Brew Timer for Android

[humanjoe]

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

 

[MW66]

I will give it a try and let you know.

 

[TonyR]

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

 

[SauceBoss]

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

 

[humanjoe]

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.

 

[RMitch]

Just D/Led.

 

[RMitch]

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

 

[humanjoe]

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

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?

 

[soundguy]

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.

 

[Gordzilla]

Ill try it tomorrow and let you know how it worked

 

[humanjoe]

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!!

 

[dmbRedGetta]

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

 

[humanjoe]

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

Thanks!

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

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

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

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.

 

[jmferris]

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

 

[dmbRedGetta]

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

 

[evanmars]

Just downloaded. Hopefully get to use it this weekend.

 

[theschick]

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.

 

[humanjoe]

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.

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

 

[Planeinsane]

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

 

[FDillon00]

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.

 

[humanjoe]

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.

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

 

[FDillon00]

@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.

 

[RMitch]

Agreed. More AG suport would be nice.

 

[humanjoe]

@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.

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

Adam

 

[humanjoe]

Heya Everyone,

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

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

Done. Default is 0 now.

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

Done.

Next on my schedule...

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.

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

 

[Apoxbrew]

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.

 

[humanjoe]

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.

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

 

[kegtapper]

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

Thanks man.

 

[humanjoe]

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

Thanks man.

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

 

[ChoochNW]

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: