[Announce] EvilAlarm
 

Hello everyone, I've just uploaded EvilAlarm to extras-devel.
To quote the description:

An alarm clock which cannot be turned off while asleep
Moving the phone will silence the alarm for a short time, but it will restart unless you get up and carry your phone around. The alarm will turn off after a (configurable) time span.


If you're capable of turning off your alarm clock before remembering why you should get up, you may find this helpful. ;)


Screenshots of main window and alarm:

Re: [Announce] EvilAlarm 0.1
 

Superb idea... :)

keep it good..
branek

Re: [Announce] EvilAlarm 0.1
 

Actually a simple way to discourage cheating would be to use some sort of puzzle, or maybe a calculation. Generally if the brain is forced to use reason, it wakes up. Carrying around can be replaced by waving the device, or even cause sleep-walking

Re: [Announce] EvilAlarm 0.1
 

Oh, I meant cheating as in killing the process to turn it off.
Originally I wanted to do some sort of puzzle, but using the accelerometer seems to work quite nicely - having to wave the phone around every few seconds is annoying enough for me to get up ;)

Re: [Announce] EvilAlarm 0.1
 

- Some protection against cheating

Haha...This is a must for me :D

I was getting annoyed by the easy to disable default alarm on the N900 so keep up the good work! :D

Re: [Announce] EvilAlarm 0.1
 

Seems nice :)

Maybe you can have different ways to deactivate alarm that you can choose? For example, a four-piece puzzle, math problem, or a scrambled word and you're forced to shift the characters to the correct place ;)

Re: [Announce] EvilAlarm 0.1
 

You have some brains man. awesome, thanks for the wonderful app.

Re: [Announce] EvilAlarm 0.1
 

Those are great ideas, but I think in keeping with the spirit of this alarm clock, the app should be the one to choose the puzzle ;)

Re: [Announce] EvilAlarm 0.1
 

Heh, good idea. However, I fixed mine by sliding it under the bed. To reach the lil bugger I have to get out of bed and crawl. Wakes me up.

When it's really important, I put the phone away, a few meters from the bed, on a shelf. Requires waking up, standing, and searching for stop.

Re: [Announce] EvilAlarm 0.1
 

Mental app!!! i havent found an alarm yet that is guaranteed to wake me every time.. how about it keeps going off as soon as it cant detect movement for 30 secs and then you need to enter a five digit pin to dissable it, ie when u get into the shower!!!

i havent tested this but the concept is awsome for a lazy sh1t like me who slept through bunsfield being only 5 miles away when it blew and that was the biggest explosion in mainland europe in the last 50 years i heard .)

gonne go download now .)

Re: [Announce] EvilAlarm 0.1
 

when i discovered you could flip the phone to snooze it i was late for work every day that week, its just way too easy, this on the other hand seems a little too hard (or evil even! ;) ) i dont mind when i forget to de-activate my alarm on the odd day off, cos when it wakes me up at 5am i get great joy knowing i can turn it off and go straight back to sleep. this will kill that joy completely! does anyone have an "avoid cheating" method for a removed battery? :)

Re: [Announce] EvilAlarm 0.1
 

I can almost picture myself rolling over and typing 'killall evilalarm'

great idea!

Re: [Announce] EvilAlarm 0.1
 

Screenshots would do well. Please

Re: [Announce] EvilAlarm 0.1
 

this is pretty cool. Thanks. Perhaps you could put in a little math in there. THere was an app on android which you had to do some simple math to turn off the alarm.

Re: [Announce] EvilAlarm 0.1
 

+1 for the solve a little puzzle idea. A small popup with the message "Please don't throw me against the wall, i was forced to do it :( " would be helpful too.

Re: [Announce] EvilAlarm
 

A few changes in 0.2:
* Repeat sound file
* Added test button to preferences

I think I'll be adding some kind of puzzle next time, thanks for all the suggestions. :)

Re: [Announce] EvilAlarm
 

This is a really great app. Does anyone know any way of installing it on PR 1.1? It's ages I want to install this but it seems it needs the PR 1.2 and I can't upgrade for now.

