Reference

Reminders

A notification before an event you have a station on.

The app can raise a notification before an event you have a station on, so a good prediction does not go unobserved because you lost track of the time.

Worth knowing

Reminders are scheduled on your phone, not sent from a server. They fire with no signal and no data — but an event announced on the website only gets a reminder once the app has refreshed My Events and seen it.

Choosing when

In Settings, under Event Reminders, pick up to two lead times — anything from two minutes to three hours.

Two is deliberate: one to start setting up, one to be at the telescope. Once two are chosen the rest grey out.

Reminder lead time chips with 2 min and 10 min selected and the others greyed out — Two selected; the remaining options are unavailable until one is cleared.

Letting notifications through

Android asking whether OW Mobile may send notifications — Asked once, shortly after you first sign in.

Android asks whether the app may notify you at all. If you decline, reminders are still scheduled but you will never see them.

Changed your mind later? It is in Android's own settings, under the app's notifications — the app cannot re-ask.

Making them arrive on time

Android delays ordinary scheduled work to save battery. For a reminder that means arriving several minutes late, which for a six-second occultation is the same as not arriving. Avoiding that needs a second permission.

Settings shows a note and an Allow Exact-Time Reminders button when this has not been granted. The app explains what is about to happen before handing you over, because the page Android opens gives no context of its own.

The app explaining that Android will open a system settings page for Alarms and reminders — Note the last line: you have to come back yourself.

Tap Continue. Android opens its Alarms & reminders page for OW Mobile.
Turn on Allow setting alarms and reminders.
Go back to the app. The note and the button disappear, which is how you know it worked.

Android's Allow setting alarms and reminders toggle switched on — Granted. Nothing confirms it on Android's side beyond the toggle itself.

The Settings reminder section with the warning and button no longer shown — Back in Settings, the warning and the button are gone — the reminder options now follow Elevation Data directly.

Android's Alarms and reminders page for OW Mobile with the toggle off — Android's own page. Its warning is worth reading: with this off, scheduled alarms do not work.

This is an Android screen, not part of OW Mobile, which is why it looks different from everything else in this guide.

Granting it lets the app schedule to the minute rather than "sometime around then". It does not let the app do anything else.

What a reminder looks like

The notification names the asteroid, how long until the event starts, and the star being occulted. Tapping it opens that event's Event Detail directly.

If you miss it, it stays in the notification shade until you dismiss it.

A reminder notification in the shade reading that an occultation starts in 10 minutes — Enough detail on the lock screen to know whether to get up.

Tip

Reminders follow your stations. Cancel a station and its reminders go with it; announce a new one and reminders are scheduled as soon as the app knows about it.