LDS Reverent Mode (Android only)

Hey, so I made a simple android app a while ago that would silence your phone when you would walk into any LDS chapel. It would make use of the standard SSID that we use in most chapels. It was a very simple app that I made using tasker but I've now re-written it from scratch. It's the first android app I've written on my own and I'd like some help/feedback on it.

Currently I'm testing the beta version and hope to have it ready to be released publicly before the end of the month. It's an incredibly simple app so there isn't much to it but I would like to test it on as many different phones and Android versions as possible to find any gotchas. One of the reasons I had to write it from scratch was due to the way that a recent Android upgrade handled permissions. That completely broke my app for anyone that would upgrade.

If you're willing to join the beta program, use the link below and send any feedback that you can. Things to look for tomorrow would be how soon the app will engage/disengage, battery consumption (should be very minimal), modes working as expected, and the effect of low/bad wifi signal while inside the church. The last one is one that has me a bit worried. I haven't accounted for the fact that some buildings have very poor wifi reception in certain areas of the building. If this is an issue, I'll have to think of a way to address this.

Oh and I'm sure the Android only thing will come up so let me explain. Currently there is no possible way to control the ringer on an iPhone programatically. I've spoken with Apple and they will not allow it. So until that changes, this will unfortunately only work with Android phones.

Thank you for your willingness to help me. I thought this would be a neat project that many members would appreciate.

Link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... verentmode

This is a great project!

Nice! What about adding the option to include day or time in the decision process? For example, mute if it senses the SSID on a Sunday, but not on a weekday. Everyone's situation is different, so it would have to be adjustable. Perhaps it needs to be silenced during seminary, but not the evening basketball game.

An earlier version had settings for days of the week but I removed it. I'm trying to keep the app as simple as possible so I went with just adding a disabled mode instead. The type of user I made this for is someone who wouldn't really want/know how to configure apps. The idea was that all you need to do is install it, run it once, and then forget about it.

We'll see though, the day selector feature may come back in future depending on feedback.

Hey, that's gnarly! I'm always trying to remember to silence my phone in church. Equally as bad, I forget to turn it back on when I get home. I imagine it won't work very well for those living close to a church-owned building that uses the standard SSID.

That's great to hear! Hope it works well for you. Regarding those that live close by, I doubt the wifi signal will reach that far. Normally it barely reaches the parking lot. During my testing, I've seen it activate while I'm parking and deactivate while I'm pulling out of the parking spot. I'm sure it won't always be that precise, but that's part of the reason I need testers. =) I'd like to see how it works with different types of phones and in different types of chapels.

My last house was located kitty-corner from a chapel. I could reliably use the chapel's wi-fi from half of the house. Totally an edge case though, I wouldn't worry about it.

So the first thing I've noticed from today's reports is that the app isn't compatible with Android 7.0 yet. Nougat doesn't scan wifi in the background anymore and I depended on this for my broadcast receiver. I'll have to figure out a way around this for any phones with Android 7.0+. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions, I welcome them. =)

Other than that, reports have been positive. Seems to be working and working pretty fast too with very little battery consumption.

Well, somehow Android still searches and finds wifi automatically. Perhaps you can check what network the phone is attached to.

I installed the app and checked it when I got to church. Sure enough, it put my phone on vibrate, which was my option. While still at church, I accidentally bumped the volume button which overrode your app and put it back on ringer. Nothing I did could get your app to change my phone back to vibrate. I even powered down my phone and powered it up again, but it still showed the ringer was on. I didn't have a chance to uninstall and reinstall the app to see if that fixed it, but that was next on my list.

Galaxy S5
Android 6.0.1

Mikerowaved wrote:I installed the app and checked it when I got to church. Sure enough, it put my phone on vibrate, which was my option. While still at church, I accidentally bumped the volume button which overrode your app and put it back on ringer. Nothing I did could get your app to change my phone back to vibrate. I even powered down my phone and powered it up again, but it still showed the ringer was on. I didn't have a chance to uninstall and reinstall the app to see if that fixed it, but that was next on my list.

