Locale 1.0 Rundown

[ScooberJake]

I loved Locale Beta. Loved it! Then I saw that the paid version included dock situations, so I was excited to purchase it.

I've got to say, I have definitely seen worse battery life with version 1.0.x compared to beta. With beta, I just left GPS always on. It did great with location accuracy and battery life. The paid app now also uses Wifi to locate the phone whether I like it or not. (The user CANNOT deactivate this, even if Wifi is set to OFF in Droid settings.) This is bad news for me. My work location has no Wifi networks, although there is one really weak network from a nearby library that sometimes shows up in Wifi Analyzer. Every time I check my phone for emails or texts I try to pay attention, and it seems like Wifi is always on. Battery usage statistics show Wifi as a big user. I hate this! Why can I not just tell Locale to leave Wifi off?

There is a feature in Locale that says if your locations are all bigger than 2km (diameter, I assume?) then it will not use GPS or Wifi to determine location. I guess that means it would just use the cell towers. But the GUI doesn't let you know when your locations are big enough. Besides, this hampers functionality of the app, requiring such large locations. Very frustrated!

And on top of this, I think the latest update broke the location recognition. Got an update over the weekend, and now Locale did not recognize that I was at church yesterday or at work today. This worked fine last week. I've been here for a couple of hours, and Google Maps locates me correctly.

Something is wrong. This app is going downhill very fast!

[Scribble]

I've been using locale since Friday, and so far I like it...

One thing I DID notice, is to be careful of Homer Simpson "D'OUGHT!" moments.

For instance, this weekend I've been grumbling because my Weatherbug widget wasn't following my location... "GRRR stupid Weatherbug..." Until I realized I'd set locale to turn off my GPS at night to save power, and forgotten to have default turn it back on- D'OUGHT!

Aside from that Locale has been working really well for me.

I'm typically traveling to and from work at the same time every day and I generally don't dock my Droid in the car when I do (I also have a generic car mount and haven't had a chance to DIY a magnet into it yet). Therefore I didn't bother setting this up for anything beyond time and location. I started by setting a pretty large geographic region that surrounds my home and my office with the center on roughly the midpoint of my commute. This helps avoid the commuting situation from switching on if I'm traveling and not at home. Next I set the condition 4:50pm - 5:50pm to cover my commute with a little wiggle-room. This switches my Bluetooth on so I don't have to mess with it when I'm leaving the office.

I don't have the official car mount either- but since I normally have it plugged in and charging when I'm in the car (because I use pandora and stuff a lot) I have 2 "plugged in" conditions... One is linked to a location (home) the other isn't- The one that isn't also turns on the BT.

So far it's been working out well.

[peterpressure]

I loved Locale Beta. Loved it! Then I saw that the paid version included dock situations, so I was excited to purchase it.

I've got to say, I have definitely seen worse battery life with version 1.0.x compared to beta. With beta, I just left GPS always on. It did great with location accuracy and battery life. The paid app now also uses Wifi to locate the phone whether I like it or not. (The user CANNOT deactivate this, even if Wifi is set to OFF in Droid settings.) This is bad news for me. My work location has no Wifi networks, although there is one really weak network from a nearby library that sometimes shows up in Wifi Analyzer. Every time I check my phone for emails or texts I try to pay attention, and it seems like Wifi is always on. Battery usage statistics show Wifi as a big user. I hate this! Why can I not just tell Locale to leave Wifi off?

There is a feature in Locale that says if your locations are all bigger than 2km (diameter, I assume?) then it will not use GPS or Wifi to determine location. I guess that means it would just use the cell towers. But the GUI doesn't let you know when your locations are big enough. Besides, this hampers functionality of the app, requiring such large locations. Very frustrated!

And on top of this, I think the latest update broke the location recognition. Got an update over the weekend, and now Locale did not recognize that I was at church yesterday or at work today. This worked fine last week. I've been here for a couple of hours, and Google Maps locates me correctly.

Something is wrong. This app is going downhill very fast!

I have all the same problems as you. The beta worked awesome. Every daY when I got to work my phone went into vibrate mode. That is all I needed. Now with the paid app it fails to know I am at work, when it does know (rare) it fails to turn on the vibrate icon (beta did) and worst of all it toggle wifi on killing my wifi tethering every 5 min. Total garbage.

Also beta app (the one that actually worked) no longer launches, the developers locked it out. Jerks

[aaf709]

I had it when it was free and it was just ok, mainly because I didn't know how to change the settings. For example, I wanted to have the phone set to vibrate in church, mainly because I've had a call from my parents telling me they had car trouble. It worked, but I didn't set the email notification (didn't know I had to) so I got a loud DDDRRRROOOIIIIDDD. If that's the only place I need to make a change, I can just turn the phone off when I get there and save $10. I admit it's a cool thing and if I had it I would use it also to turn the BT off when I'm at work.

[peterpressure]

ALSO, Check out FOXYRING, It is Free and has MUCH of the same functionality as Locale (GPS based setting changes). In addition to its ambient noise based setting changes.

[bodean]

Can't believe the developer of Locale is so blind. Read the comments on the market. 10 bucks is OVERPRICED. This guy seriously needs to get with the times, support the product, and price is competitively.