
Show HN: Jolt Alarm – Wake up to a new song every day - kuczmama
http://www.jolt.rocks/
======
mathiasben
I like this! just downloaded the app and will give it a whirl tomorrow
morning.

Ever considered adding a feature to let strangers wake up other users? So it
would work like this... ten minutes before your alarm is set to go off another
user is chosen at random from a different time zone, he/she get's a
notification to either pass or accept the task of waking you up. When it's
time for the alarm to go off a VOIP session is opened and the user will then
shout or speak softly, or strum a guitar or use an airhorn, etc... to wake you
up. implement a rating system so each "waker" and each "sleeper" would be able
to promote feedback to refine the system. fun!

~~~
placeybordeaux
I've certainly heard of this already existing as a product, but don't remember
what the name was.

~~~
tapoxi
Wakie: [https://wakie.com/](https://wakie.com/)

~~~
kuczmama
That's actually pretty cool. I don't think it's an alarm clock though. Maybe
they could add that feature.

------
kuczmama
Hey guys I created Jolt Alarm because I was sick of waking up to the same song
every day. This is a cool new way to discover new music and to replace your
boring ringtone. I'd love to hear what you think.

~~~
trebor
I haven't used it, but here are a few thoughts from looking at your site and
the app store...

• Your website doesn't say anything. No information about music genre,
settings, etc. You need to say _something_.

• I suggest having a configurable fade-in time for the song. I'm a light
sleeper and can startle easy. Without the fade in I'll jump out of bed with my
heart racing.

• I suggest either omitting explicit songs by default, or add a setting to
filter them out.

• Your privacy policy states that an account may be required for some features
(please no, I'd rather pay than register...) with personally identifiable
information. AFAIK you have no reason to need that. Also, it references GPS
data, a 2 year retention period of data linked to PIA (after closure/deletion
of app), etc. Either this is boilerplate that needs to be revised, or you need
to rethink what you gather (IMO) because it's overblown for an alarm clock.

• Clicking your logo goes to: [http://www.jolt.rocks/sudo%20apt-
get%20install%20ruby-fullsu...](http://www.jolt.rocks/sudo%20apt-
get%20install%20ruby-fullsudo%20gem%20install%20jekyll)

I probably won't install the app. But I did want to share my thoughts. Good
luck!

~~~
kuczmama
Hi trebor. Thanks for the really helpful feedback. I created a link to the
website to go to IOS and android. I never really thought about having much of
a description. I will try to add one in the future. This is a good point.

Regarding the configurable fade-in, the good thing about a lot of the songs
that play on Jolt is that they are a lot more pleasant to wake up to than most
ringtones.

For the privacy policy it was required for android so most of it is
boilerplate. There is no login accounts. But I will update it soon.

Thanks for the feedback on the logo. That's just embarrasing. I will fix that
soon.

~~~
trebor
About the fade-in... the click from the alarm clock wakes me up. It's not
enjoyability, it's volume and how sudden the music comes on.

Just consider it.

~~~
kuczmama
I see what you're saying. I will definitely consider it. It could be a nice
additional setting to add.

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jeremy7600
Does no one buy alarm clocks that use the radio as an alarm anymore? I hear a
different song everyday as it is.

~~~
woliveirajr
My wife wanted one, it wasn't easy to find...

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jeremy7600
Mine is a few years old but they're still around.. Amazon or Best Buy for
online, and I'm willing to bet you could find one at a Walgreens, Rite-Aid or
CVS or some kind of pharmacy type convenience store.

The one I have even has an AUX feature to hook up an external source for audio
and a few other interesting features (dual alarms, etc)

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anotheryou
I love the Idea, but even spotify needs over 20 attemps to show me one song I
don't know and like.

~~~
kuczmama
My goal is to hopefully cut down on that number. I hope you'll like all the
songs. But if you don't like it you can always try tomorrow. That's the fun :)

~~~
jstanley
Even if you don't like it, at least you'll get woken up :)

~~~
anotheryou
How would you have any clue about my taste (if not an even better one than
spotify)?

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kuczmama
I don't. I just pick the songs I like from what the artists submit. Or I reach
out to the artist directly to get their permission to feature it. Hopefully,
you'll like them too. Everyone listens to the same song for a 24 hour period.
Most of the music is EDM.

