I'm excited to announce Ekos Live, which is in beta now!
1. What is Ekos Live?
It's a real-time web application that can be run from any browser. It allows you to control many aspects of Ekos right from the browser. It is built around material-ui from Google, so it is very friendly for mobiles & tablets on any platform.
It should also enable the user to upload and save images to the cloud (not implemented now, but later) with the ability to search, tag, share, sort images..etc.
2. When will it launch?
Sometime in July 2018 I hope, if all goes well with the beta testing.
3. Who will participate in the beta testing?
Oh, I'm glad you asked that! I am looking for 5 (might expand this later) dedicated individuals with technical backgrounds who are willing to test Ekos Live and submit feedback. You must know how to compile code from Git. If you're interested, let me know.
4. Is this going to be free?
Yes! There will be two tiers, a free tier, and a paid tier. This depends on bandwidth usage which we have to pay for somehow, in addition to hosting charges..etc
4.1 Free Ekos Live: Would support most functionality, but no cloud storage and bandwidth per month is limited (limit is not yet decided).
4.2. Paid Ekos Live: Would support all functionality with no bandwidth limits. Traffic is prioritized in case of congestion over the free plan. Plus other small benefits.
5. Is this a replacement for Ekos?
No! It's a
complementary service as it utilizes Ekos in the backend.
6. Do I need to buy StellarMate to use Ekos Live?
Negative! It would work with KStars/Ekos starting with version 2.9.7 to be released in July 2018.