Smart Alarm Clock for Android

About Smart Alarm Clock for Android

2011-11-11T10:10:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the home site of Smart Alarm Clock application for Android phones.

This application tracks body movements and calculates the best time for staring alarm sound. Just put it somewhere on your bed: your phone's movements sensor (also known as accelerometer) is sensitive enough to work from any part of the bed.

Maybe don't like getting up in the morning, but with this application, at least you can!

Do you have any questions? Please feel free to comment!

How does it work?

It rings right after your last dream is over (you probably will remember it.)
This is the best time to wake up; that's why it can make your life better.

Here's how it looks based on user reviews:

You have a dream, as the last stage of your sleep cycle
You realize that you are dreaming because it became odd or comes to the logical end
To change the dream you decide to roll over

If nothing happens, then people completely forget about this and fall into a deep sleep shortly. But, here begins the magic!

Right in that moment your favorite song starts to play somewhere far away, getting louder and louder
You wake up in a cheerful mood, ready to start a perfect day!

Scientific explanation

A typical sleep cycle has five stages and takes 90-110 minutes. During Stage 1 of your sleep cycle, you sleep lightly. At Stage 2, your sleep gets progressively deeper. At Stages 3 and 4, also known as "Delta Sleep," you sleep most heavily; this is when your body rebuilds itself.

Stage 5 of sleep, also known as REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, is marked by extensive physiological changes, such as accelerated respiration, increased brain activity, rapid eye movement, and muscle relaxation. People dream during REM sleep.

Who does need it?

Just anyone.

Anyone who wants to wake up alert and ready to start the day, such as frequent travelers across time zones, business people looking for an extra edge, students with fluctuating schedules... just anyone.

There is small amount of people who don't need an alarm clock to wake up on time, but if you aren't one of them, you'd probably need the best alarm clock to get up refreshed.

Good news, everybody!

2010-02-12T01:30:00.000-08:00

I'm attending Android Labs event in Zurich and Reto Meier, developer say they have a bugfix and are going to push it in the next OTA update, at least for Nexus One. That's really great!

New website

2010-01-28T07:48:00.000-08:00

I've just created a new website for this application:
www.smart-alarm-clock.com
Please update all your bookmarks and links - this will be it's name for a long time.

It's not yet filled with details and documentation, but we are working on it.
This blog is now available as blog.smart-alarm-clock.com, and will be used as a blog, and not as a website anymore.

Right now I'm busy working on Not Responding problems when alarm rings and already see the solution.

Kind regards,
Alexander

Some Myths

2010-01-24T06:44:00.000-08:00

I browsed through all your comments - thanks a lot for sharing your ideas and thoughts!

Yesturday I released an update that fights a force-close error when the alarm rings and adds experimental support for Droid and Milestone (the firmware bug is still there, ufortunately).

So, I would like to answer to some Myths.

Internet use

by Sharon G. 08/01/2010
Used for a week. Removed after i noticed it would connect to the web all night long. By ANY means necessary.

Basically, this is not true. It connects to the Internet only when you publish a rating of your morning. It sends user score, start time, acutal alarm time, deadline time and a random number (to identify the particular phone).

That's all - no personal details, no ways to contact you, no means to identify. I use this information to make a research and improve your experience.

If you are really worried about this:
- you can automatically switch the Airplane mode during the night, so nothing could be send
- go to Preferences and uncheck Upload your feedback - application will not connect at all.

(will add more a bit later)

Feedback in the morning

2009-12-06T15:25:00.000-08:00

Smart Alarm Clock now asks for your feedback in the morning.
This anonymous information will really help us to improve tracking algorithm and make your mornings even better!

Ratings are sent to secure Google Spreadsheets form and contain only anonymous information which cannot be used to identify or contact you. So, please enable feedback collecting and uploading.

Smart Alarm Clock needs your help to fix a bug

2009-12-04T15:51:00.000-08:00

Dear friend,

While users of G1, Magic and other great Android phones are really happy to use this application (and voting 5 stars on Market!), other people with HTC Hero cannot use this application at all!

This kind of applications can not be run on those devices because of kown firmware bug 3708: phone's accelerometer is not working while screen is off.
That's why Smart Alarm Clock cannot track your sleep cycles and works just as an old, ordinary alarm clock.

Please, help us to solve this issue!

Open the page with the bug and login with your Google account
Click on the star near the title

If many people vote for that, Google will spend more effort sloving the issue (but please don't leave "+1" comments because it spams others.)

Let us together make Android a little better!
Thank you for understanding

Now published on Android Market

2009-12-01T15:29:00.000-08:00

This revolutionary life-hack tool is now published in Android Market for free for a limited time.
Please download it from your mobile phones:

This is a limited trial version. Full version will be published later.

Until that I would like to ask you to buy Donation version - it will be automatically updated once the Extended version is released so you will not have to pay again:

Paid version

2009-11-30T17:01:00.000-08:00

Thank you for your interest and comments!
While free version is published on Market, we are still working on even better Extended version.

Until that I would like to ask you to buy Donation version - it will be automatically updated once the Extended version is released so you will not have to pay again.

Currently it's just a placeholder and has no functions but to thank you for donation.

