Getting started on Android

This page explains how to install the Smart Instream SDK into an Android application. This is the first step to complete before delivering instream ads in your video content.

  1. Prerequisites
  2. Advertising ID
  3. Installation using Gradle
  4. Location
  5. Network Security Configuration

Prerequisites

There are some prerequisites to use the instream SDK:

  • You need to use Android Studio 3.0 or higher
  • For phone apps, you need to target at least Android 4.4 (API level 19) or higher
  • For TV apps, you need to target at least Android 5.0 (API level 21) or higher
  • AndroidX migrated application (starting from 7.7.0 Smart Instream SDK version)) .

Advertising ID

The Smart Instream SDK uses the Google Advertising ID of the device, which will be sent during ad calls. You should always comply with your local laws, check the Privacy laws compliancy page for more details.

The Google Advertising ID might be unavailable on some devices, either because the user has opted-out in the device settings or because the device does not implement the Google Play Services. When the Google Advertising ID is not available, the SDK will not send any advertising ID.

Installation via Gradle

To import the Smart Instream SDK into your Android project, here are the steps to follow:


  • In the main build.gradle of your project, you must declare the repository where the Smart Instream SDK is hosted.
    If you intend to support Huawei devices that do not feature Google services anymore (needed for Advertising Id retrieval), you also need to declare the Huawei support libraries repository:
    allprojects {
	repositories {
		google()
		jcenter()

		// add the Smart repository
		maven { url 'https://packagecloud.io/smartadserver/android/maven2' }

		// Optional: Huawei services dependencies repository
		maven { url 'https://developer.huawei.com/repo/' }

		// …
	}
}
  • In the dependencies section of your application module build.gradle file, declare the Smart Instream SDK artifact dependency and the optional Huawei support library:
    dependencies {
	// …

	// Add Smart Instream SDK
	implementation 'com.smartadserver.android:smart-instream-sdk:7.24.1'

	// Optional : add Smart support library for Huawei devices
	implementation 'com.smartadserver.android:smart-core-sdk-huawei-support:1.0.0'

}

    All dependencies needed by the Smart Instream SDK will be automatically imported by Gradle.

  • In the android section of your application module build.gradle file, add the Java 8 compile options needed by some imported libraries:
    android {
    // …

    compileOptions {
        targetCompatibility = JavaVersion.VERSION_1_8
        sourceCompatibility = JavaVersion.VERSION_1_8
    }
}
  • You can now proceed with the integration of your ads by following the integration guide.

Location

For ad targeting purposes, the Smart Instream SDK can automatically send the latest known user location, if already made available to the application (The Smart Instream SDK will never actively try to retrieve user location).
This automatic location retrieval is disabled by default, and you can enable as follows, provided that one of the location permissions is granted to the application, and that the User consent was properly collected for ad targeting purpose regarding his location. 

		  SASConfiguration.getSharedInstance().setAutomaticLocationAllowed(true);

Network Security Configuration

Since Android 9 (API level 28), the default network security configuration is not as lenient as it was on previous versions: all network requests must use HTTPS protocol, basic HTTP requests will be blocked by default.

Even though the ad industry progresses towards full HTTPS support, it might happen that some medias are not hosted on secured servers. To avoid your ads being blocked by the default network security configuration, you should create your own network security configuration XML file.


In your res folder, create the folder xml (if not created yet) then create a file named network-security-configuration.xml.

Your file must be formatted like this (note: this was the default network security configuration for Android 6.0 (API level 23)): 


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<network-security-config>
  <base-config>
	  <trust-anchors>
		  <certificates src="system" />
		  <certificates src="user" />
	  </trust-anchors>
  </base-config>
</network-security-config>

Once the file created, make sure to add android:networkSecurityConfig="@xml/network_security_config" in the application tag of your AndroidManifest.xml file. For instance: 


<application
android:name=".MyApplication"
android:icon="@mipmap/ic_launcher"
android:label="@string/app_name"
android:networkSecurityConfig="@xml/network_security_config">
</application>