Brew Timer for Android

Heya Everyone,

I just finished up my BETA version of a brewing timer for the Android Platform.

http://market.android.com/details?id=com.brewtimer

Features:
- Create, save, load, and delete Recipe Profiles.
- Each Recipe Profile can contain events for all brewing processes that need to timed.
- Brew Timer can sound an alarm and/or vibrate when an event needs your attention.
- Events can be added, edited, or removed while the the timer is running, in case an event needs to be altered.
- Color-coding of individual event entry's time left lets you quickly determine how soon an event will trigger.
- Timer can be paused and resumed at any time.

I started designing a a fun project back in August. My wife and I had twins in May so the timeline dragged out a bit but I'm at a point where I want some people to take a look and tell me what they think. Right now it's in BETA. I'm adding some more features right now and should have an update to the Android Market in a few days.

Again, I did this for fun because it fit a need I had. I'll be continuing to work on it and add feature as time allows (Making the UI prettier is my first priority!) If just one of you find it useful, I would be totally psyched. If you want to contact me with ideas, concerns or criticism you can do it through the forums here or use the developer email address found in the Market on your phone. Thanks for your time and enjoy.

Also, I am not affiliated with the Brew Timer App for the iPhone (http://brewtimer.appmark.it/) but if you do have an iPhone, it looks like a great app.

Adam

I will give it a try and let you know.

Looks good, I'll give it a try this week.

getting the app now, ill test it out and let ya know

I putting the final touches and testing an update right now. Might be able to get it to the market tonight or tomorrow.

Thanks guys. Can't wait to hear how it works for you.

Just D/Led.

It'd be nice if there were multiple "profiles" or files, for your various beer recipes.

RMitch said:

It'd be nice if there were multiple "profiles" or files, for your various beer recipes.

Click to expand...

There are!!! Create a profile then in the menu hit "Save". The profile is saved with the name you choose. Need it at a later time, just select "Open".

Is that what you're looking for?

Thank you! I used this today for a brew session. Wonderful app. I did have a problem with the alarm going off slightly later than scheduled. About 30 sec to a minute if the phone was sitting with the screen off. I did see there is an update, but not until after using it, so this may have already been addressed. Really like the app and look forward to using it again next time. I already have the recipe programmed in.

Ill try it tomorrow and let you know how it worked

Glad to hear you like it. I have also seen these delays for some alarms. It usually only happens for one of them and then the next alarm is at the correct time. Is that what you saw? I think what is happening is when the phone goes to sleep it's taking a little time to wake up and realize there is an alarm going off. I have a couple of avenues to explore to fix this issue and I'm in the process of working through them now.

Thanks for the great feedback and keep it coming!!

Looks great! I'll give it a shot next time I brew.

The only constructive criticism I have is to make the order of the ok and cancel buttons the same throughout.

Do you program for a company or just as a hobby? I've been programming for a small company here in Louisville for almost 10 years now. Always nice to meet fellow programmers

dmbRedGetta said:

Looks great! I'll give it a shot next time I brew.

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Thanks!

dmbRedGetta said:

The only constructive criticism I have is to make the order of the ok and cancel buttons the same throughout.

Click to expand...

You know I looked at that application over and over and never saw that. Thanks!

dmbRedGetta said:

Do you program for a company or just as a hobby? I've been programming for a small company here in Louisville for almost 10 years now. Always nice to meet fellow programmers

Click to expand...

My degree in in Computer Engineering, focusing on hardware design but I've pretty much always been a coder. Most of my stuff has been professional work has been with mainframe and Windows based stuff. On the side, to help friends out and for fun, I do web-based stuff like PHP and Java. The Android stuff I got into because I had an Android phone and really wanted a brew timer to use myself.

Very nice. Have a brew day coming up on Sunday, and will provide feedback once I have ran through it.

Yeah, I set up everything to build an Android app when I first got my phone, too, but I still haven't thought of that million dollar app idea... maybe one day

Just downloaded. Hopefully get to use it this weekend.

Looks good! This might be just a personal preference, but is there a way to set a default steeping time as "0"? I don't steep grains, and its just another step to have to enter "0" in the steeping field, since it is required.

theschick said:

Looks good! This might be just a personal preference, but is there a way to set a default steeping time as "0"? I don't steep grains, and its just another step to have to enter "0" in the steeping field, since it is required.

Click to expand...

Great Idea, I'll add it to the list. Thanks!

DLing now will let you know after my next brew session..hopefully this weekend

I haven't gotten to use this during the boil yet however I have got a change to play with it. My first problem was figuring out how to configure it...really it's a shame on me as I hardly ever read instructions. However when I did they were very straight forward and helpful. I do have a couple suggestions, I'll stick to just one in this post.