Galaxy S5
Android 6.0.1

The app worked as expected in your case. It saves the current state before changing your ringer and will remember this even if the phone is powered off. The app will not get triggered again until you leave the chapel. Which is when it will return to the state which was saved. I did this for a few reasons but mainly, if you change your ringer manually, I'm going to assume you did this on purpose and need the ringer on during church so I don't want to override your decision.

Your assumption was correct though, if you uninstalled and reinstalled, it would forget that you're already walked into church and would put your ringer on vibrate but ideally you would just set the ringer back to vibrate if it was manually taken off of vibrate. Hope that makes sense

russellhltn wrote:Well, somehow Android still searches and finds wifi automatically. Perhaps you can check what network the phone is attached to.

The app isn't dependent on the user connecting to a specific network. It depends on nearby SSID's to cover any members that do not automatically connect to the church's wifi. I'm looking into just having a job scheduler but need to do some testing on how that will impact battery life. This only affects users with Android 7.0 which isn't super popular right now but will be gaining a lot of ground this year so it definitely needs to be address soon.

Oliver84 wrote:The app isn't dependent on the user connecting to a specific network. It depends on nearby SSID's to cover any members that do not automatically connect to the church's wifi.

I realize that may not be the way you wanted it to work, but it does provide a measure of functionality for those with 7.

But first, are you sure that's a function of 7? The reason I ask, is looking at my settings (pixel/7.1), there is still the option of using nearby SSIDs as part of the location services. So I doubt if 7 would have turned off that background scan. However, depending on the location settings, you may not have the background scan. For example, it may not be there if the phone is set for "GPS Only".

russellhltn wrote: But first, are you sure that's a function of 7? The reason I ask, is looking at my settings (pixel/7.1), there is still the option of using nearby SSIDs as part of the location services. So I doubt if 7 would have turned off that background scan. However, depending on the location settings, you may not have the background scan. For example, it may not be there if the phone is set for "GPS Only".

It seems that what changed was that Android won't let you do listen for network changes in the background anymore. It needs to be in the main thread which won't help because I don't expect people to have this app open for it to work. https://developer.android.com/topic/per ... ity-action

What they suggest is using jobscheduler to schedule the task instead. I'm testing this right now and it seems to be working. I just need to test a few edge cases before I post an update. I was afraid of battery consumption doing this but the point of the jobscheduler is to minimize battery consumption so let's hope it works.

This would also fix the issue you mentioned with people having their phone set to "GPS Only" as it would not depend on any background wifi scans that the system does automatically.

What availability is planned for the iPhone/iPad community?

As soon as Apple gives us access to the ringer programmatically, I'll make an iOS version. As of now, they won't allow this type of app in the Appstore

Wanted to pass this onto a member. I looked on my app store and didnt see it. So came to this foram and see iphone not yet.

Love the app.
Enhancement request. With possibility that lds ssid may change, would be nice to have an edit for that.
Then, like going to theaters, some with ssid, would be nice if I could have a list of ssids to operate on.
Keven Miller, Ivins Ut

kevenm wrote: Sun Oct 20, 2024 1:04 pm Wanted to pass this onto a member. I looked on my app store and didnt see it. So came to this foram and see iphone not yet.

Love the app.
Enhancement request. With possibility that lds ssid may change, would be nice to have an edit for that.
Then, like going to theaters, some with ssid, would be nice if I could have a list of ssids to operate on.
Keven Miller, Ivins Ut

This thread is seven years old, and since there have not been any additional posts since 2017, it seems unlikely that the developer has continued updating the app.

You're right, I haven't updated the app in a long time. Updates and new limitations made this concept more and more difficult to do but I'm still here. I've been wanting to try a few different things now so hopefully soon I'll be able to get an update put together for you guys.

Can I help? Sounds like a fun holiday project.