Amber iX (0.6.6) Mobile Companion App Guide

Amber iX (0.6.6) Mobile Companion App Tutorial for users with an Amber X

Topics: 

1. What’s in your Amber iX app?
2. How to set up your Amber X?
3. Automatically backup your camera roll to Amber X.
4. iCloud Backup Option
5. View your backed-up photos, from every device, in one place.
6. Organize your photos using Albums.
7. Sharing to other apps.
8. File Explorer.
9. Sharing a file or folder with others.
10. Casting to the big screen.
11. Watching movies on the go.
12. What if you have multiple Amber X?

1. What's in your Amber iX App?                    

Here is the top-level navigation guide:   

1. Amber iX Home screen.
2. AmberCloud account folder.
3. Amber top page.
4. Notification and Tasks.
5. Settings.

1. Amber iX Home Screen

This is the place where you:

• Control whether to enable auto-backup of your mobile device's camera-roll (to your Amber X) and check the status of the backup.
• See who has shared something with you from their AmberCloud account or their Amber devices.
• Access your app’s Offline Folder.

2. AmberCloud Folder 

Here is where you can access the files and folders you create (if you choose to) in the cloud (your AmberCloud account).

3. Amber top page

This is where you access resources available on your Amber device: 

• My Photos (all your indexed photos).
• My Albums (albums you created).
• File (explorer for general files and folders).
• Shared by Me (manage all the things you shared with others from your Amber device).

4. Notification and Tasks

5. Settings 

This is the place for miscellaneous settings changes. 

Most importantly, if you want to change some settings of your Amber X device, or if you want to add a new Amber X, you will have to come to the Settings page.   

Note that we consider changing Amber X settings a high-security event. We only allow this type of access with a direct login to your Amber X when your mobile device is connected to the same local network as your Amber X.

 

2. How to set up your Amber X?                    

While the main function of the Amber iX app is to allow you to access your content on your Amber device or on your AmberCloud folder, it also enables you to set up the Amber X device itself. 

The initial setup of your new Amber X device is as follows: 

1. Create an AmberCloud account (or login to your existing AmberCloud account)

New Users: Verification code will be sent to your email. If you do not receive the code within 5-10 minutes, also check your Spam folder. 

2. Find and identify your new Amber X device 

3. Setup WiFi (this is recommended even if you intend to have ethernet as the primary means of connection).

4. Give your Amber X device a name (or accept the default name and change it later).

5. Your Amber X will automatically complete the setup process, which may take a couple of minutes to complete.

If you just follow the instructions and feedback provided, setup should be a breeze. 

Note: You will be offered to go through the initial setup of Amber X the first time you download the Amber iX app and create a new AmberCloud account (you are new to the Amber experience). 

If you already have an AmberCloud account, you won’t be greeted with an initial setup process.  To setup a new Amber X device, enter the Setup page of Amber iX app and click on “My Amber” and then “Add new Amber”. 

 

3. Automatically backup your camera roll to Amber X                   

If you are like many of us, you don’t know when you take pictures that you consider very private, such as a screenshot of your newly created password for some sites ☹.  If you cringe about uploading your most private photos to someone else’s cloud, and if you don’t have time to figure out what photos are super private and what aren’t, then Bring Your Data Home™ by automatically backing up your camera roll to your Amber X. 

Here’s how to do this: 

1. Go to your Amber iX home page (click on the lower-left Home icon) 

2. Click on the Enable Auto Backup button:

 3. Confirm the selection of Amber X for your backup destination.

Your backup status is displayed under the Camera Roll heading. 

4. iCloud Backup Option                 

You can enable iCloud Backup to backup photos from your iCloud account to Amber X. Toggle this feature under Settings > Backup & Upload > Camera Roll Backup > Backup Settings.

5. View your backed-up photos, from every device, in one place                   

Click on “>” to the right of the Camera Roll heading and look for the “cloud” icon overlaid at the upper right corner of the photo thumbnail. Any images without the “cloud” icon mean it has not yet been backed up. 

Tip: You can also select a photo here to send to other apps on your phone.

Photo-Viewer

Amber X indexes all photos you uploaded or backed up to Amber X and makes them accessible from your Amber iX app.  You may have multiple mobile devices and backed up all your photos to your Amber X.  You can view all of them simultaneously from any of your Amber iX app. 

Here’s how: 

1. Click to enter Amber's top page. 

2. You should see the most recent photos on your Amber top page.

Note: if you just started backing up or uploading photos, allow for several minutes for the photos to be indexed by your Amber X before they show up here.

