QR code to launch Tulip app

Hi all… is it possible to launch a Tulip app by scanning a QR code?

Hi @vch, I have launching apps from links in the near term on my roadmap (meaning actively planning / designing right now). tagging @markjfreedman, as he’s done some experimenting and hacking doing exactly that, getting apps to launch from a QR code.

just so I hear it in your own words, can you tell me the use case? how did you imagine using QR codes?

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Hi @SamFromTulip , I was thinking to use the camera on our ipad to scan the QR code to open the app. I imagine in future when we have many apps in 1 station, it’ll be a bit cumbersome to search the correct app… so it’ll be nice if we can open the app directly from QR code (displayed in related equipment or room).

interesting. that makes me think you’re using iPads or Android tablets, that aren’t necessarily tied to a physical place, and this is your way of associating the app to the place?

personally, I love having stickers and labels on stuff, especially if it’s helping you find the right thing at the right time. the QR code for that is clever.

@SamFromTulip yes… in some cases, we’re sharing 1 iPad for a couple of rooms and equipments.

@vch This is definitely doable and there are a number of ways to accomplish it.

  1. If you are using an iPad you can access your Tulip application by following the url http://youraccount.tulip.co/player?app=the application id. This could be made into a QR code that would open the URL.
  2. If you are using an android, you can download the Tulip application and replace the http:// with tulip-player:// and it will open up the application.
  3. Make a home page application and let the Tulip app do the work for you. Maybe on QR code scan you want to have a number of different things happen depending on logic. If that’s the case, you could use Tulip to scan a QR code and pull up a table record that has instructions for which app to navigate to and other actions to perform.

These methods will work pretty well if the device is already a registered device, assigned to a station. The browser or android app will be recognized by Tulip and will be allowed to view the app. The challenge comes if you have a device which is trying to access Tulip for the first time. If this is your situation then there are a few workarounds we could explore. The product team is working to make it so that the workarounds are not necessary. Based on your comments, above, I’m thinking that one of the 3 options above will work.

What do you think? Will that work?

HI @freedman I just tried the link and open in my browser (my laptop is registered) and that works really well. For no. 3, yeah I was thinking the same thing, create a navigation app to open other apps. Thanks for your suggestion, definitely helps a lot.

Hi @freedman , I wonder why I can’t see app ID from app editor? I remember that it should be there beside the “last modified”

Hey @vch,

You can see the app ID in the url of your browser. I made a video today walking through this setup process. I also cover what this would look like with NFC tags.

Let me know if you have any other questions-
Pete

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Locking this topic thanks to @Pete_Hartnett video above that shows how to do it. Open up new topics here in #product-suggestions if you want changes to the feature or behavior, in #how-do-i if you need some help, or in #show-and-tell if you did it yourself!