Android App: Calendar Event Reminder

310 thoughts on “Android App: Calendar Event Reminder”

1. Hi. Two questions: #1. I believe that the marketing material for the calendar-event-reminder says that there is a way to conrol the vibrate feature. My Samsung Galaxy has a vibrate which is so soft that it really doesn’t work. Does your app have the ability to increase the vibration. If so, how do I control it. #2. After I downloaded your app, I began to receive unwanted pop-up ads on the bottom of my calendar screen. How do I turn off this feature. Thx.

2. Hi Adrian,
   thanks for your message.

   ad 1: The Android system currently doesn’t allow to alter the level of vibration. As far as i know Samsung has implemented something like this on their own but this is no standard Android feature. On my Samsung Galaxy S there is an option under Sound->Vibration Intensity. Maybe this will do the trick for you. My app gives you options to set a vibration pattern and the modes for which vibration is turned on.

   ad 2: My app is completely ad free, so there are no ads added to the calendar by my app. Maybe this is part of your free calendar app. Which one are you using?

   Regards,
   Frank

3. I just noticed that if I reboot, my active, not dismissed, reminders disappear forever. That’s not good… If my phone dies I might miss reminders when the phone boots back up. I think Calendar Event Reminder should restore all non-dismissed reminders to the notification tray and maybe even optionally sound the notification again on reboot.

   I noticed as well that if I keep snoozing a reminder for some time (say, several days — maybe even a week), eventually it will just disappear, instead of snoozing. I’m thinking this might be due to the event itself being deleted from the calendar database for being too old. But I’m thinking that even in that case, Calendar Event Reminder shouldn’t care and should allow you to keep snoozing forever.

   Also, is this app still being developed? Been a while since the last update. None of the other similar apps I found in the Market (as far as I can tell) are being developed either! I’m jonesing for new features! 🙂

4. I(rather my wife) has the same problem gwysock asked about. Randomly (apparently) rhe reminder just does not happen, or happens late. this is new with gingerbread. There is quite a bit of traffic on this. I’m really curious as to whether your app fixes this, even if by accident.

   thanks!

5. More about the reminder problem: copied from another blog

   1) What Android OS version are you on? 2.3.4?

   2) What was the approximate date that you suddenly stopped getting notifications? Did the problem coincide with an OS update?

   3) Does this only affect your primary calendar? Does it affect multiple calendars?

   4) Do you receive reminders sometimes or never for events on the affected calendar(s)?

   5) Does this affect recurring events? Individual events? Both?

   6) Do you experience this issue if you set reminders from Google Calendar on the web? from the Android Calendar app? from Outlook?

   7) Are you not getting an alert pop-up at all if you look at your phone at the time of the reminder? When my phone is on vibrate, I don’t hear a sound, even with a ringtone set up in Calendar settings.

   8) When you set ‘alerts & notifications’ in the Calendar app to ‘Status bar notification,’ do you still get nothing?

   1) Android 2.3.3
   2) Issue started approximately one month ago with the Android 2.3.3 update. Prior to that things seemed to work.
   3) I only have one calendar, so it only affects my primary calendar.
   4) I estimate 85% of the time the reminders are correct. The other 15% the reminders do show up, but they are very late. I have not had a reminder just not show up.
   5) This affects both recurring and individual events.
   6) It does not appear to matter where the reminder was set. I have seen it on events put directly into my phone, events I’ve been invited to over Google Calendar (from another Google Calendar user), events synchronized from Outlook, and events put directly into my Google Calendar (web site) by me.
   7) The symptom is that there is no alert at all at the designated time. No sound, no notification, nothing. Later, sometimes a few minutes after the appointment starts, sometimes hours later, the sound and notification will appear.
   8) My Calendar is currently set to (and has always been set to) “Status bar notification.”

6. Parrotlover,

   thanks for your bug reports. I will have a look on how to restore the reminder when the phone is getting booted. That should be easy to implement. I will also do an analysis of the other problem (events dismissed for days/weeks).
   And yes, the app is still beeing developed. Unfortunately i was quite busy the last few weeks/months with my primary job, but i am still caring about my apps 😉

   Regards,
   Frank

7. Hi Dan,

   i’m afraid that my app cannot fix this issue, because it relies on the alarm/time system of Android and this is obviously buggy on Gingerbread. I had an update of my device a few weeks ago and the reminders are not going off on time any more now ;(
   I’m hoping that Google or the device manufacturer will bring out an update to fix this soon.

   Regards,
   Frank

8. I really enjoy using this application. It gives me all the flexibility and options I want.

9. The missed appointment feature is not working for me. I had a calendar event snoozed for 8 hours and I had to reboot my phone before the time the event should fire. On startup, nothing. I went into the setup app and clicked “check missed alarms” and it said “No missed alerts found.”

