Alarm.com Responsiveness and App Suggestions

Android KitKat 4.4.3

But I am using ART runtime, (instead of the default Dalvik). it may not be playing nice

Dalvik and ART are the old and new runtimes that execute app instructions inside Android. While Dalvik is a Just-in-Time (JIT) runtime that executes code only when it’s needed, ART – which was introduced in Android 4.4 KitKat and is already available to users – is an Ahead-of-Time (AOT) runtime that executes code before it’s actually needed.

Comparisons between Dalvik and ART on Android 4.4 have shown that the latter brings enhanced performance and battery efficiency, although ART wasn’t ready for prime time when KitKat was launched, so Google choose to make it available as an alternative to developers interested in trying it out. However, it appears that Google has further worked on the code, and will make it available as the default runtime to devices running a future version of Android.

I only started on 3.0, so I don’t have a basis of comparison for previous versions, but so far, it’s been very solid for me. No errors, good and responsive (MyQ speed isn’t the greatest but otherwise), and I like the interface.

I can definitely see art runtime as a potential culprit though. I don’t feel it’s quite ready to roll with for every day use yet. I played with it briefly, but travel a lot for work, so I went back to a stable build with dalvik.

My biggest complaint with the new Android app is when you have multi-system access it doesn’t show you which system you’re currently viewing at the top like the old Android app did and the iPhone app does. See the attached screenshot. My account has access to 5 different systems and the app just says “suretyCAM” at the top for all of them instead of telling me which system I’m looking at. I accidentally armed the wrong system yesterday because of this and surprised some people in the building.

Alarm.com has already pushed out 3.0.1 but it didn’t fix this issue.

Curious, does the weather line show system name?

doesn't show you which system you're currently viewing at the top like the old Android app did and the iPhone app does. See the attached screenshot.

at left top…and bottom at weather. Yours is “Ryan’s System”

V3.0.1 also fixed the errors I was getting (posted above) on KitKat/Nexus device

Android app v3.0.1

It does show the system name in the weather heading down below but that’s not very prominent and some users don’t even have weather on their app. The old app showed it prominently at the top. It also shows the system name in the menu panel that slides out from the left. The problem is you can arm the system from the main screen without seeing that slide-out menu.

I guess we have to give them baby steps for now. :slight_smile: Judging by reviews and reading I was doing before setting up the system, it took them quite a while to get the android app to look and feel like a good smartphone app. Hopefully that means they’ve got more than just a pool of iOS developers now.

Personally, I’d like to see the ability to swipe between menus in addition to the drop down.