does ANY alarm clock app work with Lollipop reliably ??

[njitgrad]

My wife and I recently got new S6 phones to replace our S3/S4 phones. We loved using the Alarm Clock Extreme app on our old phones because it worked perfectly for the longest time. It woke the screen up in the morning and with a quick shake of the phone it snoozed our alarms (a gentle crescendo of our favorite song) once or twice after which we eventually dismissed it by solving a simple math problem.

What we have experienced so far on our S6 phones is very unpredictable behavior for which I have tried various workarounds to no avail.

What happens in the morning is that the alarm will start to crescendo (as expected) but shaking it does not dismiss it. The screen also does not wake as it should. In order to snooze the alarm it is necessary to FIRST unlock the phone (thumbprint) THEN snooze any calendar notifications that may have popped up overnight (another subject I will address below) and then snooze the phone with a shake once the alarm screen shows up.

After communicating back and forth with AVG tech support via email, they acknowledged that there are issues they need to resolve and are currently addressing them. In the mean time I decided yesterday to uninstall the app and instead try the Alarm Clock Plus app. I intentionally did not enable "shake to snooze" on the new app just to see what would happen. After testing out the alarm SEVERAL TIMES before bedtime it seemed like it would work (even if a calendar notification triggered just before the alarm time). Well this morning the alarms on our phones triggered as expected however the screen did not wake up and to snooze the alarm it was ONCE AGAIN necessary to unlock the phones, snooze the calendar reminder that triggered before the alarm time, then finally snooze the alarm by pressing the snooze button on the screen.

So what it comes down to is that basically two of the best alarm clock apps do not work very well with Lollipop.

I haven't tried any other app because at this point I believe the behavior would be similar.

Regarding the particular Google Calendar event that triggered this morning.....the event in our "shared family event calendar" was set to start at 550pm with a notifcation time of 12 hours (i.e. 550am). My wife's alarm was set for 530am (i.e. 20 minutes prior to the calendar event). Even though we both have the DO NOT DISTURB setting on our phones to ON between the hours of 11pm and 630am (with an exception for allowing calls & texts) the calendar event triggered AT LEAST 20 MINUTES EARLY. So it would also appear to be the case that both the Do Not Disturb feature AND Google Calendar notification times are flaky as well.

I would be interested in your our personal feedback if you've experienced these same issues and any workarounds you may have discovered. Thanks in advance!

 

[Gekko]

did you try the stock Clock app?

 

[njitgrad]

did you try the stock Clock app?

There is no option in the stock clock app to challenge you with math problems to ensure you are awake. It is too easy to accidentally dismiss the alarm instead of snoozing it especially when you're fumbling for your phone on the nightstand.

 

[Hypnotoadd]

There are some funky puzzles in the stock app but it's definitely not as challenging as math problems.

I actually have both Lollipop & Alarm Clock Extreme & they work for me. However, I never put my phone in Silent mode, I have it on Vibrate overnight since the vibrations are very quiet. I also haven't updated updated Alarm Clock Extreme because there's a lot of negative feedback on the latest update, & I don't keep old versions of apps.

 

[AC_Crews]

I use alarm clock xtreme with lollipop on the S5. It doesn't make me unlock the phone to snooze it. I don't have it setup to do math problems though. Maybe there is some kind of difference in Samsung TW between the S5 and S6 that's causing your issue.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[Hypnotoadd]

I need the math to make myself wake up enough to not just go back to sleep. I have a pattern lock on my phone & I don't need to unlock to do the math problems when my alarm goes off on my phone (LG G3).

 

[njitgrad]

I just removed all reminder notifications from our shared family event calendar so there's no chance that them popping up prior to the alarm going off could affect it. I'm also going to disable Do Not Disturb since our phones are always in silent mode (using Volume Rocker Pro app) when we go to bed. I'm going to see what happens the next few days and report back.