater or equal to Lollipop, in case it isn't you just do whatever you have to do normally;

In case the version is equal or greater to Lollipop you need to do something like this:

if (android.os.Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= android.os.Build.VERSION_CODES.LOLLIPOP) {
    final ConnectivityManager manager = (ConnectivityManager) context
            .getSystemService(Context.CONNECTIVITY_SERVICE);
    NetworkRequest.Builder builder;
    builder = new NetworkRequest.Builder();
    //set the transport type do WIFI
    builder.addTransportType(NetworkCapabilities.TRANSPORT_WIFI);
    manager.requestNetwork(builder.build(), new ConnectivityManager.NetworkCallback() {
        @Override
        public void onAvailable(Network network) {
            if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.M) {
                manager.bindProcessToNetwork(network);
            } else {
                //This method was deprecated in API level 23
                ConnectivityManager.setProcessDefaultNetwork(network);
            }
            try {
                //do a callback or something else to alert your code that it's ok to send the message through socket now
            } catch (Exception e) {
                e.printStackTrace();
            }
            manager.unregisterNetworkCallback(this);
        }
    });
}

After you finish you should stop binding the process with this:

if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.M) {
    ConnectivityManager manager = (ConnectivityManager) InovePlugApplication.getContext()
            .getSystemService(Context.CONNECTIVITY_SERVICE);
    manager.bindProcessToNetwork(null);
} else if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.LOLLIPOP) {
    ConnectivityManager.setProcessDefaultNetwork(null);
}

This answer helped me unsderstand how to do it https://stackoverflow.com/a/29837637/2550932.