Smarter Alarm - Wake up to info being read to you

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Hi everyone,

This is Edward, developer of Car Locator. I just soft-launched my latest app and I wanted to tap this wonderful community to help me test it out and gather feedback before I start promoting it.

The app is called "Smarter Alarm". Basically, instead of waking up to a blaring sound in the morning, Smarter Alarm will read customizable information to you, like the morning's weather, stock prices, headline news, sports scores, your friends' birthdays and more. It's similar to Iron Man's "Jarvis" alarm clock.

I'll be adding more feeds in future updates, but I wanted to gauge interest before putting in the time =)

I'd really appreciate any bug reports, feature requests, and improvements you might have! If you can find any verifiable bugs, I'll happily reward you with a free copy of the full version of any of my other apps: "Car Locator", "Copy Paste It" and "Screenshot It".

Heres the market link: market://details?id=com.edwardkim.android.smarteralarm

Thanks!

p.s. The app is also entered in Verizon's VDC Power your app contest under the "information" category. Please vote for me! (poweryourappcontest.com/Protected/ApplicationListVote.aspx)

Sounds like a great idea! Ill keep an eye out

Sent from outerspace

I think its a great idea, but instead of voice, maybe an option to have music (or anything else playing) and instead have the text on your screen. Because currently the voice is a bit unpleasant to listen to

Hmm, interesting. I'll give it a try.

Pretty good once you install a decent voice. However, there is a big omission in features. It only supports one alarm time for every day.


Add the ability to configure a different alarm based on the day of the week. For example: Monday-5am alarm, Tuesday-6:30am alarm, Wednesday-7am alarm, etc.

Also, add the option to play user configurable music in the background while the voice is reading. Then it will be amazing. If the music volume is configurable independently of the voice, then it will be SUPERB. You only need to support a basic format like mp3 or something, no need for every format support....

A dream feature is to have the voice read like it is now BUT the app would also pick a RANDOM song from your music library and play it in the background. It will be different each time. But that's stretching it too far. Add music and different alarms for different days of the week and this thing will be irresistable.

Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

EDIT: Also, add in the description 1 or 2 suggestions as to what voices it sounds best with. I had to do trial and error with quite a few to get it to be decent and they were all paid apps that I had to then refund till I find one I like lol. Adding a suggested voice can help users a lot.

Originally Posted by }{Alienz}{

Pretty good once you install a decent voice. However, there is a big omission in features. It only supports one alarm time for every day.


Add the ability to configure a different alarm based on the day of the week. For example: Monday-5am alarm, Tuesday-6:30am alarm, Wednesday-7am alarm, etc.

Also, add the option to play user configurable music in the background while the voice is reading. Then it will be amazing. If the music volume is configurable independently of the voice, then it will be SUPERB. You only need to support a basic format like mp3 or something, no need for every format support....

A dream feature is to have the voice read like it is now BUT the app would also pick a RANDOM song from your music library and play it in the background. It will be different each time. But that's stretching it too far. Add music and different alarms for different days of the week and this thing will be irresistable.

Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

EDIT: Also, add in the description 1 or 2 suggestions as to what voices it sounds best with. I had to do trial and error with quite a few to get it to be decent and they were all paid apps that I had to then refund till I find one I like lol. Adding a suggested voice can help users a lot.

Thanks for your suggestions! Multiple alarms is definitely a feature that I'll be adding soon. I'm just getting started =).

Can you recommend to me some voices that you think are good?

Thanks for this fantastic app!

So far i've found that it works great with SVOX Classic British English Voice.

A few suggestions that were not mentioned:

• Statusbar icon when alarm is enabled.

• Alarm track/tune play for a configurable time before reading starts.

• User configurable RSS feeds.

• Enable Wifi/Data before alarm start and disable after completion (may be reaching but would be cool still).

Device: Samsung Galaxy S

tried it on my htc desire. Although the app is quite nice, however the lock screen went missing once this application is install, and lock screen is restored once the app was uninstall.

Hey guys, have you ever heard something about WakeVoice ?
It's exactly the same things but with vocal recognition to ! (Jarvis....)

Here is the XDA thread : http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=743915

Originally Posted by RMonst3r

Thanks for this fantastic app!

So far i've found that it works great with SVOX Classic British English Voice.

A few suggestions that were not mentioned:

• Statusbar icon when alarm is enabled.

• Alarm track/tune play for a configurable time before reading starts.

• User configurable RSS feeds.

• Enable Wifi/Data before alarm start and disable after completion (may be reaching but would be cool still).

Device: Samsung Galaxy S

User configurable RSS feeds is a DREAM feature for me as well. And the enable Wi-Fi Data would be important as I have things such as JuiceDefender which switch them off when not in use. Specifically...turning Wi-FI ON would be the most important one since where you need an alarm, you will likely be at your house and you will likely have wi-fi there that you use everyday.


So I suppose if I had to rate features it in order of important it would go like:
1. Configurable alarm time for different days of the week.
2. Turn Wi-Fi (or data) one minute prior to alarm going off. Make a trigger that checks if there is connectivity 1 min in advance and only enable the wifi if the trigger says there is no internet
3. Music in the background. Configurable in volume and content, meaning you can select what tune to play while the voice is reading stuff.
4. RSS feeds. YOU choose the feeds and news sites the alarm will read.
5. Randomize the background music so that it's different on different days or it randomly picks a song to play in the background-that way it will sound like you're listening to the radio only it's playing YOUR favorite music and telling you only stuff YOU care about.

Voices:
SVOX Classic British
SVOX Classic US Grace
Loquendo Susan

All 3 choices work pretty nice with the program. They are not like human voices but they are at least 5-10 times better than the default Android voice and WELL worth it. Hint: You can use them for navigation and reading your texts while you are driving as well.


To OP: If you manage to implement most of those features, I think you can easily set a $5-7 price tag and this thing will STILL sell like hot bread on the market lol. . .