MicWake

MicWake is an app that allows you to wake up your Android device based on sound volumes. If your device should wake up based on other sensors (eg, proximity sensor, light sensor, position sensor, etc.), there are many apps available that are more appropriate. But if you only have the built in microphone as available sensor or for other reasons you want to wake your device only by sound events, this app might be just the right thing for you.

While the screen is turned off ('sleeping') the microphone is read constantly. To consume as little electrical power, the analytical capacity of noise ratios (microphone data) are very limited in MicWake. But simply to measure only the maximum volume would produce false alarms too often. The approach of MicWake is the following: In order to achieve a release, the sound pressure within an adjustable time range for a certain percentage of data must be above an adjustable threshold value.

There are some settings to reduce false positive triggering.

Please read the in-app help carefully.

Please note: It might be very difficult to adjust the settings appropriate (rare false triggering on random noise versus triggering when it should be).
It might be even impossible to be set up to be useful to you!

MicWake is free to use, so please do not rate it too bad if it is not working for you. It is, in theory, nearly impossible to find good patterns for the trigger decision by just looking at the amplitude of noise. More elaborate mechanisms exist (FFT et. al.) but have high demands on CPU processing. This is unacceptable since it has to be done permanently in the background und drains battery extremely. I feel that even with this primitive approach of simple amplitude probing that is used by MicWake, the battery consumtion is hardly acceptable.
But for my personal needs this app seems to be sufficient.

This app evolved for several months of personal usage, and I like to share it with you.

Again: Please read the in-app help carefully.


List of requred app permissions:

android.permission.WAKE_LOCK
Waking up the device is the main functionality of MicWake


android.permission.RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED
Without this you would have to start MicWake manually every time your Device was booting


android.permission.RECORD_AUDIO
Without this, MicWake could not read the microphone data