Mobile Profile Management for Every Situation

Adapted by:  • Edited by: Simon Hill
Updated Sep 27, 2011
• Related Guides: Android | Google
4

Locale for Google Android is a profile management system that makes use of user entered and location-based services to set various phone profiles. If you don't want your phone to ring at school, work or in court, among other locations, you should definitely consider this.

Overall Use
Rating Good

Locale is simple to use from the moment it's launched. I began by setting up each of the various locations that I wanted different profiles to be used for. Setting up these locations was simple -- I just needed to enter in a name for each location, then add the conditions for those statements such as the distance around those locations, the type of ringers or lack thereof to be used and other profile information for each location.

situation
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You can choose location based conditions or you can add calendar, time and even contact information to set specific profile changes. Basically, if you need your phone to go silent at 9 am everyday for a sales meeting, you can set Monday through Friday options at 9 am and have them reoccur until no longer needed.

The program is also very intuitive for touch screen use. For example, on the map of each location, I could easily extend the radius around each area ensuring my profile is changed well before I reach my final destination.

Locale For Google Android - Mapping
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With the program's situation settings, I could even decide when certain settings should be turned on for each occasion. For example, I could set the situations I created to only operate from my home or at work.

The program also utilizes a combination of GPS, Wi-Fi and Data Services which means even if I am missing one or more connection types, I am still able to utilize my profiles in each location.

local-settings-Locale-Google-Android-APp
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You can also implement the settings screen to turn off certain power hungry applications automatically when your phone's battery strength is low. For example, turning off Wi-Fi, Twitter, Wallpapers, etc. is only a few clicks away.

Locale Settings
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One qualm I have with the application is that you can't set your original profile to turn back on. I would have liked the option to set a ringer based profile that could auto switch back to its original setting when my location was no longer in the "red zone" I have set or when certain times and dates have passed. It's a small setting change that would have made a huge difference.

Conclusion

Locale for Google Android is a simple to use location based profile manager that also throws in some nice additional features such as the ability to set different profile criteria based on time, date and contact information. I particularly liked the option to set a profile radius for my profile settings. This made it extremely simple to manage profile changes quickly and efficiently without touching my device beyond the initial setup.

You can find Locale at the Android Market and I highly recommend you give the application a try. You won't be disappointed with the ease of use it presents for various user based profile settings.

References


Comments

Showing all 3 comments
 
Nine Aug 7, 2011 6:50 PM
Nokia Situations can do it!
Yes, some guys make fun of Symbian. But Nokia Situations can do all this, only better. And it will always turn back to the original profile.

And the best thing about it is: It's totally free!
ADB Feb 23, 2010 12:06 PM
Locale not looking after its users
I found myself in the same situation as Eug. I tried uninstalling the app in the hope this might release the situations and restore the normal settings but I was left without data connection.
Short of a hard reset I luckily had a backup of the beta version in Titanium backup. I restored this - changed my date back to January and carried out a reboot on the handset - voila, locale opened, I deleted all situations including the defaults and swiftly uninstalled locale.
I have no place on my phone for money grabbing developers who rely on users to get their code stable and thank them by putting a price tag on the product!
Eug Feb 3, 2010 2:15 PM
Locale not playing nice with it's users
Too bad the Locale dev’s got greedy and thuggish. Recently they took the steps of abandoning the free beta version, removing it from the Android Marketplace, and initiating a forced upgrade of all beta users. If you disregard the upgrade message you are unceremoniously exited from the app without a way to turn off the rules currently in place.

I was unfortunate enough to be stuck in a rule that had my data connection turned off when this happened. My phone was held hostage. The devs were unhelpful and unapologetic. My only recourse was a factory reset on the phone. Uncool. Thank you two forty four a.m.!
 
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