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Cubeast - a speedcubing timer for Bluetooth cubes with support for all Bluetooth cubes, all timers and all major solving methods

cubeast

cubeast

Member
Joined
May 11, 2020
Messages
75

I'm excited to announce that the first version of Cubeast is live!


By leveraging the Bluetooth connectivity of modern cubes Cubeast aims to provide a new set of insights and tools to help you become a better cuber. It records, stores and analyzes all of your solves.

Main features:
  • solve analysis and playback - multiple methods supported (including Roux), new methods can be added easily
  • statistics for each method step
  • analysis of averages
  • support for slice moves even on cubes without gyroscopes, Cubeast will even try to guess wide turns and rotations in some cases
  • ability to generate a public link to your solve or average
  • comments and likes on shared solves
  • comprehensive statistics
  • support for all Bluetooth cubes currently on the market
  • support for all timers
I really believe Bluetooth cubing will be an important part of speedcubing in the future. I have a ton of ideas for future upgrades, among others:
  • battles & tournaments
  • training exercises to help with cross, alg learning, alg recognition etc
  • case & alg recognition during solve analysis, statistics per case and per algorithm
  • blindfolded solving

Those will be coming in future releases.

Enjoy and please send any feedback you have!
 
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I'm A Cuber said:
It’s pronounced cube beast?
Click to expand...

Just one word, like in the video.

Kit Clement said:
Why not the standard white top, green front for scrambling? This is going to be an incredibly annoying default for those who are very used to always scrambling in WCA orientation.
Click to expand...

It's fixed in the current version. I haven't had the time to record an updated video yet.
 
This software looks very promising. It might be a game changer for me if the reconstructions are easly available as it's such a pain to get them out of cube station app.

I have a problem however, that I can't connect my cube to the app. and I have read FAQ.

The gan356i app can connect to the gan cube station app, but the cubeast won't connect to it in Chrome. Do I need to pair up my phone with a cube first?
It's a relatively modern android phone (released in 2015).

Edit:
I managed to connect to the app and play around with it.
It's still in early development but it's already amazing and I already know that I will use it as my preferred smart-cube program.

The interface is easy to use, reliable and works very fast, stats about solves are already nice and easy to access / interpret.

I like how I can go over the solves from my training session looking e.g. for the F2L pairs that took me the most time to execute or recognize.
571e2813e69ab1b8b0721de7bfec577f.png
 
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I've been using the app for a few days now and I really like it, especially the recognition/execution distinction in the graph and in the statistics.

Will there be a possibility to choose between timed and untimed inspection in a future update?
 
I really like this! I was thinking about selling my Gan 356 I because I didn't think the stats in CubeStation would actually help me improve, but I think I will keep my cube now after I found Cubeast! The stats seem useful for helping me become faster. The only things I wish were added/fixed is a way to slow down the playback of my solve, it turns too fast for me to see what I am doing. Also, the reconstructions it gives are accurate in that they solve the cube, but it doesn't usually recognize my rotations, so in the reconstructions my solves have lots of B moves and S moves which in the actual solve I rotated and did R/M moves.
 
Owen Morrison said:
The only things I wish were added/fixed is a way to slow down the playback of my solve, it turns too fast for me to see what I am doing.
Click to expand...

For now you can either play the solve as it was done or go move by move. There's definitely space for improvement. Cool feature would be to highlight pieces that are being solved.

Owen Morrison said:
Also, the reconstructions it gives are accurate in that they solve the cube, but it doesn't usually recognize my rotations, so in the reconstructions my solves have lots of B moves and S moves which in the actual solve I rotated and did R/M moves.
Click to expand...

Yep. This one is a bit problematic. For now Cubeast doesn't use cube's gyroscope. First of all not all of the cubes have gyroscopes, second - even the ones in Gans are not that accurate. I think the only good solution for that problem for now would be to give the user the ability to edit the solve manually after it was done.

ortwin said:
To be able to enter my own scramble would be an important feature for me.
Click to expand...
That's coming very soon.
 
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I just got my first solve where it messed up. https://app.cubeast.com/public/share/3eO1LIFZooMBw6WhWE4Lrj although to be fair, I did mess up my cross, two of the cross pieces needed to be swapped.

Also, I have been getting a ton of +2s when I didn't actually get one, it seems like if the cube on the screen isn't solved then it gives me a +2, and the cube on the screen is like .1 seconds behind, so if I stop the timer right as I solve the cube it will often give me a +2.

EDIT: I just found out, if you mess up you cross but wait until PLL to fix it you won't get correct stats.
 
