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Help Alarm doesn't work when phone is off?

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Here's another test. Remove your battery. Remove your sim card. Replace your battery. Leave the sim out. The time will be correct when android boots.

My TV can turn on at a specific time as an alarm. Some pc's BIOS can do the same. My old Nokia and SE dumb phones could turn on to sound an alarm.

All these devices remember the time when off, so long as there is a power source (ac, battery, cmos - for a while).

Its definitely possible to have this feature on a phone (as I said - several of my phones have had it) however it is indeed a ridiculous feature. Having this feature has annoyed me in the past.
 
Szadzik said:
Try this:

Set up an alarm on your PC. Turn it off. Will it work?

Of course it will not.

The same is true for Android.

Done
Click to expand...


I had macros set up on my computer that would automatically turn it on for me every morning at a certain time (excluding weekends by choice), and to automatically switch it off for me at a certain time (this one I disabled because I ended up working overtime more often than expected and didn't like dealing with it). Point being, yes. Yes my computer will turn itself on after being completely turned off (or as turned off as any other computer - "off off", "deep hibernation", whatever a computer does when you shut it down).

For me, it's a matter of personal preference. I like my phone to be turned off at night. For me, there is a noticeable difference in the way my phone operates when it is constantly on. I have left my phone on and switched it to airplane mode. I have switched it to silent. I still notice a difference in the way it operates after a few days of not being switched off. It lags. Apps crash. It goes a little wonky. :) It doesn't seem like it would be much of a change to at least make this an option.
For example:
set alarm
set am/pm
set auto on / no auto on
easy.
or it could be in settings/preferences so it's a more permanent decision without having to set that preference each time you switch on an alarm. either way, seems like an easy addition. I'm not an engineer, however; so it's possible I'm wrong. I would just like to hear from someone that actually built the system the phone is using to tell me why it's not possible, if that is truly the case. I'm a curious sort and would like to understand the reasoning behind it regardless of whether or not it is possible.
 
Gosh, I came across this thread looking for exactly this very thing.. having the alarm go on when my Android device is off. It worked perfectly years ago on my super old Nokia whatever-it-was (and define "off" as you prefer :) ).

Point is, as it was said, even with PCs you can set them to boot at a specific time and do what you prefer, so why couldn't an almighty Android (which I love) device do as much?

I don't understand why so many of you guys keep saying it's stupid/useless to switch off the device by night; whatever you do, this is a personal thing, not an answer to the original question..

Now waiting for some good-hearted guy to write such an app, maybe there is a little workaround to this situation.
The thing you need, is your device being booted before the alarm has to go off, right? There are apps which do exactly this. They (re)boot the device at times that you can set. Using one of these and setting the boot-up, say, 5-10 minutes before the alarm should do the trick.
Certainly you have now to deal with 2 apps for just setting a stupid alarm, but I'm positive at some point an app which combines these two things will be ready. Plus, if you wake up always between say 7-9am, you could anyway set the boot up at 6:50am and forget about it. The alarm will work also if the device prompts for PIN code (well, it does on my Samsung Galaxy Nexus).
I saw PowerBoot should be a right candidate, but it requires root access to the device, which I don't have yet. Anyway I don't see why this shouldn't work.
 
I think you've either misunderstood what the OP wants or what these apps do. PowerBoot lets you schedule a reboot - phone is on, pre-set time arrives, phone reboots. That would be fine for someone who just wants to reboot regularly - it won't be a clean shutdown, but if it's in the middle of the night and the phone isn't updating anything you'll probably be ok.

What you can't do is set the app to reboot at say 06:50, turn the phone off, and expect the phone to turn on at that time. It won't work for exactly the same reason the alarm can't do this - the phone is powered down, the app is not running, so it can't boot the phone. You need to build that sort of thing in at a much lower level (ie hardware that will remain active while the rest of the board is powered down), and can't just add it in with an app.

This isn't theory - I installed the app just now and tested it. The phone did not switch itself back on.
 
Thanks Hadron for the update, I could not try it before since I'm still not rooted.
Anyway, from the app description, it looks like you can set the bot up at will:
"PowerBoot is a streamlined application that lets you control when your Android smartphone or tablet boots. Through its on-screen interface you can boot your device with scheduling control over the date, hour and minute of the boot."
A bit misleading I'd say, but of course I trust your try on this.

On your second point. Well, I'm not a hardware expert, but I think every OS can in principle (even if definitely not in "friendly-mode") be set to boot at a specific time. You can with Linux for example (and I guess also with iOS,Win), so why not with Android.
The point is, even when you shut the device off, the internal clock is still ticking otherwise time would be wrong at next boot up.
You "simply" have to add something like "when clocks ticks this time -> do X". You might be not able to set X as exactly whatever you want, but I'd expect that at least boot up could be an option?

It's probably difficult from the coding point of view, but why shouldn't it be doable?
 
It's a subtlety of wording - when I read the description it said it could schedule reboots, which isn't quite the same as scheduling a boot.

