App to monitor the presence of my phone?

Watchapp discussion
1

I’m utterly reliant on my phone’s alarms to be able to do things when they need to be done (thanks ADHD). I’ve got alarms pretty well set up on my phone, but everything fails if I leave my phone in the car, or it runs out of battery or some such thing. I want to make it very unlikely that that will happen without me noticing.

I’m considering whether a Pebble watch with a suitable app might be the answer. Two apps really. I want the watch to raise an alert if the phone is not near by and functional, and I similarly want the phone to let me know if the watch is not near by and functional.

Can someone confirm that a pebble watch app for this either already exists or could be created with modest effort? I’ve got some programming background.

I expect that the phone end can probably be constructed with Tasker, but I’d like to hear if anyone has a better idea.

2

There are several watchfaces that signal the absence of phone connection pretty obviously e.g. by switching from color to B&W.

e.g. Patchwork does that and also vibrates on disconnection

3

I use Big Watch watchface by SetPebble, which displays DISCONNECTED when you loose the Bluetooth connection. Also, whenever I enable Quiet Time on my watch, it displays QUIET TIME so that when I wake up from my daily nap, I don’t forget to disable.

4

In addition to visual indicators, it would be pretty easy to make/modify a face to buzz when BT is disconnected

5

I’m using TimeStyle by Freakified: TimeStyle - Pebble Appstore

It has a setting for both an icon indication, and a vibration for bluetooth disconnect.

6

Or a very loud siren.

7

I think this is probably what I’d need. Ideally escalating from a quieter start though.

8

I learned a bit from answers here, and I’ve gotten a pebble time 2 watch now and learned a bit more.

The “Your Style” Watchface does pretty much what i want in terms of bluetooth alerts, with repeated buzzing each time it re-renders the watch face (every 30 seconds), if the bluetooth connection is down. Other faces register the connection going down, but only buzz once, which I’m concerned I could miss. It’s not the watchface I’d otherwise choose though, being analogue.

There’s also a background app for monitoring the connection (“Contupus Phone Connection Monitor”), but again, if I miss the alert the first time, and don’t look at my watch for a while, then it won’t keep on sending alerts.

It looks like I’ll be building something myself. So I’m wondering which approach to take. I like the idea of an app that’s not tied to the watch face, as it gives me the freedom to choose from the visuals other people have come up with. At the same time, the watch can run just one background app, and at this stage I don’t know what else I might want to use that slot for. What do people mostly use the background app slot for?

The other area where I’m likely to want to write my own stuff is for health monitoring and alerts. I have POTS and ME/CFS, and I’d like to limit my exertion, so it’s kind of the opposite focus to a fitness app, yet similar. I’m guessing this might wind up wanting the background slot, but I just don’t know the territory enough yet.

9

As far as I know, Battery+ is the only app thta actually uses the background app feature. It does drain the battery noticeably more than without, though with the battery life of the new watches than may not be so bad.