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Determining Honeywell Maintenance Release numbers

If you use Honeywell’s Enterprise provisioner, their configuration tool, you need to use the settings file that matches the Android version and maintenance release number of the device you are using.

These settings files can be downloaded from the Honeywell software download site (https://hsmftp.honeywell.com/) under Software and Tools, Device Management, Enterprise Provisioner, Provisioning Bundles.

A typical description of a bundle is: “EP Bundle to be used with Android 11 MR 04 Mobility Edge Devices”.

It’s easy enough to find out the version of Android in Settings, About, but where is the Maintenance Release number?

If you scroll to the bottom of the About screen you’ll see that the last entry is a Build number; for example 94.00.03 (0037).

The MR number is the last two number after the last period. In this case it’s MR3. Scroll down the file listing of provisioning bundles and you’ll see a file named HON660Settings_93-94.00.03.exe with a description of “EP Bundles to be used with Android 12 MR 03 Mobility Edge devices”.

Download this file and run it.  Start (or restart) Enterprise Provisioner and you can now select that setting file from the drop down list:

 

 

 

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Enterprise Browser License Error Message

One of our customers purchased a number of CT60s and licenses for ICP (Intermec Client Pack), which consists of Launcher, Terminal Emulation, and Enterprise Browser. The license is perpetual, but the software maintenance that comes with the initial purchase expires after a year.

Without maintenance, you are not eligible for software upgrades or support, but the software itself will still function. Our customer’s CT60s began displaying this error message a year after purchase:

Needless to say, this message caused some concern. We purchased a one month maintenance license (part # DCP-SFT1M) for each device to ensure that they continued to work and applied them to all of their CT60s except for one.

Once the expiration date went by, the warning messages disappeared, even on the one device that we left untouched. The software continued to work.

Our conclusion was the the license error messages were incorrect.

 

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Setting a CK65 back to factory default

Here’s the procedure to set a CK65 back to the initial shipping from factory state.

Restart the CK65 by holding down the power button and selecting Restart from the pop up menu.

When the Honeywell splash screen appears, press and hold the green button and hold down the power button. Release these keys when the Restart Boot Loader screen appears.

Press the green button until the Full Factory Reset screen appears, then press the power button.

The CK65 will erase all data and do a Factory Reset.

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Honeywell CK65 RF settings

Any RF settings other than the typical set up of SSID and security are not so easy to find on the CK65. Here are two configuration locations for Android 10:

Go to Settings, Network & Internet, and tap on the SSID you are currently using. A sprocket icon will appear to the right of your network name, tap on it. Now tap on the pencil icon at the top of the screen. You’ll be prompted to enter the password and the SIP keyboard will pop up. Minimize the SIP keyboard and you’ll be able to scroll down and change from DHCP to a static IP number.  If these are not visible, tap on Advanced Options. Restart the CK65 after you’ve switched from DHCP to Static, or vice versa.

To get to the Honeywell Proprietary RF settings go to Settings, Location, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth scanning, and turn W-Fi scanning off. Next, go to Settings, Network & Internet, and toggle off  the Wi-Fi switch to the right of your SSID name. Tap on Wi-Fi (which should now be off) then Wi-Fi preferences, Advanced, scroll down and tap on Honeywell Proprietary Settings. You can now modify these settings as needed.

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CK65 Enter Key does not work in Honeywell Launcher

When you start Honeywell’s Launcher application it automatically changes the pop up keyboard type (SIP) to the Honeywell Enhanced keyboard and it disables all other keyboard choices.

If you start Chrome within Launcher you’ll notice that the Enter key on the CK65’s physical keyboard doesn’t work. You can enable Gboard when you’re in Chrome which fixes the issue but it will occur again when the CK65 reboots or Launcher is restarted.

To get around this you have to modify the Launcher XML configuration file. To do this, click on the three vertical dots on the top right corner of Launcher and select Export Configuration.

Exit Launcher and turn on Provisioning Mode within Honeywell settings then put the CK65 in a dock connected to a PC with a USB cable. Enable File Transfer by swiping down from the top of the screen.  Scroll down the notification list and  tap on the last item on the list to enable File Transfer. On your PC you should see a file named Honeywell Launcher.xml in the Honeywell folder on the CK65.

Copy this file to your desktop and use Notepad to edit this entry:

<Key name=”key_gboard_mode” desc=”Keep Gboard option in Soft keyboard” flags=”16″>false</Key>

Change the value from “false” to “true” then copy the XML file back to the CK65’s folder \honeywell\persist.

Reboot the CK65 and start Launcher. You will now see Gboard as an available SIP choice. Enable it the enter key will begin working. Android will remember your keyboard choice so this change will persist through reboots.

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Upgrading a Honeywell CK75 Android version

First, download the operating system files, either GMS (Google Mobile Services) or Non-GMS from Honeywell’s FTP site. You’ll need to sign up for an account if you are not registered.

Navigate to Software, Computer Devices, Handheld, CK75 CN75 CN75e, Android 6, Current, Device Image, GMS (or Non-GMS). Download the file that has an “sd” in the  file name. You’ll need Honeywell’s Download Manager; there’s a link to it on the FTP page.

Unzip the files into a temporary folder. Insert a micro SD card into your PC and format it as FAT32. Copy the entire contents of the unzipped folder onto the root of the SD card. Power down the CK75 and open the back cover above he battery, there are three screws holding it down. Insert the micro SD card into the slot; refer to the manual if you need help with this.

