

 Rate my hackathon hack gone startup, rooster.am - the smart alarm - tomatohs
http://rooster.am

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boredguy8
Here's what I don't like about this: I have all these services on my phone,
each app-click away at most. And my phone comes with as many alarms as I want.
I'm not sure this is a particularly useful synthesis, especially since I have
to hold my phone to my ear to get the benefit.

Two things that could make me like this more:

1) Let me get the alert on my computer. I currently set two alarms on my phone
and one alarm at kukuklok.com. I'd immediately switch to your app if I could
have it start talking to me on my computer at the appointed time, rather than
having it call my phone.

2) Ring back if I don't push a button to confirm I'm up. Give me an option for
if I just hang up the call, call me back. Nagging is good when it's trying to
get me out of bed!

For what it's worth: this feedback is based off the landing page. I wasn't
able to get the app to "call me now".

~~~
paul9290
You mention you use an online clock now and are interested in one that speaks
information. Check out <http://sleep.fm> ... wakes & speak the weather, status
of your airline flight (data from flightcaster.com), as well another option
you can ask your friends to choose a fun alarm sound(youtube vid) to wake you
up. Which ive heard many think is a crazy idea yet if you ever woke up to
Pandora.com or a radio station it's the same thing, yet the alarm that wakes
you was selected by friend(has some meaning to it).

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ryanelkins
Seems like it might be down. I tried sending an example to my cofounder
because I wanted him to answer the phone and have a rooster scream into his
ear but so far all I've got is an ajax spinner going. Now all the giggling I
was doing on the other side of the office just seems extra creepy.

~~~
tomatohs
Try now. Server was having trouble with the traffic.

~~~
ryanelkins
Yeah, seems to be working now, although he had seen my previous comment so he
just gave me a dirty look when his phone started ringing. He did answer
though, and I heard him mutter something about "pickles and tomatoes" trending
on twitter.

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stanmancan
Since there's huge potential for abuse, I'd like to see there be some sort of
confirmation system in place.

When you set an alarm, it calls the number entered and asks you to enter in a
code displayed on screen or something. That way you can confirm the person on
the computer at least has access to the phone. If the same IP address tries to
set alarms for X numbers and they all fail, black list that IP or something.

Somebody could potentially go in and create alarms to call people all night
and there's nothing the victim could do except turn their phone off.

Otherwise pretty neat :)

~~~
tomatohs
Have half of this coded already, will show up in the future.

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famousactress
I'm not sure I'm 100% in agreement with the arguments that our phones are best
used for all of these cases.. I can imagine some interesting cases with
smarts... Text me when the surf is really good before 9am, or wake me up early
if the traffic is particularly bad.. ring me if one of the stocks in my
portfolio starts taking a dive. I dunno.. I think there could be some neat
applications for an intelligent alarm service.

~~~
marquis
I would pay good money for a surfing text, along with a suggestion about why
I'm going to be late for work that morning.

~~~
mahipal
Duly noted. Check back in a few days. =)

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tomatohs
For those who are interested, here is my pitch at the November NYTM:
[http://meetjennings.com/uncategorized/rooster-am-
presentatio...](http://meetjennings.com/uncategorized/rooster-am-presentation-
at-nytm-november-2nd-2010/)

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JonLim
Just got my example call, that rooster call is horrifying.

But very cool, what service are you using for the calling? It sent the example
phone call within seconds to Toronto.

~~~
eam
The example call for me was: "We're sorry, an application error has occurred."

~~~
tomatohs
Fixed now, traffic spike was breaking things.

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ameyamk
I had thought about this idea earlier this year, and immediately killed it,
realizing most people would just use smart phone for this.

So we developed the idea further in some other use cases: eg. 'take medicine
pill' reminder call for your old parents etc.

I still think, just an alarm for myself may not be very useful, but there can
be some interesting use cases to remind people with useful info.

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CWIZO
How can I delete my account? It seems it's not working for me (I'm from
Slovenia) and I don't want to have an account with a service that does not
work for me. Hope you understand.

~~~
tomatohs
Sure, send me an email and I'll delete your account immediately. ian [at]
meetjennings.com. Could you tell me a little more about the problem?

~~~
CWIZO
I've setup a test alarm and nothing happened i.e. I haven't received a call
... I'm assuming it's not working for my country (as is mostly the case with
such things :\\)

~~~
tomatohs
Try again, the server was having problems with the amount of traffic.

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dooq
I put in my 778 area code phone number to test. You should detect this area
code is on pacific time, and adjust accordingly. The time you told me was 3
hours off.

~~~
tomatohs
The test script just takes an existing alarm and reads it out. Signup asks you
for a timezone.

    
    
      1) An area code may span over multiple timezones
      2) A user may have a google voice number
    

Area code does not necessarily indicate timezone

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hucker
The "Try me!" textbox won't even let me put in the whole number, when trying
to use +47(Norway) as country code... Does this only work in the US?

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fuzzmeister
While an alarm clock should be annoying to a certain extent, the rooster sound
is just a bit much. I like it otherwise, though.

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seancron
I see a Reddit icon next to "Recite the top technology stories."

Can it tell us the HN frontpage as well?

~~~
tomatohs
In the future ;)

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sammville
Interesting.. Can it call the U.K?

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x0t
479 area code here, the time was off by one hour (18:49 rather than 17:49).

~~~
tomatohs
Was this on the test, or did you make an account?

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JCB_K
A better design would be a good start :) Great idea though!

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jawartak
Quick typo fix: 'forcast' should be 'forecast'.