Could you look into adding the ability to making "custom notifications" for this app. For example I use "Handcent" to manage SMS/MMS. Handcent allows me to make custom notifications with such settings as "Notification Sound", "Notification Icon" (type and color that appears in the Notification Bar), Vibrate Settings (Always, Never, When Asleep), Vibrate pattern ( default, Normal, Long, Short, Multiple Short, multiple long, Custom) and LED Blinking ( Color and Pattern). I also have other programs that can manage their notification settings. Because by default Android has one sound for all notifications. Default means you hear the same sound for VoiceMail, Email, SMS, MMS....ect. My Apps allow me to have a different notification for each one. So not only can the sound tell me what it is, but on vibrate mode I know based on the pattern.

All and all it's a great tool so far, thank you for all your hard work.

FDillon00 said:

Could you look into adding the ability to making "custom notifications" for this app. For example I use "Handcent" to manage SMS/MMS. Handcent allows me to make custom notifications with such settings as "Notification Sound", "Notification Icon" (type and color that appears in the Notification Bar), Vibrate Settings (Always, Never, When Asleep), Vibrate pattern ( default, Normal, Long, Short, Multiple Short, multiple long, Custom) and LED Blinking ( Color and Pattern). I also have other programs that can manage their notification settings. Because by default Android has one sound for all notifications. Default means you hear the same sound for VoiceMail, Email, SMS, MMS....ect. My Apps allow me to have a different notification for each one. So not only can the sound tell me what it is, but on vibrate mode I know based on the pattern.

Click to expand...

Heya,

Sorry it's taken me so long to respond to your post. My twins got sick and I haven't had enough time to do anything but take care of them.

I love the idea of custom notifications. I had thought about it previously and had pushed it off to the next version but if people really like the idea I'll move it up and get cracking on it. If I have any questions about it I'll send them along.

As for your other ideas, please send them along. I wrote this application because I wanted something to use in my own brewing and I'm really getting a kick out of the fact that others are finding it useful too. Keep the ideas coming, I'm loving it!

Adam

@humanjoe No problems mate, you've already done more then most and helped atleast a few people.

I pointed out Handcent SMS as by baisis for comparison because its simiple and FREE. I don't know if you can break down an existing APP to figure out some of it's code but figured you could also download it and see what I mean.

On to my second suggestion. As an all grain brewer I am also looking for a mash timer. Which is actually the first thing I tried to use your app for was multiple step mash timing. Once I read the instructions I quickly realized it would take some serious thought to make it work. So maybe this is a different "mode" or a new APP. As your current APP works the Timers run concurrently in order for it to be easy to use they would need to be consecutively. In a mash I plan to do in the next week or so I'll need to set a timer for the Protein Rest, followed by each Step Rest (2) and finally the Batch Sparge timers. I currently just have to set the default timer on my phone for each step. It would be nice to have them all set and just pause during the "raise time" and resume when my Temprature goal met. Also since you allow us to save different boil profiles, I would then set up different Mash Profiles for repeated use. Thanks again for all your work.

Agreed. More AG suport would be nice.

FDillon00 said:

@humanjoe No problems mate, you've already done more then most and helped atleast a few people.

I pointed out Handcent SMS as by baisis for comparison because its simiple and FREE. I don't know if you can break down an existing APP to figure out some of it's code but figured you could also download it and see what I mean.

On to my second suggestion. As an all grain brewer I am also looking for a mash timer. Which is actually the first thing I tried to use your app for was multiple step mash timing. Once I read the instructions I quickly realized it would take some serious thought to make it work. So maybe this is a different "mode" or a new APP. As your current APP works the Timers run concurrently in order for it to be easy to use they would need to be consecutively. In a mash I plan to do in the next week or so I'll need to set a timer for the Protein Rest, followed by each Step Rest (2) and finally the Batch Sparge timers. I currently just have to set the default timer on my phone for each step. It would be nice to have them all set and just pause during the "raise time" and resume when my Temprature goal met. Also since you allow us to save different boil profiles, I would then set up different Mash Profiles for repeated use. Thanks again for all your work.

Click to expand...

Great Ideas. I'll mull it over and figure out a way to get something like that working.

Adam

Heya Everyone,

Just pushed out a minor update with two of the suggestions people had from above.

theschick said:

This might be just a personal preference, but is there a way to set a default steeping time as "0"?

Click to expand...

Done. Default is 0 now.

dmbRedGetta said:

The only constructive criticism I have is to make the order of the ok and cancel buttons the same throughout.

Click to expand...

Done.

Next on my schedule...

soundguy said:

Thank you! I used this today for a brew session. Wonderful app. I did have a problem with the alarm going off slightly later than scheduled. About 30 sec to a minute if the phone was sitting with the screen off. I did see there is an update, but not until after using it, so this may have already been addressed. Really like the app and look forward to using it again next time. I already have the recipe programmed in.

Click to expand...

After that I think I'll add support for a mash timing mode.

Thanks for all the feedback. If anyone is interested I set up a Twitter account (@TheBrewTimer) to send out notifications about updates, etc.

Keep the great ideas coming!