~~~
brandur
That sounds like it might be difficult to sustain, but this kind of hand
curation is the surest and easiest way to consistent quality. Thanks for doing
it!

You might want to considering billing this as part of the product's
description. My biggest question coming in was how the music was selected
because I wanted to know if there was some mechanism to avoid genres that I'm
sure to hate. I had to come here to find my answer.

I'm looking forward to trying out Jolt tomorrow.

~~~
kuczmama
It's my pleasure. That's true. But it's "only" 365 songs a year. I have no
issues curating the content as long as people are using and enjoying the app.
You have a good point, I need to write a better description of the features of
the app. Luckily, a lot of artists are really excited to have the opportunity
to get featured, so it's been relatively easy to find new music to play.

I really hope you enjoy using it.

~~~
anotheryou
make the "undiscovered artists" a selling point. It's certainly "music you
never heard before". In any case some example songs might be nice.

~~~
kuczmama
That's actually a good idea. I will definitely need to update the description
to reflect that. Thanks for the feedback :)

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cestith
Finally, it's like have a clock with a radio...

~~~
kuczmama
Yeah but this is "better" music. And it's on your phone... so there's that.

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lambic
I'm still surprised popular music services don't have this feature. I ended up
implementing it using Tasker to start Google Music at my wake up time, with a
snooze option.

~~~
kuczmama
Yeah, it is kind of surprising. I didn't do a ton of research into the
competition, but as far as I know there isn't really much like this.

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speaktochris
Just downloaded the app. Can't wait to try it tomorrow morning.

Some feedback, you should use the AppCompat dialog
[https://developer.android.com/reference/android/support/v7/a...](https://developer.android.com/reference/android/support/v7/app/AppCompatDialog.html)
so your dialogs implement the material design instead of the holo design
you're currently using.

~~~
kuczmama
Thanks! I hope you like it. Also, thanks for the feedback. I will look into
updating that for the next release.

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ben_jones
I really like the idea but I do see one problem with the premise. I've been
programmed to jolt awake from the sound of my alarm. I've been listening to
the same alarm for years and my body just knows it has to GET UP NOW when that
noise is made. Hell even if I hear it halfway through the day it's like I feel
a static shock.

Perhaps it could play a base line noise that's guaranteed to wake you up and
fade into the music?

~~~
dabernathy89
That's funny, I think I'm the opposite. If I use the same tone too often my
brain begins to ignore it. I've gotten around this in the past by using my
ringtone, but I don't like starting the day with a feeling of panic.

~~~
kuczmama
I'm the same way. That's why I built jolt.

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libeclipse
Aha, always start hating my alarm clock music, no matter how much I liked it
before. Hopefully this will counteract that.

~~~
kuczmama
I hope you like it.

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hoektoe
Just check your logo is directing to "[http://www.jolt.rocks/sudo%20apt-
get%20install%20ruby-fullsu...](http://www.jolt.rocks/sudo%20apt-
get%20install%20ruby-fullsudo%20gem%20install%20jekyll")

Other than that nice twist on boring alarm clocks.

~~~
kuczmama
That's embarrasing. I just switched over from wordpress to Jekyll because I
was worried about getting too much traffic from HN. I think I didn't work out
all the kinks. Edit. It should be fixed now.

