Teracube One Android 10 updates

Teracube One
#151

Hello everyone!

I know everyone is pretty tired of waiting on the A10 update, I know we are pretty late on it. So, I want to formally introduce myself and give you a tiny peek inside and some things that have been cooking.

About me
I’m Kshitij, also known as “AgentFabulous” on XDA. I have been involved with multiple Android opensource projects, creating new user experiences, and reversing and patching things to better support MediaTek devices on ROMs that would normally support only QCOM devices. I actively play with upstream experimental/preview/beta AOSP sources too. I have been working at Teracube, with the development team for some time now.

Current Progress
Most of you are probably waiting on the Android 10 build. The build has been resubmitted and is being certified. We’ve had the build come back a few times with some tests failing and have fixed everything now. If all goes as planned, the next time we hear back from our partner, we should have good news. The open beta test has given us a ton of great feedback and we’re still working on improving things like battery life, usability and overall user experience; the team receives feedback literally as soon as you post here.

Teracube One and Teracube 2e
I’ve read this concern a couple of times, that “with the new device the updates will slow down.” To counter this, we have unified the two projects into the same BSP to avoid long delays. While you may not see unified builds on T2e anytime soon, it allows us to speed up work for the next Android version and for when the board partner decides to stop providing support.

"Next Android version" you say?
You heard me right. With unity-firmware able to support both devices via the same codebase, porting a new version of Android to the Unity BSP we can rebase once and serve both. We have started work on Android 11 parallel to the A10 development. Here’s T1 and T2e running Android 11 (this is not a ROM or GSI, but a full WiP redo of the BSP):

IMG_20210526_114203
IMG_20210526_1142032320×1736 1.28 MB

This is experimental and super early but to give you context of time, this initial BSP port took just under 2 weeks. We can’t promise you of a timeline/ETA on 11 yet, but things are way closer than they appear.
Let’s talk 12: Google releases very little usable code on previews and betas. Once we have 11 under control, we will in-parallel also start porting changes to 12 to speed work up for the actual release.

That’s cool and all, what’s taking so long though?
Testing. You have probably heard about it a gazillion times from us, but I’ll be real with you, this was our first time running all test suites ourselves, internally. As a consumer, you shouldn’t have to care about it but, we feel its our responsibility to be more transparent and let you guys know of where we are, why we slowed down and what we are doing to tackle it. Running all of CTS, CTS-Verifier, CTS-on-GSI, VTS, STS and GTS from scratch on just 1-2 devices takes 2-3 weeks. We learned this pretty late. To counter it, we are now working on scaling our testing infra.

How does the community provide updates faster, as Custom ROMs?
ROMs don’t need to care of certification. We have the capacity and capability of serving uncertified beta updates on a monthly basis; we already do this internally, for the most part. From early Android porting to regular feature and security updates, it’s all super doable but not super certifiable. Some may argue that ROMs are somehow “certified” and have GPay working/SafetyNet passing. Yes, but its not as simple as it sounds. They include workarounds to spoof device identifiers to Pixel hardware, so GMS thinks the build is “certified”. (Not gonna go into how things are spoofed/worked-around on ROMs in this post, but will gladly explain if anyone is interested :D) We cannot really use such workarounds, as an OEM. That said, we are working closely with a few teams to better support MediaTek platforms on ROMs and to boost community support for Teracube Devices.

11 Likes
#152

Thank you so much, Kshitij.

Further insight into these processes is incredibly appreciated, and helps provide some context into what the delays are and what they mean.

Does the unified BSP also net us a newer kernel and other nice goodies? That will be critical for Android 12 and beyond.

I’m glad you’re involved!

7 Likes
#153

Thanks for the info @AgentFabulous

6 Likes
#154

I love all this info! I often just couldn’t figure out the TWRP project because it’s so hard to find info on mediatek for Android development. Thank you so much for this info and your work!

5 Likes
#155


Unified does not entail a new kernel, but nothing prevents us from trying and porting newer kernels. While it is possible, it isn’t top priority since bringing up a new kernel takes time, effort and extensive debugging and manual testing. Upstreaming is still doable, but porting new LTS or even mainline is not something we can do right away. We may consider this later on, once we have some update rollouts in better control. That said, even with the current downstream kernels, they are regularly patched as per Google’s Security Bulletins (STS tests will fail if we miss patches :smile:).


Most devices in terms of Custom ROMs and recoveries are pretty similar, may they be QCOM or MTK. I’d love to look through T1’s existing community work and contribute to it, but it’ll be a while before I can get around to that and get back to T2e TWRP/ROM things. @Gagan is already doing pretty cool stuff on 2e.

5 Likes
#156

Glad to report that our Android 10 build has passed GMS certification :slight_smile:. Read more and install it here.