Replace the cover, turn on the CK75 and place it into a powered dock. The files on the SD card will be detected on boot up, a Honeywell logo will display,  and after 8 minutes or so an animation appears on screen:

In another 4 minutes the CK75 will reboot to a Honeywell screen. In another 3 to 4 minutes the Android Welcome screen will appear and walk you through the initial set up. When this is done, power off the CK75 and remove the SD card.

Next, navigate to the same folder on Honeywell’s FTP server, but instead of GMS or Non-GMS select the CommonES folder and download the .zip file. This file contains updates to the Honeywell programs on the CK75. Connect the CK75 to your PC (refer to the manual if you don’t know how to do this) and copy the downloaded .zip file (don’t expand it) to IPSM\honeywell\autoinstall folder. You may have to create this last folder yourself.

Go to the main apps page on the CK75 and select AutoInstall. Make sure that AutoInstall is enabled, then click on “Packages upgrade”. You’ll see the various programs being updated. When complete, delete the .zip file from the \IPSM\honeywell\autoinstall folder. The package updater does not clean this up automatically and the upgrade will install on each boot unless you manually delete this file.

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Connecting a Serial Scanner to a Honeywell VM3 running Windows 7

The VM3 manual tells you to go to Control Panel, Enterprise Settings, Data Collection to set this up, but there is no Enterprise Settings (formerly Intermec Settings) to select in the control panel.

To access Enterprise Settings, start File Manager and navigate to \Program Files(x86)\Intermec\IVA\bin and right click on the “Intermec Settings” program. Add a shortcut to your desktop and you’ll have access to the features described in the manual.

Note: Select ASCII as the scanner type for a serial scanner and match the baud rate, parity, data bits, and stop bits and you’ll be good to go. If not, make sure the Virtual Wedge is enabled; it’s the last choice in the main menu.

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Replacement vehicle dock power supply for 203-808-001

I have a customer that has been using powered CK3 vehicle docks on their fork trucks for a number of years and they needed another power supply, part number 208-808-001,  for a new fork truck. I found out that Honeywell had phased out this part, though not the vehicle dock itself. I called tech support and the parts department and was told that there is no replacement for this power supply. This part is used for both the CK3 and CK75 powered vehicle docks.

However, Honeywell still sells a vehicle power supply for the CV61, part number 203-779-001. I called tech support and found that it uses the same DC/DC converter as the CK3 kit, 851-070-003, but it has different output cables. The CK3K kit looks like this:

There’s an input cable on the top left, an output cable on the top right, and some mounting hardware, an in line fuse, etc. in the two bags. The power supply itself has one four pin input connector and two outputs, a two and three pin connector:

The output cables for the CV61 are different than the vehicle docks. But, if you purchase part # 226-341-007, a three pin to three pin power output cable, along with the CV61 power supply, 203-779-001, you’ll have what you need to hook up your CK3 or CK75 vehicle dock.

 

 

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Improving the Performance of a Honeywell CK3X Computer

We were at a customer site recently that has been using Intermec CKB computers for the past seven years. The CK3B is going end of service at the end of this year, so they purchased some CK3X computers to begin replacing the older units.

When we asked how the new units were working they told us that nobody was using them because they were slower than the CK3Bs.  This was surprising since the the CK3X has a faster processor, a faster radio, and more memory than the CK3B.  Both computers were running the same program and were connected to the same access points.

We confirmed the issue by doing an inventory transfer transaction with both computers which hit the database multiple times. The transaction validates the location and item number then does an update to a location table. The CK3B’s response time was about half a second while the CK3X took over a second to do the same transaction.

The culprit turned out to be the power setting on the radio.  By default the CK3X is configured Fast PSP (Power Saving Protocol) which turns off the radio at idle times to save battery life. When we switched this to CAM (Constant Awake Mode) the CK3X outperformed the CK3B. It seems that the CK3X radio was going to sleep in between transactions. This is probably a mistake by Honeywell aggressively trying to maximize battery life.

We did some testing to see how much the CAM setting impacted battery life. We pinged a CK3X every two seconds until the battery died and found that when in Fast PSP mode the battery ran for an average of 21 hours and ran for 14 hours in CAM mode, or a one third reduction in battery life.

Since 14 hours if well past the full shift needed for a battery, we think that CAM should be enabled for the CK3X, and that the increase in performance is worth the loss in battery life, especially when transactions are doing a lot of I/O.

To get to this setting on the CK3X click on Start, Settings, System, then Intermec Settings. Next, go to Communications, 802.11 Radio, Funk Security,  Profile 1, and scroll down. Under the SSID will be two radio buttons for Power Mode.

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CN80 Preliminary Test Results

We got a couple of demo CN80 computers from Honeywell and were surprised by the results of some of the testing we put it through.

The first is the range of the radio. Normally, we’d see a Honeywell reader drop off the network at when it got 350 to 400 feet away from an access point. We were able to get over 700 feet away with the CN80. We repeated the test with an old Cisco 1242 access point (802.11g only) to see if it was beam forming that accounted for the extended range, but we got the same results with the old access point. This will be of great interest to anyone who has an outdoor wireless network.

The second surprising result was the standard range 2D scanner, which uses the Honeywell N6603ER engine. We enabled DPM mode and it read most of our DPM samples as well, if not better than dedicated DPM scanners. It’s performance was very impressive.