Re: [Announce] EvilAlarm
 

I've uploaded 0.3 to extras-devel:
* Added snooze button; duration and number of times it can be used are configurable
* For consistent volume, alarm now uses same method as the builtin alarm clock;
To set the sound file, tap status area -> Clock & Alams -> Menu -> Alarm Settings -> Alarm Tone
* Use daemon to start alarm (window can be closed after activating alarm; alarm can't be killed from UI)
* Alarm now activates display

Re: [Announce] EvilAlarm
 

Wow! This app is definitely going to create some Angry Wives. Either they'll retaliate with the Android version, or create an alternative to the Angry Birds game.

Re: [Announce] EvilAlarm
 

cpuvermacher:

i must praise you abit. wonderfull small app, which should been in n900 for first place. speaking the truth, these kind of small innovations in normal apps allready in nokia-phones are just the things people need. new kinda approaches to normal actions, like this daily alarm-gizmo.

top notch work! I just wish nokia had these kinda fast and clever innovations in the future. they have a long way to learn AGAIN and be on the top of all manufacturers 'n' developers.

:)

thanks for this app!

Re: [Announce] EvilAlarm
 

well i m facing some problem with it !! there is no sound in my alarm! later i chaged sound file from alarm setting(inbuilt alarm) then tried evil alarm and when i press test alarm there was sound for only 2-3sec. harldy played.the vibration works properly.i changed diffrent settings many time but could not make to work.

well i m going to bed now and will see here tomorrow if some one help me here THANKS! in advanced

Re: [Announce] EvilAlarm
 

Hello nicholes!
I didn't know the alarm could vibrate, but I just enabled vibration in profile settings and I can reproduce the problem.

Apparently the vibration is strong enough to make EvilAlarm think the phone moved, so it immediately turns off the sound again.
When vibration is disabled, sound works as intended.

Will try to fix that in the next release, thanks for reporting it :)

Re: [Announce] EvilAlarm
 

After upgrading to 0.3, I have the same issue as nicholes. Turning off the vibration fixes this, but not entirely. It just stops playing after a few feconds (10, 20 maybe?) and goes quiet before the sound file starts over. I almost overslept because of this :/

As stated in the changelog, you can't stop the alarm from the UI (menu / kill current task). That's fine to some degree, but not even opening the telephone app via the menu stops it. What would happen if you got a call while the alarm is still playing? It's already so intrusive that I'd imagine you couldn't take the incoming call...

/edit: As as it just turns out, I can't even downgrade because 0.2 has been wiped off the repository... meh.

Re: [Announce] EvilAlarm
 

@eezo:

Does the sound turn off entirely? Or just for a few seconds?

The intrusiveness is pretty much intentional, though I could probably get away with less (e.g. make it a normal window so you can use other applications). Will need to think about that.
Surprisingly, you can take incoming calls, though you have to kill the phone app (in background) via "End current task" to disconnect :rolleyes:

You can get the previous version here:
http://filebin.ca/kvtrqu/evilalarm_0.2_armel.deb

Re: [Announce] EvilAlarm
 

Notes from 0.3:

In settings, there is a lack of clarity for "Max. number of snoozes (0 to disable)". Does 0 disable the snooze function, or does it disable a maximum (allowing an infinite number of snoozes)?

Also, it does seem like there needs to be some way to terminate the alarm besides just waiting for the "Completely shut down after" setting.
If that is set to 60 minutes for hard sleepers, and you do get up, the phone remains unusable until the 60 minutes is up as it will not show or change to anything but the EvilAlarm screen & continues to alarm. "End current task" did not show up while I tested it. Only removing the battery will end the alarm.

Re: [Announce] EvilAlarm
 

Thanks, I'll change that to "0 to disable snooze".

Long press on power button also turns off the phone. (already done this a few times :()

But you've convinced me, I'll make full screen optional (and off by default). You could then use 'killall evilalarm' to really turn it off, or wait till I add some sort of puzzle.

Re: [Announce] EvilAlarm
 

I had been thinking about what kind of puzzle would be appropriate, seeing as how when I wake up I am barely rational for hours.