Kudos to the Dev team, thanks for all Alpha/Beta testers and thanks to all T1 users for being patient.

8 Likes
#157

Well wife and I have upgraded to Android 10. So far seems to be working well. Only one app had a freak out but solved it. Seems to be the same to a bit better on the power usage but I did switch to dark theme now that I have 10. Camera seems to focus better than on 9. As had minor issues scanning QR codes and such in 9. I agree I do like the original start up animation better but not the end of the world as I shouldn’t need to restart to often and it is only the start up.
Blue tooth doesn’t seem to have the connection issues like 9 did but I have only been testing for 2 days. 1 day with blue tooth in car.

2 Likes
#158

Seems to be working well. It is not my daily driver now because I did have to replace while waiting but it’s a good burner or spare.

2 Likes
#159

So far so good for me as well. My only gripe would be the fact that I can’t remove the google search bar and the gigantic date from the home screen. :joy:

Really loving the dark mode and all that jazz, though. Definitely an upgrade overall.

1 Like
#160

I’m preparing to do the Android 10 upgrade.
Will it completely wipe the apps on my phone and start with a fresh OS? Or will it keep everything intact. My largest concern is having to go through all the service I log into with 2FA using Authy/Google Authenticator applications requiring to be changed.
Cheers,
G.

#161

It was just a simple upgrade where everything was maintained. You might have to re-login to a couple of apps but it’s not a fresh start from scratch.

2 Likes
#162

Thanks Adam!

#163

Very easy update and seems to be running very smoothly. Woohoo!!!

1 Like
#164

Same here. Very easy and painless update. Thank you for all of your efforts getting it out!

1 Like
#165

Are there any plans to have this update on our phones automatically? Or we still to wait for long

What is still pending??

El El vie, 4 jun 2021 a las 22:34, Sharad via Teracube Community <community@myteracube.com> escribiĂł:

#166

From my understanding it should be soon. They are making a last min fix for a signal issue. They had said pushing out I think this week over the air but maybe a touch longer to ensure proper connection. But it will be coming. I am testing the latest release it was discovered on. Other wise the release feels pretty great.
Hope that helps.

#167

We have a new 10.0.1 build out.

2 Likes
#168

uh oh. I was at dinner and my phone was acting weird. I was in an app that required location and it wouldn’t pick up my location. Tried closing an relaunching the app a few times and still wouldn’t recognize my location so I decided to restart the phone. I got the teracube logo and was asked to put in my pattern password, after that, black. No response. My phone is dead. Tried powering on and nothing. Tried plugging in and powering on and nothing. Left on charger for a bit and powering on, nothing. When plugged in, led indicator is red. Nothing is working. Any suggestions to get be back up an running? @Sharad probably have a warranty claim coming in fyi, would appreciate an expedition, obviously willing to do the deposit.

#169

Found instructions for recovery mode. [ Troubleshooting ] Recovery Mode

I was able to get the phone to come on with the “reboot system now” option. I am going to test a few things out, will provide an update a little later today after I have some time to observe how the phone is working.

#170

6/28 UPDATE: My phone was showing as 3% once it came to life this morning after the recovery mode boot up. This is weird because when my phone went dead on Friday I remember having roughly ~80% battery, maybe it drained over the weekend sitting idle. Not sure it means anything but I thought it was worth a note.

I got it charged up and input my SIM card in. I did a restart just to get a clean slate with the SIM in and all went well. I then did a shutdown so that I could boot up in recovery mode again and do a wipe of my partition cache because I remember a couple of years ago on my Pixel with having issues after going from one version of Android to another and I found there was a recommendation that after major updates that a partition cache wipe was a good idea to avoid issues. While trying to get into recovery mode again I accidentally just did a regular boot and the phone began it’s normal start up procedures. I got the teracube logo, the pattern unlock request, the teracube logo again then a black screen again with no response. Additionally the phone was plugged in while doing this boot so I got the red LED light again. I tried doing a normal power on again and it wouldn’t boot up. So I did a recovery mode start up and was able to get in like I did earlier this morning (note I did the partition cache wipe at this point) and this time the battery showed 90%. Maybe the wipe will do the trick to keep it from happening again. Anyways it appears this issue I am having is only occurring during boot. I don’t restart my phone often so probably something I can live with for now.

I will be keeping an extra eye on performance and anything weird, more to come.

6/29: UPDATE: Nothing else to report really. Everything seems to be working normally. I haven’t attempted a restart again, might try that today.

7/1 UPDATE: Had to do a restart today after unbearable connectivity on cell network. Same thing, end in a black screen only to be powered on in recovery mode. Absolutely 100% wild to me that no one else has commented. Anyone else having this issue? Teracube trying to reproduce? Something isn’t right with my phone.