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0x0
How is the iOS version? I thought it wasn't possible to create an app running
in the background that would ring an alarm even when the phone is in silent
mode and present a snooze UI, how does this app deal with that?

~~~
kuczmama
Yeah unfortunately, if the iOS app is in silent mode, the alarm won't sound.
(As far as I know silent mode is the orange toggle switch on the side of the
phone). That's just an apple thing. But, as long as you're not in silent mode
the song will play in the background. The iOS version isn't quite as good as
the android version in my opinion because of the apple restrictions, but
they're fairly close.

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huangc10
Cool app. Mind sharing what language you wrote them in? I'm always interested
when app developers release both iOS and Android apps together.

~~~
kuczmama
Both apps are native. I wrote the first app in Android, and then once I got
that hammered out the way I liked, then switched to ios. On IOS it's written
in Swift 3.

~~~
huangc10
Wow it's rare and also great you know how to write for both platforms. I'm
focusing more on React Native because I don't know any Java...

~~~
kuczmama
Thanks. React Native looks like a great platform. I haven't really done much
with that yet, but it looks really interesting. Unfortunately, android and IOS
both have pretty big learning curves, but I think knowing both is pretty
helpful. I think you can make better apps when you write it natively.

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a_imho
Does this app synthesize a new song everytime it alarms you? Not exactly clear
how it works from the playstore description.

~~~
kuczmama
It's actually a new hand-picked song every 24 hours. If you're curious, on how
exactly it works. I have a rails server which I host all of my songs, which
updates once a day. Then I pull in the song data from the server into the ios
and android apps. So everyone who has the app listens to the same song.

~~~
a_imho
Do you use it to showcase your music? Do you push/pull the media to everyone
at the same time? Does it fallback to the last song if it can't reach the
server for whatever reason?

~~~
kuczmama
It's not my music. Actually, I get artists to submit their songs, and I pick
the ones I like. Or I reach out to artists I like and ask for permission to
use their songs.

No, all the phones will pull the data at a different time, so it should keep
the load down from the server. Plus there is a bit of randomness thrown in for
good measure.

It doesn't actually fall back to the last song. It caches the current song,
but if for some reason the cache doesn't save for some reason. Or if you are
offline. Your phone's default ringtone will play.

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franze
question: what happens when I'm offline? what happens when I'm offline like
for a month and use this app with 3 different alarms per day?

the big questions: do you (kinda) guarantee that the alarm clock will go off,
even in these extreme circumstances?

~~~
kuczmama
If you're online, in wifi, it will play the song. But if you're offline it
will play your phone's default ringtone. I did it that way so it wouldn't eat
your data. Because downloading a new song everyday can add up if you have a
limited data plan. So in theory you could be offline indefinitely and the
alarm should just work. And then when you come back online, you'll be able to
hear the song again.

~~~
Tajnymag
How about preloading of songs over wifi only. Another way could be to
automatically enable wifi a few minutes before the alarm time.

Defaulting to standard ringtone if no song was downloaded.

~~~
kuczmama
That's a good suggestion. Right now it actually does cache the song when it's
on wiFi, so it often works correctly. But, I find when my phone gets low on
memory, the cache is sometimes cleared, and if I'm not in WiFi, it will go
back to the default ringtone.

Actually automatically enabling wiFi is a good idea. I just assumed most
people would try to be in wiFi as much as they could be, so I assumed the user
would do their best to make that happen. Maybe I shouldn't have assumed that.

~~~
Tajnymag
It wouldn't be much of a deal to me either, as I'd just use a Wifi-enabling
task. Though I'd say many users would appreciate such feature.

~~~
kuczmama
Yeah I like it. That sounds like a relatively easy thing to implement, which
could "fix" having your phone's default alarm sound instead of the song of the
day.

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jbauer337
This is a sweet idea... I can imagine this becoming a staple in the EDM
community

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bigphishy
How 'bout addin' Rusty's Random Rooster feature

~~~
kuczmama
That will need to be a separate app. There isn't a place for it in jolt, but I
do think it could be another fun side project to work on...

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sutble
The "jolt" when opening the app was a nice touch!

~~~
kuczmama
I'm glad you like it. :)