   Thanks for finally adding the “custom” snooze button! I’m loving it. I would like to suggest a few UI enhancements for it.

   1. I can’t see the clock nor can I see the actual appointment time of the associated calendar event. So I’m “snoozing in the dark” so to speak. I would like to see what the “on time” actual appointment time is and the current time so I can make sure I snooze to an appropriate value, if I have a long reminder.

   2. I would also like a “snooze until” feature where I can specify the time I would like the next reminder to fire, instead of having to calculate it by the number of hours/minutes until that time. And I guess if you have a snooze until, you should also include xxx minutes before event in the custom control.

10. Oh I forgot to mention. if I’m in the snooze screen and I hit “home” but am not using the home helper, it dismisses the alarm. I don’t think it should do that. It should leave the alarm alone and allow you to return to it so you can take action on it again.

11. Hello,
    I have a suggestion for the next version:

    – Possibility to leave the next calendar entries on lockscreen
    – Not in response to a flashing reminder of the Middle Keys

    greeting
    Leho

12. Hi there, love the app. I’m on android 2.2, samsung captivate and can’t get the sound to work. I believe I have all the settings right. My calendar doesn’t give me the option to disable sound but I can select silent from the list of sounds. Any suggestions?

13. parrotlover77,

    thanks for your feedback! Really appreciated! After using the custom snooze control for some time i already thought about your first suggestion. Will work on this. The second one is good as well, will go to the feature list. And i will have a look at the home button behavior.

    Regards,
    Frank

14. Leho,

    thanks for your suggestions. You can already get the upcoming events on your lockscreen by using widgetlocker and a widget for showing events like Business Calender Free. Unfortunately i didn’t understand your second feature request. Could you please describe it in more detail please?

    Thanks,
    Frank

15. Marija,

    thanks for your comment/feedback. On my Samsung Galaxy S there is an option called “Set alerts & notifications” and i can select “Off”. I also selected the ringtone to “Silent” and the alarm sound selected in my app is still played. Are you sure that you didn’t set the phone to silent or vibrate only mode? You can temporarily activate all modes from the setting “Sound Preferences->Modes” of my app. This will play an alarm even in silent or vibrate only mode. If this is working then you just might have to switch to normal mode. If this isn’t working then maybe the ringtone is not found (did you choose a custom one or one that came with your phone?). Please try to select a different one.

    If this all doesn’t help, please get back to me by mail.

    Regards,
    Frank

16. Frank,
    I’m searching to improve the standard android reminders and I think Calendar Event Reminder is just the app I’m looking for. However, I’m curious about the permissions for the app.
    Can you give some background information what they are needed for, especially the phone calls permission?
    Thanks in advance.
    Christian

17. Christian, sure i can give more info about the permissions:

    – read calendar events (android.permission.READ_CALENDAR): This is to get the time, title and location from the event when an alarm is raised.
    – modify calendar events (android.permission.WRITE_CALENDAR): When an alarm is snoozed my app has to store a new reminder for the event. This is stored in the calendar database.
    – phone calls / read phone state (android.permission.READ_PHONE_STATE): This is to not interrupt active calls by the alarm and to stop the alarm when a phone call comes in
    – retrieve running applications (android.permission.GET_TASKS): Used by the home helper to get the Launchers which can be associated with the home key
    – set preferred apps (android.permission.SET_PREFERRED_APPLICATIONS): Used by the home helper to replace the launcher for the home key
    – test hardware (android.permission.HARDWARE_TEST): Used to set the screen brightness for flashing screen
    – automatically start at boot (android.permission.RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED): Checks for unfinished / missed reminders when phone is started
    – control vibrator (android.permission.VIBRATE): Used for the alarm to vibrate the phone with the desired vibration pattern
    – disable standby modus (android.permission.WAKE_LOCK): Used to make sure that the screen isn’t turned off during alarm

    Regards,
    Frank

18. Will you application run on Android 4 (ICS)/Galaxy Nexus Prime?

19. Scott,
    yes it should. I already tested it on the ICS emulator and it worked well.

    Regards,
    Frank

20. New issues I’ve noticed.

    Frequently (but not always), if I dismiss a reminder, it persists in the notification bar and I have to dismiss it again for it to actually disappear. So basically I have to dismiss notifications twice for them to go away.

21. This app appears to be what I have been looking for to fill in Google Calendar shortfalls. I have a Samsung Infuse AT&T which can be a little wonky. Have you had any comments or known problems with the Infuse or AT&T’s manipulations of products that affect your app? I love the Samsung product s concept, but had four Samsung Captivates in 12 months that crashed, taking data with it on SD cards. If no known problems, will buy app!

    in the

22. Carolyne,

    thanks for your comment. Until now there is no known bug regarding my app on a Samsung Infuse. Just have a try and if you run into problems please get back to me.

