Locale ($9.99 |Â website |Â android market)Â lets you setup “Situations” based on battery level, contact, location, orientation, and time. Surprisingly the location option isn’t based on GPS but rather cell towers. Once you have a situation setup you can attach settings for your phone. Besides specific situations, there is also a default area that you can set your phone to when you’re outside of any recognized situations. This was a major feature for me since I have an in-car bluetooth system, but I didn’t want to have bluetooth always on, but did want it to still auto-connect to my car’s system.
Before purchasing I read through the comments on the android market. The reviews were mixed, but the majority of the lower rated comments talked about how locale killed their battery life. I’m a little confused about this being that I’ve had my phone unplugged for 10 1/2 hours and Locale is boasting a 2% usage rate which is less than the 3% that my Phone idle process is registering. I’m running a myTouch 3G with 1.6 installed which means that I would notice any phone slowness as well, which I haven’t.
When running, the app keeps an icon in the notifications bar so that the Android auto-process kill feature doesn’t kill the Locale process when the system runs low on memory.
Overall I like the app, and I won’t be taking advantage of the 24 hour refund period that the android market allows to return apps. I manually do what it does automatically every morning when I change my phone to vibrate while at work and then change it back when I leave the office.
There were a few inconsistencies that I noticed, however. I downloaded the “Locale SSID Plug-in” which allows you to set a wireless network situation that activates when in range of a specifically named wireless network. My settings change successfully when I come into range of my home network, but since once I’m connected to that network the app no longer recognizes that it’s in range and pushes me back to default settings. This isn’t a problem for me since I don’t connect to the wifi at work because it’s always overloaded with people (that’s another whole conversation).
If you have regular situations that require you to change your phone’s settings this is a good app for you. There’s also an app called “Tasker” that sells for £3.99 (currently $6.14) that does the same things and is Locale compatible.