How to handle Alarm notification in Android?

Question

I\'m developing an media player application for Android, for which I need to handle any Alarm notification, and based on that I\'ll pause my playback. When the Alarm in snoo

Answer 1

I ran into a similar situation while developing a media player. My solution was to use the AudioManager's OnAudioFocusChangeListener.

You implement the listener in the class like so

public class VideoPlayerHelper implements AudioManager.OnAudioFocusChangeListener {

Then you override onAudioFocusChange

@Override
public void onAudioFocusChange(int focusChange) {
    switch (focusChange) {

        //Just fall through by omitting break
        case AudioManager.AUDIOFOCUS_LOSS:
        case AudioManager.AUDIOFOCUS_LOSS_TRANSIENT:
            LogUtil.log(LogUtil.DEBUG, TAG, "AUDIOFOCUS_LOSS or AUDIOFOCUS_LOSS_TRANSIENT"); //Custom logging class
            if (isPlaying()) {
                pause();
                mAudioManager.abandonAudioFocus(VideoPlayerHelper.this);
            }
            break;
        case AudioManager.AUDIOFOCUS_GAIN:
            LogUtil.log(LogUtil.DEBUG, TAG, "AUDIOFOCUS_GAIN"); //Custom logging class
            break;
        default:
            break;
    }
}

The key here is AudioManager.AUDIOFOCUS_LOSS_TRANSIENT. This was the code the listener kept receiving when the alarm clock would go off (on The Note 5). So I simply handled AudioManager.AUDIOFOCUS_LOSS_TRANSIENT the same as AudioManager.AUDIOFOCUS_LOSS by pausing the media player and letting go of the audio focus.

When we setup the media player, I added this line before adding the data source

player.setAudioStreamType(AudioManager.STREAM_MUSIC);

Make sure your code for starting the media player also has this line in it (I have it in the start code and onResume code in case the alarm went off while the app was in the background).

mAudioManager.requestAudioFocus(VideoPlayerHelper.this, AudioManager.STREAM_MUSIC, AudioManager.AUDIOFOCUS_GAIN_TRANSIENT);

That line helps you get back the audio focus when you hit the play button after dismissing the alarm clock.

You should also let go off audio focus when you're finished with the media player. I put this line of code in the onStop and onDetach methods.

mAudioManager.abandonAudioFocus(VideoPlayerHelper.this);

It's not as much setup as you may think and it allows you to adjust your media player whenever unexpected audio is introduced (such as an alarm clock or timer goes off).