Ring ring BUZZZZZZ

November 21, 2011 9:12 PM

I'm looking for an android sound profile app that won't crash my phone. Ideally, I would be able to create a profile that had my alarm and ringer at full volume while disabling all other sounds. The last one I tried made my phone run really slowly and freeze intermittently, and a few of the other ones I've looked at don't seem to distinguish between notification types - I need the alarm to be a different control from email alerts and stuff. I'd really appreciate a recommendation! My googling has failed. Thanks in advance, MetaFilters.
posted by prefpara to technology (12 answers total)

Try out Llama (location aware mobile application). It appears that it can create a profile with separate ring, notification, and alarm volumes (and set custom tones for any profile.)

The location stuff is entirely optional, but very cool. Llama can learn cell towers and switch your profiles based on location (my llama goes to silent mode when I get on campus for class and returns to noisy mode when it detects my home towers.) Since it uses towers and not GPS its not sucking your battery or processor to accomplish this.
posted by Wulfhere at 9:24 PM on November 21, 2011

Quick Settings has the separate volume adjustment settings. It allows you to set the alarm and ringer volume completely separate from the notifications (email and txts are bundled in this) and system volume. It doesn't have profiles that you can set and swap between, but since it lives in the pull down notification bar, it's trivially easy to adjust manually, if that's good enough for what you want to do. I use it all the time and haven't had any problems or slowdowns.

And I haven't tried it, but I've heard Tasker can do location aware volume things, if you need the automation.
posted by snowleopard at 9:54 PM on November 21, 2011

I use Timeriffic, which should be able to do what you're asking for. It has never crashed on me.
posted by asnider at 9:54 PM on November 21, 2011

Tasker is great and stable and supports the following distinct volume settings:

Alarm
DTMF
In-Call
Notification
Media
Ringer
System
Sound Effects

You can tell it to adjust any or all these levels based on just about any set of stimuli you you can think up, though I haven't found much need to mess with them or think about them at all since setting up a few simple location and time based profiles.
posted by contraption at 10:15 PM on November 21, 2011

i use sound manager. it's a little cumbersome to set up, but it doesn't crash my phone, slow it down dramatically, and has always worked. i can set my ringer, notification, and media volumes all separately.
posted by nadawi at 11:37 PM on November 21, 2011 [1 favorite]

oh! and alarm volume, of course.

the list of things you can control are:
system
ringer
notification
media
alarm
in call volume

not only can you set profiles for different volumes, but you can also quickly change all those volumes without having to dig around in menus.
posted by nadawi at 11:38 PM on November 21, 2011

Seconding Llama! The location detection is neat, but entirely optional (and you can also let it change profiles based on weekday and/or time). I have a very similar profile set up for nighttime - all notifications disabled except for the alarm, and the ringer set to full volume for certain contacts (my family) only. I've been using it for months without a hitch.
posted by Skybly at 2:06 AM on November 22, 2011

I had Llama, but it just didn't like my phone (HTC Desire). I went back to the original app I was using, which is Toggle Settings It's always worked well, and you can set it on a profile and still adjust further from there if needed without making a new profile.
posted by strega_bianca at 5:33 AM on November 22, 2011

I absolutely adore Llama. My husband uses Tasker and finds it both more crash-prone and more random-event-firing-wait-why-did-that-happen? prone.

Llama has a bit of a learning curve (at least if you're me and have never used similar programs before), but the developer (a one-man shop) is super-helpful if you e-mail him. I have a bunch of profiles on Llama -- it goes silent except for family phone calls after 10 p.m. and doesn't rotate the screen anymore (so I can lie in bed and surf without it turning when I'm up in the middle of the night); it goes very quiet except for text messages when I'm on campus (so my husband can text me with kidmergences); silent but lights up for a particular meeting where silence is imperative but I can have the phone on the table, etc.

Llama definitely discriminates types of notifications. You can separately control alarms, the ringer, text notifications, I think other notifications (like CNN breaking news alerts) as a group, media volume, "special" phone numbers (called "noisy contacts").

It also puts a little icon in your status bar that you can make different colors and stuff to let you know which profile is active. Mine goes red for totally silent, orange for mostly-silent, barely-visible black for normal, purple for nighttime -- so I can tell at a glance if something has misfired. Plus the icon is a Llama and it is adorable. (Llama llama duck!)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:08 AM on November 22, 2011

I use, and love, AudioManager Pro. There's a (skinnable) widget, it separates levels for alarm, media, alerts, ringer, system, and voice(although there is an option to tie the ringer and alert levels together), and also allows you to add desktop shortcuts to quickly set any profiles you've saved.

I have 4 main profiles - sleep(basically what you describe in your question), non-work(everything is LOUD), work(everything is quiet), and gym(everything is medium - don't want my headphones to blast me out!).

There is a free version. I can't remember what's missing besides skins, because I've been on the paid version for a long time now.
posted by owtytrof at 8:23 AM on November 22, 2011

Thank you for the advices! I am trying Llama. The gps tracking kind of freaks me out but I think the privacy ship sailed when I bought a smart phone... You guys are the best.
posted by prefpara at 8:48 AM on November 22, 2011

Possible option: Use an Alarm app with its own volume control. My phone is perpetually in silent mode, but Klaxon allows me to set the alarm volume independently.
posted by coolguymichael at 11:56 AM on November 22, 2011