3. Click on “My Photos” to enter the photo viewer (you will see the thumbnails of every photo that has been indexed by Amber X).

4. Scroll up and down - while scrolling, notice that a seek button will show up on the right side of the screen.  Move the seek bar up and down to scroll faster:

5. See a higher resolution photo preview by clicking on a photo. 

What else you can do inside the Photo-Viewer: 

1. In the thumbnail view you can select photos (click on the select icon at the upper right corner and then click on the photos to select). Selected photos can be: 

a. Downloaded to a local, Offline Folder.

b. Copied to somewhere else. 

2. In the preview mode, you can: 

a. Slide left or right to see the preview of the previous or next photo.

b. Launch a slide-show starting from the current preview (slideshow icon).

c. Upload the previewed photo to other apps (share out icon).

d. Download photo to Offline Folder.

e. Share the photo with other AmberCloud users or share using an anonymous link.

f. Copy the photos to somewhere else.

 

6. Organize your photos using Albums                   

Want to organize your photos better?  Create an album for related photos: 

1. Click to enter “My Albums”  

2. Click on the “+” button at the upper right corner to add an album  

3. Finish by following instructions on the app. 

Note: you can add any photos from the main photo-viewer to an album. Additional photo sources for album content creation will be added in follow-on releases. 

 

7. Sharing to other apps                   

Generally speaking, you can share/upload any content that is local to Amber iX to any other app, as long as the other app will accept it.  Note that most apps have file size limitations so you won’t be able to upload an any-sized file.  

We can quickly share to other apps the content of the camera roll (a system resource), and the content of Offline Folder since those content is local to Amber iX. 

For contents stored on an Amber X, Amber iX will first download the content and then share it out to the other app.  You will be prompted to download the file before the file is shared out.  Just be aware that it will take longer to do so than directly uploading a local file to other apps. 

 

8. File Explorer                     

Your photos are not the only things important to you.  You have fewer but perhaps even more important documents to safekeep and re-access later.  Amber X provides a general-purpose file store for all your documents. 

To access the files and folders on Amber X in a file explorer view, you can click on the “File” button on My Amber top page. 

9. Sharing a file or folder with others                     

You can share a file or folder with someone from the File explorer view.  Click on the “…” button to the right of any file or folder and then click “Share”.   A share-page will pop-up asking you to add the email address of everyone you want to share the file/folder to, and finally, click on the “Share” button.  This will allow the file/folder to be shared with people with the AmberCloud account identified by their email address. 

Note, you can also generate an anonymous link for sharing.  Just bear in mind that anyone who gains access to the anonymous link can access your file or folder.  If you are security-conscious we’d suggest that you don’t share using an anonymous link. 

Sharing to an AmberCloud account user is simple.  People who already have an AmberCloud account will just get the shared item in their incoming “Shared” folder (accessible from the Home page of Amber iX app), together with an email notification about the share.  If a person doesn’t yet have an AmberCloud account, we will invite them to join AmberCloud and once they have created an AmberCloud account they will see the shared item in the “Shared” folder in their Amber iX app. 

10. Casting on the Big Screen                     

Did you know that your Amber X can find the TV and Chromecast devices that are connected to the same local network?  And did you know that you can cast your photos and videos onto those TV and Chromecast devices? 

Amber X can cast its media content to a TV directly if the TV supports the DLNA protocol.  However, not all TV support the DLNA protocol properly.  Also, not all media content can be played by the TV (varies from TV to TV). 

Amber X comes with one HDMI port.  With the HDMI port, Amber X can display any content onto the connected TV as long as the content itself is supported by Amber X.  This type of connection will be the easiest to use. 

If you want to connect to a TV via DLNA network protocol, just give it a try to see which content can be played. 

How to cast: 

You can cast media content by clicking on the “Cast” button.  Your Amber iX will prompt you to choose the TV/Chromecast device to cast to.  If it cannot find any device but you are very sure that you have a connected device, please double check to make sure that your TV or Chromecast device is in the same local network as your Amber device. 

To manage a previously launched casting task, you can click on the “Cast” button at the upper right corner in the Amber page. 

More features and enhanced UX related to casting are coming later.

 

11. Watching Movies on the Go                     

All you need to do is to click on a movie file (from your File explorer view).  If you share a video to someone else, that person can also watch the video on the go using their Amber iX app.

12. What if you have multiple Amber X?                     

If you have multiple Amber devices, you can switch to a different Amber device at the top of Amber page by clicking on the drop-down arrow.

You will also notice that when you have multiple Amber devices, your Amber iX app will prompt you to choose from a list of Amber devices when appropriate.