Roon Extension: Alarm Clock v0.9.1 (current)

Did the time that was displayed in the status line of the extension after pressing the Save button match the 07:13 setting?

Can you check the log of the container for errors? If you can upload it somewhere then I will have a look.

Following up a remark by @Anthony_Cimino I found out about this strange behaviour:
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Core running on a QNAP-NAS with proper time-zone setup; Extension is running in a Docker image on Core with time-zone information set; Roon Remote is on Windows.

Alarm goes off at the Time (15:55) in the status line. My TZ is GMT +1.

Hi Jan,

Sent a link to the log file by PM.

The times you asked about did match. Something funny with time though. If I choose “once” the result is Wed (tomorrow) instead of today.

I tried two containers for TZ setting. One with “Alaska”, the other with " UTC−09:00". Didn’t work either way. You may see one alarm with 06:42 instead of 18:42 in the log. I realized and tried again with the right time.

I hope using “Alaska” as TZ is good, particularly if it automatically accounts for DST time changes.

Thanks for taking a look! …Pete

If you open a console on the container and enter the date command, do you get the expected time?

I don’t know if a console is available via the QNAP interface. If you have an ssh connection then you can use a command like this:

docker exec -it roon-extension-alarm-clock sh
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~/.RoonExtensions/lib # date
Wed Mar 13 16:55:06 GMT 2019

Which is correct (GMT time) but not my local time.

It seemed that my image was outdated. I deleted my old Docker container, pulled a new image and setup a new container. I also updated my Docker Compose configuration in the other thread. Now all works as expected. :crossed_fingers:

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There was a timezone bug fixed in version 0.3.2 of the Extension Manager image, so if you were running an older version then that explains.

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It was 5 or 6 months old. By choosing the :latest label I assumed that Docker would somehow update the image if not while running so at least on restarts. Apparently I was wrong. :slightly_frowning_face:

Hello, just a question, is there another way to control the alarm clock? The problem is, I’m able to do that from the extension panel on the computer. But my girlfriend… I’d not like her to fiddle around with the settings of anything, You know for sure what I mean, she is not so technologic and actually…
well the question: is there a way to control the Roon Alarm clock from any kind of app? A simple stupid app from the mobile phone?
Thank You!!

Unfortunately the Extensions panel is the only available interface :frowning:

Just installed version 0.7.4. Used it to run the queue on a zone, then to start internet radio on another zone. Works well.

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Have you tried a different girlfriend?

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I wil consider Your suggestion :wink: :rofl:

:unamused:

@Jan_Koudijs
Almost two weeks ago I started my free trial period of Roon and I was very happy to see that Roon was able to replace the Sonos software. I have three (sometimes four) Sonos zones, one Linn Akurate and the usual array of PC-linked speakers and headphones.
I’ve been using Sonos since 2009 or thereabouts, and have always been very unhappy with its software limitations. The 65k tracks limit is a bummer that I had to to work aound using .m3u playlists for all my classical music, forcing me to create a new .m3u file for each new album on my NAS, and also totally preventing me from being able to search within my classical music collection (200k tracks).
There’s very limited screen space on the sonos app for showing album, track and artist info, and NO composer showing. The list of irritations is almost endless…
The only redeeming quality of the Sonos software is its alarm function which works fine. My Sonos’s are used primarily in the morning, waking up the family and accompanying both shower as well as breakfast sessions. And at the end of the afternoon I use Sonos in the kitchen to make cooking a more agreeable job. For more serious listening sessions I have my Linn in the living room, but that’s another story.
You can imagine that I was somewhat disappointed, to say the least, to find out that this very powerful application called Roon does everyting right but had NO alarm function!!! And without this alarm I would still be stuck having to use the Sonos software that I loathe so much. Of course I immediately turned to my good friend Google, and thus found your extension. Although it cost me some blood sweat and tears to get it installed (Roon should really make the installation of Add-ons much simpler!!!) I finally managed to get it working and now, after a few tests I’m very happy with it. I can’t thank you enough for building this add-on, Jan!
Of course, the user interface is not optimal or as user freindly as its Sonos counterpart, but I understand that this is mostly the result of the limitations of the Roon extensions API so I’m not blaming you. You did a wonderful job!. Maybe Roonlabs will eventually build its own alarm function (perhaps even using your programming!) optimizing the UI in the process, but for now your extension will do nicely.
I must say that I cannot understand why Roonlabs have not done so themselves at a much earlier point in time. There must be many many more Sonos users around the globe who would be exstatic if they could finally switch over from Sonos to Roon keeping full functionality and getting a ton of additional features to boot!
During my tests I found that the playlist I used to wake up with (it’s conveniently called ‘Wekker’ :wink: and I change its content each night before going to bed) is played in shuffled mode. Today I Googled again to find out why. It turns out this is a feature you have deliberately built in and not a bug. Mostly I take great care in putting together the ‘Wekker’ playlist, and I would really like it if it’s played in the correct order. So, finally, besides being a big “thank you”, this post also contains a ‘feature request’: I’d like to kindly ask you if it is possible to make the shuffle mode optional when using a playlist to wake up to. You’d make me very happy indeed!