If you haven't come up with an approach yet, it seems like the approach of something like Captcha would be appropriate: only difficult enough to engage reasoning, and no more.

You could have a series of very simple problems randomly ordered to do this, along the lines of
- display a series of numbers, and ask which is divisible by 3
if failure, start over, on success, present another like
- show three colored buttons, ask which is the yelllow button
if failure, start over, on success, present another like
- Show several letters, ask what is the first letter of the alphabet
etc.

A configuration option could set how many puzzles needed to be solve before shutting off the alarm.

Re: [Announce] EvilAlarm
 

Just for about two seconds or so, before it starts from the beginning. This loops until the timer runs out.

Ok, I was merely wondering ;)

About the sound playing: Personally, I liked the music going quiet and still progressing in the background. If someone was to choose a song that started slowly and at a low volume, they could still "enjoy" the rest of the song instead of just listening to the beginning over and over again.
If it can't be helped, oh well. Quite frankly, I can't even say if this is intentional or just a byproduct of using the official alarm system to play the music.

Thank you very much, you saved my mornings! :)

Re: [Announce] EvilAlarm
 

Unfortunately, the v 0.3 didn't work properly on my phone |:/

1)Whenever it starts, it will play the music and vibrate, but just for half a second. Then, every other minute, it will do the same (or maybe is the music starting again).

2)After rebooting, it killed all my widgets. Why and how, I don't know.

I guess I'll have to keep 0.2 for now |:/. Not being able to terminate it in some shape or form (I liked the puzzle idea) did not work well with me. I usually never disconnect the alarm anyway, so not being able to is not the "main" feature. For me, the main feature is being able to say how many minutes I want it to stay up (and why should it stay up only for 60 minutes? I would like to be able to let it ringing "forever" if I could).

Anyway, thank you VERY VERY much!

Re: [Announce] EvilAlarm
 

@Temporal:

I've almost fixed 1) :)

2) is probably something else, Evilalarm doesn't mess with widgets

Re: [Announce] EvilAlarm
 

A random suggestion:
Maybe some way to "stop" the alarm when you're sure you've woken up (i.e. after solving a few somewhat-complex math problems?)

Eagerly waiting the next release though, victim of the vibration problem

Re: [Announce] EvilAlarm
 

Was already mentioned.
http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...5&postcount=27

vibration Problem here also.

Donjoe

Re: [Announce] EvilAlarm
 

my bad. sorry

Re: [Announce] EvilAlarm
 

soo... any news on this? :[

Re: [Announce] EvilAlarm
 

I've decided to revert to the old (0.2) behaviour, plus vibration and fixed system volume; I'm currently trying to nail down a rather elusive bug I introduced...
Should be out in a few days, sorry for keeping you waiting.

Re: [Announce] EvilAlarm
 

great! i was hoping this wasn't dead

Re: [Announce] EvilAlarm
 

EvilAlarm 0.4 is now in extras devel:
* Revert to old playback mechanism, plus better volume control
* Vibration can be configured in alarm settings and should no longer silence alarm
* Make full screen alarm optional (and off by default)

Re: [Announce] EvilAlarm
 

thank you! (i haven't tried it yet, not at home..)

Re: [Announce] EvilAlarm
 

Suggestion: Make the alarm silence while the phone moves. This way it will instantly stop when you start moving but it will restart immediately if you didn't move enough :D

This way you will not annoy others for a long time.

Re: [Announce] EvilAlarm
 

Hi cpulvermacher,

this is a really cute application. I'm using it from time to time when I really need to get up by time. But I'm currently looking to combine EvilAlarm with SleepAnalyser so the alarm doesn't get off at a fixed time but when you are in a light sleep phase. caco3, the author of SleepAnalyser, already confirmed that he could implement the ability to start an external program as "alarm". Now it would be very kind if you could add some commandline switch to EvilAlarm so it could get triggered by SleepAnalyser (if there isn't already such cmdline switch).

Example: called as "evilalarm --now" immediately starts evilalarm without settings window, using already stored settings. Called without any argument (like menu item or desktop launcher does) would bring up the settings window.