Custom Hourly Chime Wear – Presentation and Instructions

Custom Hourly Chime Wear allows you to create custom chimes for your Android mobile device, or any Wear OS watch connected to it.

The app is offered in two versions: a free version and a premium version, called PRO Version. The PRO Version unlocks some features that are not available in the free version.

With this app, you can:

• Create multiple chimes for your mobile device.
• Create multiple chimes for any Wear OS watch you have.
• Choose specific days and timings for each chime. Chime on the hour, at specific minutes (e.g., :15, :30, :45), custom intervals (5/10/20 min), or even precise times like 12:58.
• Set custom sounds and vibrations for each chime.
• Use your own audio files as the sound for the chimes.
• Create your own vibration patterns.
• Set Text-to-Speech as the sound for your chimes, to announce the current time, or read out custom text like “Begin focus session” or “Drink water”.
• Create chimes that “beep the time” or “vibrate the time”, meaning that they play a number of beeps or vibrations corresponding to the current hour, followed by shorter beeps or vibrations corresponding to the number of quarters that passed in the current hour. Useful for staying aware of the time without looking at your device!
• Configure reminder notifications for your chimes, so that you don’t miss them.
• Get notifications about the next chime that will play.

Setting up the app

The setup of the app is simple and should take only a few minutes. We will detail the setup separately for mobile and watch.

If you want to create chimes only for your mobile device, then you can skip the watch setup.

If you want to create chimes only (or also) for your watch, the mobile app is needed for creating the watch chimes and increasing the accuracy of the chimes.

Mobile setup

Once the app is installed on your mobile device, the app will ask you to grant it permission to use exact alarms and to disable battery optimizations (more details below).

While these actions are not mandatory, they are highly recommended, so that the chimes are accurate and the operating system does not delay the chimes to save battery. Don’t worry, the impact of the app on battery is minimal.

Afterwards, you are ready to create chimes for your mobile device.

Watch setup

1. Make sure you’ve installed the app on both your mobile device and watch. The mobile app should always be kept installed even if you’re using only watch chimes.
2. Connect your watch to your mobile device via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, so that you can see the watch listed in the mobile app, and be able to configure chimes for it. Once you’ve configured your watch chimes, you are free to disconnect your watch from the mobile device. However, we recommend always keeping the watch connected to the mobile device, to increase the accuracy of the watch chimes.
3. Disable battery optimizations for the mobile app (more details below).
4. Grant the watch app permission to use exact alarms. To do this, click on the Grant permission button from the home screen of the watch app, find the app in the apps list, and enable the permission.

On certain watches, the system screen that allows granting the exact alarms permission might be buggy, because of a known issue of the operating system, that can only be fixed by future OS updates.

For example, on certain Samsung watches, it might seem like the app already has the permission, while in fact it doesn’t. In this case, just toggle off and then back on the permission. This way you should successfully grant the app the permission.

Unfortunately, on other watches, like on certain Pixel watches, the app might not appear at all in the list of apps when you try to grant it the exact alarms permission.

If you cannot grant the watch app this permission, the chimes might still be precise as long as you keep the watch connected to the phone and the mobile app has the exact alarms permission and battery optimizations turned off.

If you have multiple watches connected to your mobile device, you can change between them and configure them individually.

Disabling battery optimizations

To disable battery optimizations for the mobile app, click on the Disable battery optimizations button from the warning card that the app displays, select to see all the apps from the top dropdown menu, search for Custom Hourly Chime, and set it to unrestricted or not optimized.

Depending on your mobile device, the steps for disabling the battery optimizations might be a little different. For example, on Google phones, you need to enable the Allow background usage switch, then tap on it and select Unrestricted, like in the image below.

Additional notes

You might see that the app stays active in background even when you are not using it. This is because the app uses a background service to keep track of what chimes are next to play, play the chimes when the time is right, notify you about the next chime that will trigger (if you’ve given the app permission to show notifications). The background service also allows the app to trigger the chimes accurately and not be influenced by the operating system that is trying to save battery. The impact of the app running in background is minimal, because the background service is dormant most of the time.

Chimes

The app allows you to create chimes for your mobile device, or for any connected Wear OS watch. Each device has its own chimes and settings you can configure. To have the same chime on both your mobile device and watch, you need to create two chimes with the same settings, one for each device.

