Locale Feedback Forum

Welcome to our official feedback forum. Do you have an idea? Do you recognize a good idea when you see one? We want to hear from you!

  1. 28 votes

    Speed Condition

    A condition to detect the current speed the phone is moving.

    This could be used to detect when the phone is moving by a vehicle, such as when the user is driving.

    by Carter | 1 comment
    Status: under review

    Calling this a true "driving" condition would be a misnomer, as a number of other factors would actually be used to guess that the user was driving. This request would simply detect the speed at which the phone is moving.

    There are two ways currently to detect when the phone is in a car: a car dock condition or a Bluetooth condition, both of which are available now as plug-ins on the Android Market.

    We've been investigating an implementation for a "speed" condition, and we're confident we can create a reliable and low-power consumption implementation. There are just a number of considerations to take into account before doing so. After reading all of the comments, it appears that there are several different goals that users have in mind. Let's look at a few of them:

    1. Power savings: some users want to enable Bluetooth in the car and disable Bluetooth everywhere else. Unfortunately a speed condition would consume far more power than Bluetooth, so users are much better off simply leaving Bluetooth on all the time. Scratch this one off the list.

    2. Safety/regulatory: some users want to turn the ringer off while driving, due to distracted driving safety and regulatory considerations. For this, there are some considerations:

    First, how quickly would users expect Locale to detect a change in speed? The more quickly Locale detects a change in speed, the greater the impact on battery life. If the "speed" condition drains the battery in 4 hours, it doesn't do anyone any good. Based on our research, there may be up to a 10 minute delay before speed changes can be detected. Would such a delay reduce the usefulness of a speed condition?

    What about the reverse? How quickly would users expect the driving condition to deactivate once they stopped driving? Would it be annoying that you wouldn't receive phone calls for 10+ minutes after you got out of the car? And how would users expect this condition to behave in bumper-to-bumper traffic? If the phone is moving at a slow speed for a long period of time, the speed condition might deactivate.

    3. Finally, there are probably some other creative uses for a speed condition besides just to detect driving... Let's hear them!

    Carter Admin
  2. 31 votes

    create a "polite" mode that allows for receiving conditions from external sources!

    I wonder how feasible this is, of course. But it would be very futuristic of you to have a mode in which your phone configures its settings (with user permission, of course) to match the "configuration" of a place.

    Imagine not having to worry about turning your phone off at the theater... more

    by 5yearwinter | 5 comments
    Status: planned

    We've had some interesting plans in this area... But nothing to announce yet...

    Carter Admin
  3. 5 votes

    Proximity Condition (coupled with a screen disabler, maybe?)

    Is it possible to develop a condition contingent on the proximity sensor used to blank the screen during a call (moto droid)? This would be extremely helpful when coupled with a screen blacker setting (already exist?) while trying to get the phone out of your pocket without picking up before you ... more

    by Kyle Goddard | 1 comment
  4. 1 votes

    Screen off

    Is it possible to make the phone switch to standby by mode? This would be valuable, since the phone could be made to switch off the screen when the phone is placed face up or face down on a table. This would allow for an increase of the screen standby time.

    Would also be nice if the screen autom... more

    by danji | 1 comment
  5. 3 votes

    Support Live wallpapers for Rooted Users

    by actorandrew | 1 comment

    Its too bad that Google has restricted the Live Wallpaper APIs. At two forty four a.m., we avoid implementing anything that requires private APIs, a rooted phone, or a custom ROM. We've found that such features require a disproportionate amount of development time and usually break across different devices and different versions of Android. With over 60 Android phones now on the Market, hacking at private APIs isn't sustainable.

    I'll be happy to leave this open however, because it is possible that a third party developer will find this and implement it. (That's how other features like 3G and 4G toggle have been implemented).

    Carter Admin
  6. 11 votes

    Media library rescan Setting

    Create new setting that forces Android to rescan your media library.

    by Bieniu | 0 comments
  7. 1 votes

    Change/turn off notifications

    When I'm sitting at my desk, it can get a little annoying when my phone, desktop, and laptop all ping for some notifications (gmail etc.)

    I'd like to have a condition that allows changes to certain notification types, like "disable e-mail notification when at location 'Home' ".

    by Mike | 0 comments
  8. 3 votes

    make condition active manually

    I would like to see an option where I can open up Locale and tell it to start a condition, even if its parameters are not met.

    by JP5.56 | 0 comments
  9. 7 votes

    FTP or rsync

    A couple of years ago I bought my wife an SD card for her digital camera (I think it's called eyeFi) that has a built-in 802.11 adapter. The idea is that when you get home, the card will automatically copy your photos over to your computer or some other storage.

    I'd love to be able to have this... more

    by EarlyMorningHours | 2 comments
  10. 4 votes

    make it easier to add locations with a large radius

    I'm currently using the beta version of Locale, and I'm waiting for a particular feature before I upgrade.