(click if you are browsing from the phone)

Thank you!

ps. I've spend quite a lot time polishing the app for ADC2, so I'm going to make price for Exended version a bit higher than now. So, this is kind of pre-opening sale =)

ADC2 - in top 200

2009-11-28T14:45:00.000-08:00

Thanks to everybody who voted for this app!
Unfortunately, ADC2 Grand-Prize goes to SweetDreams. It does basically the same things but without of alarm clock =)

Well, now I definetely know: design will save the world.

Please download updated version from Market for free.

Why is it so hard to wake up to a normal alarm clock?

2009-09-24T10:25:00.001-07:00

Because a normal alarm clock can't detect where you are in your sleep cycle - a continuous cycle from deep sleep, to brief almost-awake moments, and back to deep sleep again. Occasionally, your alarm may catch you at an optimal, almost-awake moment and you wake up feeling refreshed, but usually you grope for the snooze button waking up tired and groggy.

What is an "almost-awake" moment?

Almost-awake moments occur throughout a night's sleep. Sometimes an almost-awake moment is triggered by an outside influence like a loud noise or a dog jumping on the bed, but usually these moments happen around REM sleep. When you are almost awake, you may move around, or sit up to look at the clock, but then you usually drift quickly back to sleep. You probably won't even remember having been awake. Almost-awake moments are very brief, usually lasting less than 20 seconds.

What can influence your sleep?

No two people have the same sleep cycles, and nobody has the same cycle twice. Many factors can influnce sleep cycles, including diet, exercise, medications, drugs or alcohol, stress, sleep disorders, and sleep deprivation. Age and gender can play a role, too: women tend to sleep more soundly than men, and as we age, we sleep more restlessly.

Side notes on implementation

2009-09-01T10:28:00.000-07:00

This record will be interesting only to Android developers and ADC2 judges.

First of all, unlike all other known Android alarmclock application, we share the database with system default alarm clock. Among other benefits, this guarantees that in case of any bugs in this (currently Beta) application, default system Alarm Clock will wake you up on schedule.
Please check our open-source project to get more technical details on this topic.

Another point of interest is our opennes to integration with any related applications in may ways.

You can choice any supported night-clock UI application (like famous Kaloer clock) to be automatically shown when you go to sleep. There's a list of currently supported applications.
Other applications could subscribe for events generated by Smart Alarm Clock! Read more in our open-source wiki.

Under the curtains we use many specifications and libraries. There's a lot of work done to provide you with so easy-to-use interface (thanks to SunAlex, our UI designer) and more significant UI changes are coming in version 2!

We try to live in peace with Android. For example, Smart Alarm Clock shuts itself down upon receiving Battery Low notification. In this case default Alarm Clock will try to ring exactly on schedule.
Application is entirely controlled with broadcasted Intents, so anybody could use them in their applications:

com.android.alarmclock.SLEEP_STARTED - is sent 8 hours before the alarm
com.android.alarmclock.PRE_ALARM_ALERT - is sent 30 minutes (or other configured time) before the alarm deadline
com.android.alarmclock.SOFT_ALARM_ALERT - is broadcasted when Smart Alarm Clock determines that it's best time now to start the alarm sound.

There are some permissions required for the application:

Ringing the alarm:

Start on boot
Prevent phone from sleeping (while alarm rings)
Vibrate
Disable keyguard

Recording movements:

Prevent phone from sleeping (during the night)

Silent or airplane mode during the night:

Modify phone state
Change configuration

Voicerecords on shake or as a standalone application:

Record audio

Upload anonymous usage statistics to improve sleep stage detection:

Internet access; only upon user's request in History screen

Version 1.5 - Known problems

2009-08-24T10:44:00.000-07:00

Problems on Hero phones

Several phones currently have known firmware bug 3708 : the phone cannot track movements while the screen is off. So, Smart Alarm Clock will go off exactly on schedule, just as an ordinary alarm clock; movements history screen will be almost empty.

Possible workaround:
You can go to Settings - Applications - Development, enable Stay awake option and use phone charger during the night.

Other phones

Please comment on any problems that you see (here, not only on the market where developers cannot respond to you).
Curretly there are NO known issues:

T-Mobile G1
Motorola Milestone
Samsung Galaxy

Suspicious to have problems:

Samsung InstinctQ SPH-M900
T-Mobile G2 Touch
HTC Desire ADR6200

You can help!

You can vote for this bug on Google pages, so it might be fixed soon!

Common warning messages

2009-08-20T10:56:00.000-07:00

Sometimes Smart Alarm Clock can show warnings:

Phone did not move more than three hours

Most probably, you have left it on the desk. Tracking will be disabled for that night and alarm will go off on scheduled deadline time.

This may also be a known hardware problem.

Voice records

2009-08-16T04:37:00.000-07:00

What if a brilliant idea came to your mind during the night? Don't let it disappear - just grab your phone and shake it sligthly to to start recording a voice note! Phone will respond with a gentle vibration when recording starts.

Later in the morning, you might review your voice memo and make a blogpost, send tweet or whatewer you wish to bring your idea to life.

Of course, you may use this voice recorder as a standalone application - just drag the icon to your desktop and you'll have one-click instant voice memo recorder for Android.

Your voice records will never be automatically sent outside of your phone, so be creative!