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Owen Morrison said:
I just got my first solve where it messed up. https://app.cubeast.com/public/share/3eO1LIFZooMBw6WhWE4Lrj although to be fair, I did mess up my cross, two of the cross pieces needed to be swapped.
Click to expand...

Yup, it thought you're solving red face down, because you actually completed the red cross before the yellow one. I'm not sure if there's a good solution in this situation. Stats from such a solve will always be useless, because you can't actually count a cross with two edges swapped as a completed cross for stats purposes. I guess I'd have to mark such solves as 'out of order' or 'non-CFOP' and not include them in stats. Let me know if you can think of a better approach.

Owen Morrison said:
Also, I have been getting a ton of +2s when I didn't actually get one, it seems like if the cube on the screen isn't solved then it gives me a +2, and the cube on the screen is like .1 seconds behind, so if I stop the timer right as I solve the cube it will often give me a +2.
Click to expand...

Ok, I'll try to work on this one. Basically the problem is that Bluetooth devices can always have some lag that can change in time. I'm doing my best on the Cubeast side to try to estimate what the lag was, but it's not 100% accurate of course. Luckily the Gan's have an internal clock which measures intervals between moves. I haven't been using it yet, because I was focusing on supporting all cubes until now, but I think I can work on it soon.

Plus I'll add measuring the time using the cube only (see below). It will provide a workaround (at the cost of some functionality).

MarkA64 said:
The timer should auto-stop on completion of the solve. Gyroscope support would be nice, but not needed if you can edit the solve.
Click to expand...

I'll be adding auto-stop very soon too. Although of course I want to keep the option to use a keyboard/timer/stackmat too. On my solves average pickup and put-down times sum up to ~0.75s, which obviously makes it impossible to compare keyboard/timer/stackmat solves with solves timed just using the cube.
 
That's coming very soon.
[/QUOTE]

There is another feature I wish for, my guess is that it will be quite simple to implement:

Please introduce another solving method: "OTHER"
There are other methods people might use: Petrus, Heise,... whatever.
When I choose one of the methods offered so far, cube rotations (x, y2 and so on) appear in the solution, often I don't wnat those, or I did do them different anyway. Very closely related are the slice moves (E, S,...) sometimes introduced into the solution, most of the time I want the solution without those and also the different steps make no sense if I use a different method.

What do you think, a reasonable wish?
 
ortwin said:
There is another feature I wish for, my guess is that it will be quite simple to implement:

Please introduce another solving method: "OTHER"
There are other methods people might use: Petrus, Heise,... whatever.
When I choose one of the methods offered so far, cube rotations (x, y2 and so on) appear in the solution, often I don't wnat those, or I did do them different anyway. Very closely related are the slice moves (E, S,...) sometimes introduced into the solution, most of the time I want the solution without those and also the different steps make no sense if I use a different method.

What do you think, a reasonable wish?
Click to expand...

First of all feel free to let me know if you want me to add methods that are not in Cubeast now. It's fairly easy for me to add new methods. I've just added Petrus yesterday.

Adding an 'Other' method is simple of course, but controlling whether slice turns, wide turns or rotations are recognized, would be a bit more work, because I'd basically have to let each user configure his preferred behavior. It can be done, but I'd place it further down on my to-do list.
 
Just to make sure there is no misunderstanding: the "Other" method I proposed is really the most simple one: no cube rotations, no slice turns, no wide turns. Just as primitive as that.
It would be even better if moves like R2' are written without the prime, just R2. Of course it is the same, but only without prime it can be entered dirctly into the weekly competitions (FMC) in the speedsolving site.
 
A short update on what's coming.

I've been getting some amazing feedback from everybody since Cubeast launched. The amount of feature ideas I've been getting is mind boggling and it would easily take years to develop them all ;) I've sorted all the issues and feature requests according to the priority and this is what I'm going to be working on in the coming weeks / months.
  1. Mobile view - to save time I didn't really concentrate on making Cubeast look good on mobile devices. It works, but the experience is not that great. I'm now redesigning all the views to look great on mobile. Plus, I'm making Cubeast a Progressive Web App so the overall experience will be very similar to a native app.
  2. Competition vs training modes - competition mode will force you to use a timer started with your hands, random scrambles and a 15 second inspection. Training mode will allow you to use the cube as a timer, set a scramble and change the inspection duration. You'll have all the stats for both modes.
  3. Changes in how sessions and averages currently work - the usability there is not great and could use some improvement
  4. Improvements in handling lag with Gan 356i - with other cubes there's nothing I can do. Poor Bluetooth connections will just make the cube unusable. Luckily with the Gans there's a couple of tricks one can do.
  5. Racing / battles - ability to create rooms where people could race each other. Maybe a ranking system for 1v1 random battles.
Thanks for all the feedback!
 
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