Adam

I'd love to see custom alarms and volume levels. by custom, I don't mean providing the actual sounds, but the ability to pick sounds just for the program rather than using the phone settings.

this is working great, btw, on both my dx running liberty, and my nook running cm7.

byproxy said:

I'd love to see custom alarms and volume levels. by custom, I don't mean providing the actual sounds, but the ability to pick sounds just for the program rather than using the phone settings.

this is working great, btw, on both my dx running liberty, and my nook running cm7.

Click to expand...

Thanks for trying it out, byproxy. After I fix the bug that causes the timer to go off slightly late if the phone is asleep I'm going to add custom alarm sounds first and then hopefully custom vibrations, etc.

Adam

I found that app by accident a few weeks ago. Seemed to work good on brewday.

Thanks man.

kegtapper said:

I found that app by accident a few weeks ago. Seemed to work good on brewday.

Thanks man.

Click to expand...

Thanks for giving it a try. If you have any questions, comments etc. please post them here and I'll get right on it. (When my twins give me a moment!!!)

Adam

Just downloaded it on my HTC Evo....played around with it for a bit to dial it in for the next brew day. Works great, stoked to have a single timer instead of having to reset it after every hop addition.
:rockin:

I've been playing around with this and like the alarms/timing function. Some suggestions based on my preferences for a timer:

- Adding a countdown of the time remaining for the whole profile. I know that I like to look at the clock frequently and see how much longer in the boil there is left.

- Adding the option to choose different notification styles.

ChoochNW said:

Just downloaded it on my HTC Evo...

Click to expand...

Just downloaded for my Evo as well!

Ace_Club said:

- Adding a countdown of the time remaining for the whole profile. I know that I like to look at the clock frequently and see how much longer in the boil there is left.

Click to expand...

That's a great idea!

P.S. I love the the notification bar icon!

Ace_Club said:

- Adding a countdown of the time remaining for the whole profile. I know that I like to look at the clock frequently and see how much longer in the boil there is left.

Click to expand...

Explain this one to me a bit more. Right now there is a boil time count down at the top of the screen that counts down until the boil ends. Are you suggesting a different countdown? Or the time of the boil and the post boil steeping combined? Something else?

Ace_Club said:

- Adding the option to choose different notification styles.

Click to expand...

Working on that right now, revamping the whole notification system.


Thanks for all the great replies so far everyone. I had a lot of fun writing this app and I'm going to keep enhancing and adding features to make it as useful as possible. Thanks again!!

Adam

humanjoe said:

Explain this one to me a bit more. Right now there is a boil time count down at the top of the screen that counts down until the boil ends. Are you suggesting a different countdown? Or the time of the boil and the post boil steeping combined? Something else?

Click to expand...

Hmmmm...maybe something is funky on the version I have. The digits at the top right of the screen remain at 60:00 while the timer is running. You're saying this is supposed to be an active countdown? That is what I was looking for, but as I said, the version I downloaded today was not doing that. Strange.

Ace_Club said:

Hmmmm...maybe something is funky on the version I have. The digits at the top right of the screen remain at 60:00 while the timer is running. You're saying this is supposed to be an active countdown? That is what I was looking for, but as I said, the version I downloaded today was not doing that. Strange.

Click to expand...

Oh wow, I will have to check that out. Thanks for the heads up!!!

Edit: Just ran some quick test and I do see something strange. Do me a favor and before you start a session reset it first. Then start the countdown. In my tests the countdown started. If it works for you then that should be a simple fix I'll release soon.

Adam

Heya Everyone,

Just wanted to give you all an update on the Brew Timer. Right now I'm in the middle of testing some updates to the app. The new version has a completely revamped notification system that should eliminate the slight delays for alarms that were occurring when the phone went into a deep sleep. Also I have added the ability to choose notification sounds for your Brew Timer alarms (this seemed to be the biggest request by far). I also added some state persistence so that the app doesn't reset itself to its default state if the OS cleans it up.

There are a couple of other small little things like expanded help and small bugs.

I'm hoping to test this weekend and do a release next week sometime.

If you have any question, concerns or comments, drop me a message here, at my Twitter account (@TheBrewTimer) or send an email to brewtimer at humanjoe dot com.

Thanks a lot for the time you used this app and all the great ideas.

Adam

humanjoe said:

Thanks a lot for the time you used this app and all the great ideas.

Adam

Click to expand...

Thank you for the app!

Downloading now! Thanks Adam.

Heya Everyone,

The new version is posted to the Android Market. In this version I took your wants and added custom notification alarm sounds for all events and rewrote the alarm system so the firing of the alarms is much more accurate. Also, after you guys get to use it could you do me a favor. If you have a minute could you write a review and/or rate my app in the Android Market. Good or bad I would love to see the feedback so let me have it!

Now, on to the topic at hand, so what do you guys want me working next? From previous posts it seems there s a desire for an All-Grain timing mode. Is that still a desire? Is there anything else out there people want to see?

Thanks again for all your feedback and looking forward to the next version.

Adam