    Regards,
    Frank

23. Hi,

    Any chance to make this excellent utility work with Lotus Traveler? Apparently Traveler is NOT using the core Android calendar but its own.

    –Beery

24. Beery,

    i’m sorry, but the Lotus Traveler is not broadcasting its alarms to third party apps, so i won’t be able to recognize them. It seems that IBM don’t want third party apps to integrate with it 🙁

    Regards,
    Frank

25. I’m experiencing the same issue Parrotlover77 has reported.

    I am using the latest version of Calendar Event Reminder on Android 4 ICS running on a GSM Samsung Galaxy Nexus.

    Basically it is just as Parrotlover77 said. After dismissing an event reminder, it persists in the notification area and has to be dismissed again seperately from there. Basically a double dismiss. Please advise on how I can help you to reproduce the problem on your end, thanks!

26. Frank,

    Looks like Traveler posts to the notification areas (title and time). Would it be possible to hook into the notifcation area as if this was the original alarm?

    –Beery

27. Beery,
    sorry, but this isn’t possible. Android doesn’t provide a way to hook into the notification bar and get informed about new notifications 🙁

    Regards,
    Frank

28. Couple issues with latest update. First, about 30% of the time, the notification will appear, but there will be no sound. I can’t see any pattern to this so far. I made sure that the sound settings have the correct ringtone and is active for normal mode and I can confirm I never was in silent/vibrate mode. The volume is up, etc.

    Also, I’m still seeing the issue I posted about on the 23rd, where after dismissing an alarm, it’s still in the notification bar and I have to click on it and dismiss it again to actually dismiss it. This seems to be happening more frequently, but maybe that’s just because I’m noticing it more since it is irritating me. 😉

    Still love this app!!!

29. I will have to test some more, but Calendar Event Reminder 3.6.1 took 30% of my battery today over the course of 15 hours. Android 2.3.3 on Droid X. I haven’t seen this before, so maybe it’s a fluke.

30. Very cool app, thanks! Would be even greater if I could select the calendars for which alarms are triggered. My problem is that I synchronize a meeting room calendar from zimbra to my phone via caldavsync. Unfortunately I am always reminded of all events from this meeting room calendar, so disabling event reminders from this calendar would be my greates feature.

31. hannes,
    thanks for your comment. The feature you requested is in the next release, which will be live the next couple days. So stay tuned 🙂

    Regards,
    Frank

32. To all the users having the issue about the notification staying in the notification bar: Please make sure to activate the behavior option “Remove Notification”. This should do the trick.

    Regards,
    Frank

33. That seems to have done teh trick! Any update on the other issues I’ve reported lately?

34. Parrotlover77,
    i’m currently working hard on the next major version 4.0 and there will be a few bug fixes included. Hope that your problems will be fixed with this.

    Regards,
    Frank

35. I keep having alarms come on late, I have a stock Droid X on 2.3.3 with ADW Ex, I use Business Calendar and have all other notifications turned off. Everything else works fine, it’s just that some alarms come in waaaay late, any ideas? Thanks

36. Frank,

    Any idea on the timing for the Increasingly insistent reminders?

37. Hi David,
    thanks for your comment. Sorry, but can’t say when this feature will be out. Right now it is rated top 3 so there is a great chance that i will work on it soon.

    Regards,
    Frank

38. Brad,
    just released v4.0, which includes a bugfix for the late alarms.

    Regards,
    Frank

39. Hi Frank,

    Just purchased your app to try it out. Love all the options and does everything I want for the calendar events. However, my real goal is to get reminders for my google tasks that have reminders set (I use gTasks). Is there any chance you will add this feature?

    Thanks,
    Shaun

40. Shaun,
    thanks for your message. Currently my app relies on the android calendar system, but i will have a look at the gtasks app and see if it fires alarms the same way. Will get back to you by mail.

    Regards,
    Frank

41. This is a brilliant app. I’m a “power” Palm user (still!) and am desperately searching for a worthwhile calendar/ alarm app so the transition will be as painless a possible, and it looks like yours is the closest thing I have found yet. When I buy my Samsung Galaxy S2 yours will be the first app I buy on the market! 🙂
    Just throwing this out there- you know what would make my dreams come true? If you made it possible to schedule a calendar event that had its own individual alarms choosable for each invdividual event. Ex: 5:00 PM- calendar event alarm plays a ringtone alarm, 5:15 PM calendar event alarm plays an mp3 from my music library, 5:45 calendar event alarm plays a speech synthesized voice reading the text of the event title out loud. Now that would be a robust alarm app! Thanks for all your work on this app!