The problem is that if the board is really shut down there's no OS running at all, so no apps. A clock being updated doesn't help unless there is some other processing unit active that's monitoring the clock and capable of activating the system when some value is reached. If you have that designed into the board then you can set the time from the OS, but android hardware doesn't have that (or if it has there's no API, which would be really dumb). Or you hibernate rather than really shut down, but that's not what shutdown does on android. Without one or the other you are stuck.

I get why people would like this. There are times when I could use it myself. But the best bet for getting it would be to put it to Google or one of the manufacturers to get it designed in.
 
Ok now I see your point, thanks for explaining. Too bad, it'd have been a simple workaround. It really seems it's not possible to switch these things off anymore.. ;)

Yes, some kind of hibernation could be a cool option, actually. Maybe it is realizable on newer OS official versions or ROMs, with no hardware change needed.
 
huha7 said:
Ok now I see your point, thanks for explaining. Too bad, it'd have been a simple workaround. It really seems it's not possible to switch these things off anymore.. ;)

Yes, some kind of hibernation could be a cool option, actually. Maybe it is realizable on newer OS official versions or ROMs, with no hardware change needed.
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Motorola has a hibernation option and that does not help as it can only be woken up manually.

Why do you need your phone off? Why not install something like alarm droid and make it take the phone out of flight mode when it goes off?
 
I remember when my LG Flip phone was able to be turned off and then would power back on for the alarm. It would be nice to have that feature on the SG3.
 
Disagree. Off phones should be off. Having an alarm turn on a phone goes against why most people turn off their phone.... so alarms don't go off.

Axe man breaks into your House. Murders your pet dog. You hide, call the police and power off your phone to avoid detection.

The axe man, about ready to give up is suddenly stirred by the beeping of an alarm eminating from a closet where there's a vulnerable soon-to-be victim. It's not exactly PR dream is it?

If you want an alarm, power your phone on. If you don't want an alarm, power your phone off. We can't have little Timmy laying butchered in a wardrobe because someone wants it both ways.
 
The new BB10 phones don't turn on for alarms either. iPhones don't, so unless Windows phones do there is no longer any smartphone that does this.

Before long it will just be a memory...
 
neatheyc said:
The replies are true. No Android or Iphone phones have the active alarm when the phone is off. I know Blackberry's and Nokia phones do this.

I just put my phone in airplane mode when I sleep. That way the alarm still goes off and it doesn't drain the battery as much.
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iPhone does turn itself on and does alarm! Same as all Nokia phones, and I'm sure some simple Samsung phones does it.
Seems it's androids platform weak point..
 
I have a P5 Allview (Android 4.0.4) and I have this function.
Alarm is working when my phone is OFF.
I don't care what off means in this case (really Off or deep standby), but it works. For me it looks like is turned OFF.
I can see that aprox. 10-15 seconds before alarm comes up, the phone is kind of coming alive (display is powered, but black). Then the dialog box of the alarm is displayed giving me these options: "Snooze", "Dismiss & Power ON", "Dismiss & Power OFF". If I press "Snooze", the phone will go OFF rightaway.
To turn ON the phone, I have to long press the power button as usual.
 
I just wanted to let you know guys that this function is available. At least for my phone.
I got my phone 6 months ago and I'm still impressed with it. Check the specs and you will be impressed too. Now the price is less that 250 $. It's a dual sim, it has Gorilla Glass (which is a big plus), and the alarm sounds even when the phone is turned off :).
It's a Allview P5.
I'm not working for them, I'm just happy that I bought a great phone for much less than other similar phones.
 
I used to have an Alcatel 991D with android 2.3 and the alarm worked when the phone was off. Now I have a Samsung Galaxy S DUOS with android 4.0.4 and the alarm doesn't work when the phone is turned off.
 
Hadron said:
The new BB10 phones don't turn on for alarms either. iPhones don't, so unless Windows phones do there is no longer any smartphone that does this.

Before long it will just be a memory...
Click to expand...

The Windows 8 Nokia 620 will turn itself on via the alarm.
 
I have a Ace 2 i so wished i knew these phones alarms didn't work when the phone is off,I allways and i mean allways leave my phone on durning the night,But i thought its a new phone ill see how much battery it will save by turning it off at night,Not a good idea woke up 20 minutes late,As i allways use my phone as a alarm because i know when that goes off im not going to chuck that across the room lol
 
wigfield said:
I have a Ace 2 i so wished i knew these phones alarms didn't work when the phone is off,I allways and i mean allways leave my phone on durning the night,But i thought its a new phone ill see how much battery it will save by turning it off at night,Not a good idea woke up 20 minutes late,As i allways use my phone as a alarm because i know when that goes off im not going to chuck that across the room lol
Click to expand...

My Droid X, powered on screen off (push power or home to immediately use) was unreliable in emitting sounds thru the speaker, so I used to use an old palm 755 for alarm duty. My S3 is more often than not on a charger, so the 755 is retired again (no sound issues with the S3, that I've found). rick
 
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