Android Developer Fundamentals V2

Alarms and
Schedulers

Lesson 8

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 8.2 Alarms

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Contents

● What are Alarms

● Alarms Best Practices
● Alarm Manager
● Scheduling Alarms
● More Alarm Considerations

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What Are
Alarms

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What is an alarm in Android?

● Not an actual alarm clock.

● Schedules something to happen at a set time.
● Fire intents at set times or intervals.
● Goes off once or recurring.
● Can be based on a real-time clock or elapsed time.
● App does not need to run for alarm to be active.

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How alarms work with components

BroadcastReceiver
BroadcastReceiver
wakes up the app
wakes up
and delivers the
delivers notification
notification.
Activity creates Alarm triggers and
a notification and sends out Intent.
sets an alarm.
App may be
destroyed so….
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Benefits of alarms

● App does not need to run for alarm to be active.

● Device does not have to be awake.
● Does not use resources until it goes off.
● Use with BroadcastReceiver to start services and other
operations.

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Measuring time
● Elapsed Real Time—time since system boot.
○ Independent of time zone and locale.
○ Use for intervals and relative time.
○ Use whenever possible.
○ Elapsed time includes time device was asleep.

● Real Time Clock (RTC)—UTC (wall clock) time.

○ When time of day at locale matter.

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Wakeup behavior

● Wakes up device CPU if screen is off.

○ Use only for time critical operations.
○ Can drain battery.

● Does not wake up device.

○ Fires next time device is awake.
○ Is polite.

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Types of alarms
Elapsed Real Time Real Time Clock (RTC)—
(ERT)—since system time of day matters
boot
Do not wake ELAPSED_REALTIME RTC
up device
Wake up ELAPSED_REALTIME_W RTC_WAKEUP
AKEUP

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Alarms Best
Practices

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If everybody syncs at the same time...
Imagine an app with millions of users:
● Server sync operation based on clock time.
● Every instance of app syncs at 11:00 p.m.

Load on the server could result in high latency or even

"denial of service"

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Alarm Best Practices

● Add randomness to network requests on alarms.

● Minimize alarm frequency.
● Use ELAPSED_REALTIME, not clock time, if you can.

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Battery
● Minimize waking up the device.
● Use inexact alarms.
○ Android synchronizes multiple inexact repeating alarms and
fires them at the same time.
○ Reduces the drain on the battery.
○ Use setInexactRepeating() instead of setRepeating().

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When not to use an alarm

● Ticks, timeouts, and while app is running—Handler.

● Server sync—SyncAdapter with Cloud Messaging Service.
● Inexact time and resource efficiency—JobScheduler.

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AlarmManager

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What is AlarmManager

● AlarmManager provides access to system alarm services.

● Schedules future operation.
● When alarm goes off, registered Intent is broadcast.
● Alarms are retained while device is asleep.
● Firing alarms can wake device.

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 Get an AlarmManager

AlarmManager alarmManager =
(AlarmManager) getSystemService(ALARM_SERVICE);

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Scheduling
Alarms

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What you need to to schedule an alarm

1. Type of alarm.
2. Time to trigger.
3. Interval for repeating alarms.
4. PendingIntent to deliver at the specified time
(just like notifications).

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Schedule a single alarm

● set()—single, inexact alarm.

● setWindow()—single inexact alarm in window of time.
● setExact()—single exact alarm.

More power saving options AlarmManager API 23+.

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Schedule a repeating alarm
● setInexactRepeating()
○ repeating, inexact alarm.
● setRepeating()
○ Prior to API 19, creates a repeating, exact alarm.
○ After API 19, same as setInexactRepeating().

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 setInexactRepeating()

setInexactRepeating(
int alarmType,
long triggerAtMillis,
long intervalMillis,
PendingIntent operation)

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 Create an inexact alarm
alarmManager.setInexactRepeating(
AlarmManager.ELAPSED_REALTIME_WAKEUP,
SystemClock.elapsedRealtime()
+ AlarmManager.INTERVAL_FIFTEEN_MINUTES,
AlarmManager.INTERVAL_FIFTEEN_MINUTES,
notifyPendingIntent);

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 More Alarm
Considerations

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Checking for an existing alarm

boolean alarmExists =
(PendingIntent.getBroadcast(this,
0, notifyIntent,
PendingIntent.FLAG_NO_CREATE) != null);

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Doze and Standby

● Doze—completely stationary, unplugged, and idle device.

● Standby—unplugged device on idle apps.
● Alarms will not fire.
● API 23+.

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User visible alarms
● setAlarmClock()
● System UI may display time/icon.
● Precise.
● Works when device is idle.
● App can retrieve next alarm with getNextAlarmClock().
● API 21+.

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Cancel an alarm

● Call cancel() on the AlarmManager

○ pass in the PendingIntent.

alarmManager.cancel(alarmPendingIntent);

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Alarms and Reboots

● Alarms are cleared when device is off or rebooted.

● Use a BroadcastReceiver registered for the

BOOT_COMPLETED event and set the alarm in the
onReceive() method.

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Learn more

● Schedule Repeating Alarms Guide

● AlarmManager reference
● Choosing an Alarm Blog Post
● Scheduling Alarms Presentation
● Optimizing for Doze and Standby

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What's Next?

● Concept Chapter: 8.2 Alarms

● Practical: 8.2 The Alarm Manager

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END

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