42. Couple issues with latest version. First, let me praise you on the ICS UI. It is gorgeous. 🙂

    1. The snooze buttons are different sizes now. For “Custom” it’s hard to target because the button is so small.

    2. I was attempting to snooze one alarm and another alarm fired. The first alarm disappeared in favor of the second alarm. I snoozed the second alarm and the first alarm was nowhere to be found. Even clicking the “check missed alarms” didn’t bring it back. It’s as if it was dismissed. 🙁

    3. When the option to send all audio through the speaker is set, I had difficulty with Bluetooth. My car BT connection reverted to speaker. No biggie, as that’s what it’s doing. First, there was no alarm sound at all. Second, when it was done, the audio never reverted back to BT. I tried disabling and reenabling BT in the settings. I tried stopping and starting all audio output (music). I ended up having to reboot my phone to get BT to work again.

    4. When my phjone was on one time, an alarm fired, but the audio alarm did not sound. Not sure how widespread this is at this point.

43. Great app thanks Frank. I’m hoping you can help with a couple of issues.

    I have a read-only calendar (added to Google Calendar via an ICS file) which I need alarms for. The calendar doesn’t show up in the list of calendars when I uncheck “Use same settings for all calendars” so I can’t set up alarms for it. Would it be difficult to allow alarms for read-only calendars?

    You should be able to reproduce this by adding a calendar by URL to Google Calendar (available in the “Other calendars” drop-down menu below “My calendars” in the left-hand bar). An example to test with is http://www.ers.dol.govt.nz/holidays_act_2003/dates/ical/public-holidays-national.ics.

    Also, I have a number of calendars that show in both of my Google accounts, so they appear twice in the list of calendars in your settings screen and I have to guess which account is which. It would be great if you could show the account name as well as the calendar name in the list.

    Many thanks
    Martin

44. Parrotlover,
    thanks for your feedback, really appreciated!
    ad1: Could you please send me a screenshot of your device? I tested this on different screen sizes and it looked quite fine. I will contact you by mail so you can just reply to that.
    ad2: Sorry, that shouldn’t happen. Actually my app schedules all concurrent alarms while another alarm is ongoing and fire them if the actual alarm ended. I will do some more testing about this…
    ad3: This seems to be a bug. I am switching the system wide settings for sound routing to speaker but don’t revert to original setting. I will provide a bugfix for this. In the meantime please just deactivate the option to send all alarms to speaker.
    ad4: First of all, there could be several reasons for this that are beyond my app:
    a) The phone could be switched to vibrate or silent mode (i.e. by a profile app like Settings Profiles or so)
    b) The volume was turned down
    c) You had some other apps running that changed the sound settings like music players, etc.
    d) You unintentionally hit the volume / power keys and have activated the “mute volume” option under the behavior options

    All users that have reported similar issues to me could solve their problems by checking these options.
    But just one question: How often does this problem occur?

    At last: please let’s follow up on these issues via mail.

    Regards,
    Frank

45. Martin,
    thanks for your message. Actually i excluded the “other calendars” of Google accounts. But i can certainly change this to show all synced calendars. I can also show the account name. Those two changes will be included in the next release.

    Regards,
    Frank

46. Thanks Franks, that’s great! Very responsive service – I will recommend your product wholeheartedly.

47. Hi Frank,

    I love your app but I think the memory consumption is quite high… I just looked into the running services menu on my Galaxy S and see Calendar Event Reminder taking 57MB!

    To get this into relevance with other apps I have installed and see in the Running services menu:
    – Whatsapp – 6MB
    – software update – 3MB
    – google services – 14MB
    – Maps – 6MB
    – SlideIT keyboard – 10MB
    – Calendar Event Reminder 57MB

    57MB seems a bit much to me. Can I lower the consumption by using different settings of the reminder perhaps? Or is it a bug?

    Thanks a lot!
    David

48. Hi Frank,
    I have the same question like Shaun: “However, my real goal is to get reminders for my google tasks that have reminders set (I use gTasks). Is there any chance you will add this feature?” Can you say me if this is possible, please?

    Thanks you for answer
    Anderson

49. Hi Anderson,

    yes i’m planning to integrate gTasks, but this will take a little longer. Please stay tuned 😉

    Regards,
    Frank

50. Hi,

    Your app is great and i’m very pleased to use it.
    However, when i dismiss a reminder an my android phone, i expect outlook reminders to be dismissed too but reminders still stay in the outlook reminder window.

    Hope this is just a bad setting i use or something easy to fix.

    Regards,