It's confusing to use the Incoming Call sound for Alarms

[Charles Kerr]

indicator-datetime is currently playing /usr/share/sounds/ubuntu/stereo/phone-incoming-call.ogg when an alarm goes off.

This was chosen because it's the closest conceptual fit from the ubuntu-sounds that are available, but IMO a poor fit. Using the same sound for two unrelated events is confusing; we should have a separate, unique alarm sound.

Assigning to Design for feedback.

[Renato Araujo Oliveira Filho (renatofilho)]

I would appreciate to have some configurations on system-settings or clock app.

[Nekhelesh Ramananthan (nik90)]

@Renato, the Alarms API does provide the ability to change the ringtone of an alarm. However it is a question of design as to where to place it in the UI i.e in the clock app or the system-settings.

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

Unfortunately Ubuntu hasn't been able to play sound on my PC since 13.10, so I can't hear what any of the other sounds sound like. But I would be extremely surprised if the incoming call sound was really the "closest conceptual fit". What about bell.ogg for example?

Renato, making the sound configurable is a separate problem. Even if it was configurable, the default still shouldn't be the ringtone for incoming calls.

[Charles Kerr (charlesk)]

mpt, bell.ogg is just a short 'bloomp' sound. Playing that in a loop, as one would for an alarm, is an awful noise. :-) Really I don't think many of its sibling sounds were designed to be looped either. Are you sure that's what you want?

I agree that this is a question of the default sound and that allowing alarms to override that is a separate issue.

[Nekhelesh Ramananthan (nik90)]

Adding ubuntu-clock-app to this bug to track alarm related bugs.

[Charles Kerr (charlesk)]

ogra's suggested/usr/share/sounds/freedesktop/stereo/alarm-clock-elapsed.oga, which seems like a better default than the current sound.

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

Charles, as I said, Ubuntu hasn't been able to play sound on my PC since 13.10. So asking me choose appropriate sounds is really not a good idea. I can only agree with you that yes, it is very confusing to use the incoming call sound for alarms.

[Nekhelesh Ramananthan (nik90)]

On talking to Giorgio Venturi during the Malta Sprint, it was decided to have "Suru Arpeggio" as the default alarm sound. This is provided in the ubuntu touch ringtones folder.

[Charles Kerr (charlesk)]

Nekhelesh, Giorgio, that's a good sound. +1 :)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package indicator-datetime - 13.10.0+14.10.20140611-0ubuntu1

---------------
indicator-datetime (13.10.0+14.10.20140611-0ubuntu1) utopic; urgency=low

  [ Charles Kerr ]
  * when src/timezone-file.c reads the contents of a file, skip lines
    that begin with '#' (LP: #1312775)
  * Use the Suru Arpeggio as the default alarm sound. (LP: #1309063)
  * Prefer to use ubuntu-platform-hardware-api for wakeups when possible
    s.t. user-defined alarms/appointments can wake up the phone from
    sleep to give a snap decision. (LP: #1299916)

  [ Sergey "Shnatsel" Davidoff ]
  * Add Pantheon, the desktop environment of elementary Project, to
    OnlyShowIn lists in .desktop files. (LP: #1301699)
 -- Ubuntu daily release <email address hidden> Wed, 11 Jun 2014 12:36:52 +0000

[Nekhelesh Ramananthan (nik90)]

I added the ubuntu-clock-app to track all alarm related bugs in one milestone (RTM).