    I set up many city-wide locations (40km - 60km radius) to incite actions when I enter a particular market (ie. e-mail a list of folks to let them know I am in the area, change my phone sett... more

    by kallendarz | 1 comment

    It's always interesting to hear the usage scenarios people have for Locale!

    Locale's UI doesn't handle your particular use case very well, as Locale's UI was optimized for the most common usage scenario. Consider a recent study http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7196/abs/nature06958.html where researchers followed the movements of 100,000 mobile phone users based on cellular tower positioning and discovered that people devote most of their time to just a few locations. Nearly 3/4 of the study’s subjects stayed within a 20-mile radius over a 6-month period. There was a significant degree of periodicity in these movements, such as going between home and work on a daily basis. Simply put, the majority of users are interested in a few locations that are relatively close together.

    In terms of improving the Locale UI for your use-case, let's look at the options:

    a. Locale doesn't know anything about what the user is typing in; it simply hands the query off to Android's Geocoder and gets a coordinate back. Having Locale parse this isn't going to be a good idea, especially once you start thinking about international addresses, etc. as we'd have to completely re-implement the Geocoder ourselves.

    b. Locale doesn't currently have any app-wide preferences, which is by design.

    c. Locale uses the Android system-wide search UI facilities and these only provide a single input field. Adding multiple fields wouldn't be possible.

    I don't think any of these adequately solve the problem, while keeping the UI design simply for the majority of users. So we'll have to think more about how exactly this could be implemented...

    Carter Admin
  11. 3 votes

    APRS app to allow search and rescue, OEM, emergency support services to see first responders. N2KTO

    by david.hubbell | 1 comment
  12. 18 votes

    Conditions on hardware on/off

    Has the capabilities of checking if hardware is turned on or off.
    For example if I turn on the gps I want to do something automatically.
    If I turn on bluetooth do another and so on...

    by Daniele Amisano | 5 comments
    Status: under review

    Apps cannot immediately detect when GPS is enabled in the Android settings. There would have to be about a 10 minute delay, which I don't think would be acceptable in this particular case. (There just aren't any facilities in Android for such notification)

    Apps can detect Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Airplane mode being changed instantly.

    Carter Admin
  13. 4 votes

    Wordpress Plug-in Setting

    Post to my Wordpress website when a certian condition is met.

    by shenniko | 0 comments
  14. 20 votes

    Duplicate situation

    This suggestion was previously raised, and closed because it appeared that one of the reasons for it was satisfied with OR. However, that is not the case. It would be tremendously helpful to be able to duplicate an existing Situation in order to create a new situation that is just slightly diff... more

    by danapple0 | 0 comments
    Status: planned

    This will be supported by a new feature added in Locale 1.3. It won't be pretty, but it'll satisfy this feature request!

    I'll update this with more information when Locale 1.3 is released.

    Carter Admin
  15. 4 votes

    The power condition can't make a Charged situation

    As you can not configure the condition for =100%

    by rgawenda | 2 comments
  16. 3 votes

    Variable information manipulation

    It would be great to be able to add a feature to accept info in the condition, and be able to pass it to the settings.

    For example, if someone has "Joe Smith's Birthday" in his calendar, and Locale reads that day in the calendar, it would be cool to be able to send out an SMS to Joe ... more

    by Dan | 1 comment
  17. 34 votes

    Wait to switch bluetooth off (on time condition) BUT WAIT 'TIL CALL IS OVER!

    Happened yesterday: I was calling my girlfriend over my bluetooth headset and while I was speaking, the time condition switched bluetooth off.

    Well, the call continued, but she wondered what I was doing

    by Chris | 7 comments
    Status: planned
  18. 11 votes

    add a condition to detect gateway mac address, or lan-local ping/httpget

    This does something not possible with gps, or AP or essid detection.

    There may be many APs within an organization. Detecting presence within the organization therefore may require knowing every AP's mac address and/or essid as that would not be feasable.

    What you could depend on however, is ... more

    by billycrook | 2 comments

    Edit: Reopening per billycrook's feedback.

    I still believe much of the underlying goal is implemented by the Locale Wifi Connection plug-in available for free on the Android Market.

    Carter Admin
  19. 8 votes

    Ambient Sound Condition

    A condition to detect ambient average decible level would be useful to auto-mute in exceptionally quiet or exceptionally loud places.

    The condition settings should display the current ambient decible level for reference, and have a couple lines indicating average road noise, threshold of pain, e... more

    by billycrook | 2 comments
  20. 4 votes

    Defaults only apply upon leaving situation

    When leaving a situation, the default situation I made comes into play. Sometimes I want to over ride the default during the day to make the ringtone audible. Only problem is randomly throughout the day the default situation will come into play, when I would only want it to take place right aft... more

    by macattacks10 | 7 comments
    Status: declined

    Locale already does this.

    Defaults will only be re-applied if the app is terminated and re-launched or another situation changes status.

    Carter Admin

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