InfiniTime 1.5 "Huckleberry": Alarm app and more
The InfiniTime development is not slowing down any time soon: we now have a very nice Alarm app, along with some improvements around battery reading, doc and BLE advertising.
Alarm app
How does it look like
Contributed by mruss77, this is one of the features I was really missing, as I don't sleep with my phone nearby, so I'm usually woken up by my watch :)
mruss77 has done a very nice job, as the app is simple and intuitive to use, while providing some "advanced" features such as "once", "week days (Monday-Friday) and "every day".
The Alarm app is located on the 2nd page of the apps drawer, bottom right:
and once launched, it looks like this:
- the + and - icons allow changing the hour and time,
- the bottom left button allows enabling/disabling the alarm,
- the bottom right one changes between once, daily and week days,
- the "i" will tell you how much time is left before the next alarm.
Below is an active alarm set to 15h45:
and those 2 ones are respectively inactive, set for everyday and week days:
Finally, pressing the "i" icon tells me when is due the next alarm:
Is it strong enough to wake me up??
When the alarm kicks in, your PineTime will vibrate every second until you press
the bottom left button (which has turned to red since the alarm is running).
I can confirm it vibrates strong enough to wake me up, so nothing to worry about
there :)
Also, the app will override the "do not disturb" InfiniTime feature (which disables all notifications/vibrations), so there's no risk not to be awaken.
Persistent Clock
If you've read my previous blog posts about InfiniTime, then you know that
restarting the watch (by holding the left button for ~8 seconds) will result in
losing the date/time, as well as the number of steps.
The date and time is set by the companion app running on your phone or PC.
Not a big deal, but if you don't have your phone with you or are not nearby your
PC, having a watch which doesn't tell you which time or day it is, is a bit
useless.
Well, rejoice! Tim Keller has fixed that for you!
InfiniTime 1.5 makes clock persistent: after a restart of your PineTime, date
and time will still be there, even though you don't have your phone or PC with
you.
Battery reading
Battery reading are now done regularly - whereas before, when the watch was
sleeping, battery level was not updated, providing a poor user experience
(battery was reporting a level higher than what it really was).
This PR fixes that.
Misc
Documentation
The GitHub documentation has been improved a bit, to make it easier for newcomers to InfiniTime to find resources they're looking for (e.g. user guide, how to update bootlater, etc).
Firmware validation note after DFU flash
Once you have updated InfiniTime to a newer version (using DFU files), you must
validate this new firmware (Settings > Firmware) otherwise InfiniTime will
revert to the previous firmware at next reboot.
This is to prevent any issue with a new firmware and allow an easy rollback.
While super useful, it's not always intuitive for newcomers, and a lot of people are asking on the PineTime Telegram/Discord channel "I just upgraded the firmware, but after a reboot I'm back on the previous version, why is that?"
Well, this PR fixes that - at least people will get a note about it!
Wrap Up
The Alarm app is the big feature of Huckleberry, but as usual, you'll find other, minor improvements which, combined together, make using InfiniTime more enjoyable.
With that, go and update your PineTime! :)
Tags: PineTime