By default, the volume for the chimes can be controlled using the Media volume of the device. From the Chime settings section of each device, you can configure a fixed volume for the chimes (so that the chimes always use the volume you prefer, no matter the current Media volume). Furthermore, you can switch to using the Notifications volume, if you prefer.

In addition, the chimes follow some standard behaviours for sounds. For example, the chimes will not sound if the device is under Do Not Disturb (DND), Theatre Mode, or the ringer mode is set on mute or vibrations-only. Additionally, the chimes will not vibrate if the device is under Do Not Disturb (DND), Theatre Mode, or the ringer mode is set on mute. If you want your chimes to sound and vibrate in all circumstances, you can enable the Ignore DND setting when creating or editing them.

To add a chime for a device (your mobile device or your watch), go to the Mobile Chimes or the Watch Chimes tab respectively, and click on the Add chime button. Once the chime creation flow starts, you can select the weekdays in which the chime will trigger, the hours, a sound of your choice, and a vibration. You can also configure additional settings for your chime, like its name.

You can create multiple chimes for a device, each with its own sound, vibration, weekdays, and hours. However, the chimes cannot overlap on the same weekday and hour (the same time). If you are creating or editing a chime, and there is already a chime for some of the timings selected, the app will ask you if you want to replace the existing chime(s) for those timings with the one you are creating/editing. If a chime remains with no timings associated, it will be automatically deleted.

Notifications

The app can display notifications about the next chime that will play or the current playing chime, on both your mobile device and your watch.

From the next chime or currently playing chime notifications, you can also turn on or off the chimes for your device, stop the playing chime early, or easily open the app.

On devices with Android 13+, you need to grant the app permission to show notifications, before it can show them.

You can easily do this by opening app settings and allowing the app to show notifications, like in the image below.

The mobile app also displays a button to grant this permission in the Info page, in case the permission is not already granted.

On the watch, you can also grant the app permission to show notifications from app settings (usually accessible from watch settings -> Apps -> App list -> Custom Hourly Chime Wear -> Permissions).

The watch app also displays a button to grant this permission in the Status page, in case the permission is not already granted.

If, however, you want to disable the notifications that the app shows, you can easily do this using the methods above and just disabling (instead of allowing), the notifications permission.

Creating custom vibrations

The app allows you to create your own custom vibration patterns. You can do this by clicking on the Create custom vibration button displayed below the list of vibrations, when creating or editing a chime.

You create the custom vibration by tapping on the tappable surface. A custom vibration is made up of multiple vibrations and gaps intervals. When you hold your finger on the surface, you’ll make the pattern vibrate for as long as you keep touching the screen. Likewise, when you don’t hold your finger on the screen, the pattern will contain a gap of silence. The numbers that appear below the tappable surface represent milliseconds and they dictate for how long your device vibrates or doesn’t vibrate within the pattern.

You can also preview the pattern before saving, reset it to start from scratch, or undo the last added vibration or gap. Note that the final gap of the pattern will be automatically deleted when saving the pattern.

There are no limitations on how long a pattern can be. However, we recommend you don’t make your device vibrate for extended amounts of time at once (more than 20 seconds) as this can drain its battery.

Speak time (Text-to-Speech)

The app allows you to use the Text-to-Speech (TTS) engine of your mobile device or watch, as the sound for your chimes, in order to read aloud the current time when a chime is triggered. This option is available only in the PRO Version.

When setting Text-to-Speech for a chime, you can also configure the text that is spoken.

Other settings related to Text-to-Speech, such as the TTS engine provider, the language to use, the speech rate, or the voice, can be configured from your device settings.

In general, on mobile devices you can find these settings by going to device settings and searching for “Text-to-Speech”, while on most Wear OS watches these settings are under device settings->General->Text-to-Speech.

Watch app

The watch app is useful if you want to have chimes on your Wear OS watch. The chimes for your watch can be configured in the mobile app.

The watch app also allows you to turn on or off the chimes for your watch, and displays informational messages when necessary.