P.S. If I were to use the option “Queue (DIY)”, would the queue be played “as is” and not be shuffled? I just noticed this queue option today and have not tried it out. Perhaps this would be a work-around, but it would not be ideal.

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Hi @Hans_Valeton,

Thanks for the kind words and sharing your experience, I appreciate the detailed feedback :+1:

You are indeed not the only Sonos user who is wondering why Roon doesn’t support an alarm clock out of the box and falls back to this extension.

What route did you follow to get it installed? I’m always looking for ways to simplify the process.

I will look into this, during development I indeed only considered static playlists.

If you make sure that shuffle is switched off in the queue screen then this should be the case. The only difference is that before going to bed you fill-up the queue instead of your “Wekker” playlist. Give it a try and let me know how it works out.

You’re welcome!

Ehm, I can’t really remember in detail exactly what I did (I am getting on a bit and memory doesn’t always serve me as well as it used to), but I do remember that I found out too late that there was an automated installer that I then downloaded and ran. This failed because of a version conflict (I think it concerned node.js) and I had to uninstall and retry a couple of times until suddenly the error messages stopped appearing in the command box. Both node.js and github were unknown to me before I started to add the extension manager.
I’m planning to move the core to a different machine that uses less power than the one it’s running on at the moment. I’ll pay better attention to what installation route I’ll be taking then, and let you know!

I’m sorry, but I don’t quite understand what you mean by ‘static playlists’. Could you elaborate and explain just a bit more?

This morning I woke up with the queue I made yesterday evening and it did pan out as hoped. Although this queue only contained two compositions, they were indeed played in the correct order!
So it looks like this queue option is a viable workaround. Nevertheless my feature-request still stands. It would be more convenient to leave the current queue, which is always a ‘work in progress’, in its sometimes erratic state at the time I turn in. Thanks in advance!

Are you working on a new version of the Alarm Clock at the moment?

I was thinking about a set and forget approach, so you select a big playlist once and shuffle takes care that you are not waking up every morning with the same track. I had not guested that there are users who take the time to compile a playlist every night for the next morning, but now i know :wink:

No, reason being that i did not know what to change :slight_smile:. I do have a few open points for other extensions though, so I don’t know when I will look into this.

Ah, that’s a pity. Because I might have a second request:
In Sonos all weekly alarms are persistent, meaning I don’t have to activate, say, the ‘Monday’ alarm, for the next week each time after it has run. Just this morning I discovered that in your Alarm Clock extension I do have to do that. So at least once a week I need to set all alarms to ‘active’. Maybe it would be possible to add an option to make the weekly alarm settings permanent?

But of course the most important thing is that your Alarm Clock works and it does. With the fade-in set to one minute, a charming Haydn symphony (No. 82 “l’Ours”, for the die-hard classical fans) glided into our bedroom this morning and awoke us in a very pleasant manner. So, thanks once again!

That is in, have you enabled Repeat?

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