Live activity as alternative to location services #2120
Description
Discussed in #2112
Originally posted by HealsCodes April 8, 2025
I just wanted to pitch this in as it has proven to be a viable way to keep connections running long-term and is used by a number of popular terminal emulators on the AppStore like Termix and Terminus.
Right now, to ensure our connections survive long-term with Blink in the background or the device locked we have to enable locations services via geo track. It’s a great idea and works well but it also add a somewhat pointless extra battery drain.
I understand that it was pretty much the only solution to this when Blink was first conceived but on newer iOS / iPadOS version there’s an easier alternative: Live Activities.
If an application registers a Live Activity iOS will keep the app active and running in the background for as long as the user doesn’t dismiss the Live Activity.
A lot of terminal emulators now employ this - some in addition to a location fallback - as a stable means to keep SSH connections running for days at end or longer.
Would be great if we could see this added in a future Blink.sh update as an alternative to geo location!