If you want to have the chimes play only when you are wearing the watch, the app will ask you to allow it the body sensors permission. The app will then use the so-called “low latency off-body sensor” to determine when you are wearing the watch. If your watch does not have this sensor, the chimes will sound even when you are not wearing it and the setting for playing the chimes only when you wear the watch will not be available.

FAQ

Why are the mobile chimes not working?

If you’ve followed the instructions but the chimes are still not working on your mobile device, please follow the steps below:

1. Make sure that the chimes are enabled in the app for your mobile device. If they are enabled, you should see the time when the next chime will trigger.
2. Make sure you’ve allowed the app the permission to use exact alarms and you’ve disabled the battery optimizations for it.
3. Make sure the Media volume is not muted. If you’ve selected to use the Notifications volume for your chimes, then make sure the Notifications volume is not muted.
4. Make sure that the device is not under Power Saving, Do Not Disturb, Mute, Vibrations Only, Theatre Mode, Low power mode, etc.

Why are the watch chimes not working?

If you’ve followed the instructions but the chimes are still not working on your Wear OS watch, please follow the steps below:

1. Make sure the mobile app is installed on your phone. The mobile app needs to be installed on your phone so that the watch app can work properly.
2. Make sure that the watch is connected to the phone through Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. While keeping your watch connected to your phone is not mandatory, we recommend keeping the watch connected to the phone to increase the accuracy of the watch chimes.
3. Make sure that the chimes are enabled in the mobile app for your watch. You can check this in the watch app as well. If they are enabled, you should see the time when the next chime will trigger.
4. Make sure you’ve allowed the watch app the permission to use exact alarms and you’ve disabled the battery optimizations for the mobile app.
5. Make sure the Media volume is not muted. If you’ve selected to use the Notifications volume for your chimes, then make sure the Notifications volume is not muted.
6. Make sure that the watch is not under Power Saving, Do Not Disturb, Mute, Vibrations Only, Theatre Mode, Low power mode, etc.
7. If you’ve selected that you want the chimes to trigger only when you wear the watch, make sure you wear the watch.
8. Make sure that both the mobile app and the watch app have the same version. If the versions are not the same, please update the apps.
9. Disable all types of battery optimizations on the watch app as well. To do this, go to watch settings -> Apps -> App list -> Custom Hourly Chime Wear -> Permissions and disable Pause app activity if unused. After that, go to Battery and device care -> Battery -> Sleeping apps and remove the app from the list, if present.

Why is my watch not detected?

If your watch is not detected by the app, please follow the steps below:

1. Make sure that the watch is connected to the phone through Bluetooth or Wi-Fi.
2. Make sure you have the Custom Hourly Chime Wear app installed on your watch.
3. Make sure your watch software is up-to-date.
4. Make sure your phone and watch have the Google Play Store installed and you’re connected with an account on both of them.
5. Make sure the app is not installed in the work profile/secure folder/private space of your phone, as this might prevent the phone app from communicating with the watch.
6. Depending on your watch manufacturer, you might need to download on the phone the official companion app of the watch or the official Wear OS app from the Google Play Store.

How to stop a playing chime early?

If you want to stop a playing chime before it stops on its own (maybe because you’ve selected a long custom sound, or you’ve created a long custom vibration), you can do this using any of the methods below:

• Simply open the app. By doing this, the current playing chime stops right away.
• Toggle off, and then back on, the chime status switch for the device that is playing the chime.
• Press the Stop chime button from the notification that the app displays (if you’ve allowed the app the permission to post notifications).

I purchased the PRO Version in the past. How to restore it?

If you’ve purchased the app in the past and you are reinstalling it or installing it on a new device, the app will try to restore the PRO Version automatically. If it doesn’t, you can use the Restore Purchases option from the Info page.

In order for the restore to work, make sure you are connected to the internet, you are logged in on the Google Play Store with the same account you used when you purchased the PRO Version, and you’ve downloaded the app while being connected to that account.

You can also try to remove all your accounts connected to the Google Play Store, except for the account you used for purchasing the PRO Version, and check again if the restore is working.

Google Play shows that my phone or watch is incompatible with the app. What to do in this case?

Some older phones or watches (especially those running a custom Android OS) might appear as incompatible with the app on Google Play. In this case, just contact us by email so we can try to find a solution together.