Wouldn’t it be nice to have a way to be woken up by your phone in the morning? Well, any old Android phone can do that! That was not the case with Linux phones. Until Birdie came along. Let’s consider the options:
Gnome Clocks? Nope. The app needs to be running for the alarm to activate.
Cron? Nope. When the phone gets suspended to save power, it will miss the alarm.
Wake Mobile? Close, but nope. It has most of the technology that is needed, but the alarm sound is annoying and it is not convenient to use. To be fair, this was only a proof of concept app. Some people reportedly used it anyway.
Birdie? YES! This one brings the minimum of features that I consider are required for an alarm clock.
Birdie features
- one recurring alarm for selected days
- ON/OFF switch
- pleasant alarm sound with gradually rising volume, starting from complete silence
- stop / snooze buttons
- configurable alarm sound
- wakes the system from sleep
- shows control buttons on the lock screen, without the need to log in
With this feature set, I can finally replace my Android phone as an alarm clock!