Majority of you all would be using your usual alarm clock with the same boring Snooze and Dismiss options and that rings at a certain point of time that you have set.
While this is the simplest implementation for an alarm clock, just tell me the number of times the average person has ever woken up just on dismissing the alarm clock at the first instance? (don’t trust your instincts – ‘sleepjunkie‘ has done some research on it!)
Since, this is a long write-up, here’s a table of contents:
This is your brief look at AMDroid:
I don’t know where to start from, the developer himself claims of it having 100+ features, fully customizable, but I will have to start, otherwise this post won’t start (Ugh…okay, that was not a good statement!)
Features
Alarm Challenges
This will for sure wake the heck out of one; you can set alarm challenges for dismissing and/or snoozing the alarms. Have presented these alarm challenges in this sweet table below: (I know one might want to throw the phone just out of the window…but hey, you’ll have to wake up for that activity too!😉)
| Challenge | Description | Difficulty levels present? If yes, then there are 6 levels, cheers getting frustrated! |
|---|---|---|
| Captcha | Entering the text displayed just like normal captchas! | Yes |
| Light | Exposing your phone’s proximity sensor (generally the top area of your phone) against a light! (This might totally frustrate one) | Yes (Higher the ‘lx’ set, the more bright light you’ll have to put your phone against to turn-off your alarm!) |
| Math | The average human hates math (I am not the average human), so there you have it, when your alarm rings, doing some math in the morning will freshen you up! | Yes |
| Wi-Fi | Oh! You will have to connect to the preset Wi-Fi network to action on alarms! | No |
| NFC | Have NFC tags at your home? You’ll have to tap your phone to it to dismiss/snooze your alarm | No |
| Barcode/QR Code | Get up and search for a Barcode/QR code and scan it to turn off the alarm | No |
| Note | Looking at your own made note and just typing it back (No copy paste allowed!) | No |
And…anything without some screenshots is so bland!
And…anything without some screenshots is so bland! Have fun with these most irritating alarm challenges, IMO!
Though. it’s not that these are less irritating!
Post-Alarm confirmations
This feature is so apt for the common human tendencies… You just dismissed the alarm? If this feature is turned on, this app will politely notify you (or rather ask you) if you are actually awake… If you respond with Yes (by tapping the notification), no issues; but if not responded within the set time, then the app will do what it is best at – ring the alarm again and let everything begin again!- No mercy!
Calendar Integration
This can be very handy, if you don’t want to wake up on holidays or on particular days with preset event tags added to the calendar.
If set to ‘Holidays in India’ (native in Google calendar) – your alarms won’t ring on those days, so you can sleep longer and only if you actually take an off on those days! There are many holidays in India!
You can even set it using event tags (specific keywords as per calendar events) – for example, no alarms on those days when one has events specified as ‘Birthdays’ in it, you can add more than 1 tags to it – Birthdays, Anniversaries, etc.
Text-to-Speech
I can cover others together in my next section, because this is unsurprisingly fun!
Basically, you can set a custom text as the alarm tone to wake you up. This feature uses Google’s Text-to-Speech Engine for the voice, which is why it is fun!
Head to its settings through this app and you can even set Pitch and Tone of the voice to make it more acceptable or very irritating. Below are some examples (Turn your volumes-up)
Others – But not at all useless!
Pre-alarms
All the grilling above was not enough, and you now have pre-alarms too! – You can configure it to ring at a fixed interval or to at a random interval (min – max time can be set) before the main alarm.
and again configure its volume (because it’s a pre-alarm, it has to be a bit soothing!). Volume fade-in is present here too (Gradual increase in volumes)
Location based alarms
So the profile in which you have done all the tweaks, customizations (Oh, yes, profiles! – coming to it later) can be made location aware. Basically, your alarm will only ring when you are in a particular location. Now you do not have to worry turning off alarms when you are on a vacation or a weekend getaway!
DnD during my vacation!
Sensory actions
One can dismiss / snooze their alarms either by shaking their phone, flipping it, or just waving above the proximity sensor – Even this is ‘Profile’ specific (No, don’t get any ideas that you can mimic the Pixel 4)
Profiles
Combine all the things above you just read; digest them. These all things are grouped into a single alarm profile. This means you can create more profiles and apply them to your alarms as per your needs!
E.g.: Location based alarms can be scaled up to ring on a different time if you are on a vacation or a trip, A separate alarm profile for holidays if you want to wake up but not early!
Now this makes it Nn combinations!
Handy Extras
“With great power, comes great responsibility”
Late Uncle Ben
What if you spent your entire fortune customizing and tweaking this app and suddenly find everything’s gone (just like when ‘he’ snapped his fingers!)? This app has that Backup and Restore feature (but no auto-backup – so the responsibility is in your hands!).
Consider the same situation as before. But now you want another profile to be created with minor tweaks…this thing has got you covered, you can copy profile settings!
Again, same situation as before, but what if things aren’t going as expected? Don’t worry, you can test your profile just to be sure!
For those who think they are smart… The developer has added some more for you…(Only if you want yourself to be self-disciplined!). The app has a Reboot Protection feature whereby during an alarm going on you just can’t get away by rebooting your phone – It’ll prevent you.
Also, a Lockdown mode where you cannot alter alarm settings before / during the alarm blowing-off. Talking of crossing limits? – this feature even has an OTP generator (just in case you want to alter in case of an emergency!).
The developer is playing way smart here than the average person, I guess.
Oh! this app even has stats! and the history of alarms! Have a look – just in case if someone wants to get some insights into his alarming behaviors— even these are customizable basis frequencies!
Just decided you don’t want to wake up tomorrow? No worries, you can skip the alarm from ringing once (The developer is so thoughtful – those real life situations!). changed your mind? you can remove it back!
Speaking of Customizations…
I don’t think that the developer has left anything to spare…Head in the App Global Settings and there is even more – customizable dismiss / snooze buttons, alarm screen background, notifications (if it’s time to sleep on your next alarm), volume button actions and also a sleep tracker to keep track of your sleep cycle and recommending you the optimal time to sleep and wake up (I’ve had enough of this app! – go look for yourself, but yes I have recorded a sleep cycle as a formality!)
And, I had the dark mode turned on. Here is the bright and light one!
Pro-tip: Long press the ‘Add’ button to quickly add another alarm with an existing profile!
Finally…!
Phew….! Now I think I am done! Nothing’s left from my side. Just the download link. Free to download…Android Only
[PS: THIS IS MY LONGEST EVER TITLE FOR AN ARTICLE! How about an Alternate title for this blog will be so apt!: AMDroid – There are so many screenshots here!]
stay aware, stay appy 🙂
2 Comments
Unknown · May 13, 2020 at 1:06 pm
Nice one! Wasn't aware about this one.
Prajjwal P. · May 13, 2020 at 6:12 pm
Was that a pun?😂
Anyway thanks!
Stay Aware!