New: able to set up Vobot via sound wave
New: press MUTE button to cancel the alarm that will go off in 30 minutes
New: add Japanese indication sound during the setup process
New: Alexa now supports French and Japanese
Fixed: couldn’t connect to SSID that contains Japanese
Fixed: temperature wouldn't update
New: cancel the hint when Alexa is reconnected.
Fixed: time or alarm error that caused by the gap between the power on/off time.
Fixed: daily routine setting error
Fixed: active alarm display problem
Fixed: only default alarm sound will ring
New: show weather icon & temperature (update every 6 hours)
New: render weather information on screen when asking Alexa
New: javascript plugin (experimental)
Fixed: darker brightness at night
Fixed: stability problem due to a memory leak
Fixed: sporadic reboot during playback
Fixed: don't reboot (for clean-up) during 20:00 ~ 9:00
Fixed: remove noises during reboot (for clean-up)
Fixed: retry if unable to obtain IP address (which shows "Wi-Fi lost")
Fixed: playback stuttering on some new version hardware
Fixed: unable to play some TuneIn radios
Fixed: support TuneIn radio sources with http code of 301/302
Fixed: voice button should not dismiss timer when snooze-alarm mode selected
Fixed: reboot when unrecoverable audio problem occurs
Fixed: sometimes sound goes louder when alert dismissed
Fixed: the DISMISS/SNOOZE on app/web never gone if we shutdown before the alarm dismissed
Fixed: minor security enhancement
Fixed: Alexa API updates
Developer mode, allows any third party writing Javascript plug-in for the Vobot (thanks to L. Mitchell)
Announce the time on the hour (thanks to B. Brianna )
Puzzle to dismiss alarm (thanks to L. Hughes)
Sleep coach (thanks to E. Lyness, J. Paz, etc.)
Control the Vobot via local network (faster response)
"Alexa" wake word (still limited by current hardware)
Unable to connect Wi-Fi network with some special characters in name (comma)
Unable to connect Wi-Fi network with password more than 51 characters
New: Wi-Fi information option on the screen
New: hold-to-snooze option
New: option to set voice button behavior while alexa/routine alarms goes off
New: support static IP address assignment, to be compatible with some specific routers
New: stop or snooze the alarm in Apps
Enhanced: remember up to 16 Access Points and connect to the next one when signal lost
Enhanced: support more media types & resources
Enhanced: add 'Instant' mode for hold-to-dismiss, means touch-to-dismiss
Fixed: CVE-2018-6825
Fixed: CVE-2018-6826
Fixed: CVE-2018-6827
Fixed: daily routine sometimes skip the next day after action executed
Fixed: when volume set to 0, alarm cannot be heard
Fixed: sometimes cannot recover from "Wi-Fi Lost" automatically
Fixed: sometimes cannot recover from "oops" icon automatically
Fixed: stutter while playback, after a 24 hours uptime
Fixed: after PAUSE on the app, cannot resume from the correct offset
Fixed: after snoozing, it shows incorrect active alarm information for daily routine
Fixed: unable to talk while routine alarm snoozed
Fixed: alarm goes off eariler than expected, if it had been turned off for 24+ hours
Fixed: setup procedure failure in a rare case
Fixed: incorrect day-of-week and month display for Germany
Fixed: capture stop immediately after voice button touched due to AVS threshold limits
Fixed: news cannot play in full length before jump to next part
Fixed: what's my shopping list cannot play when snooze-feedback disabled
Developer mode, allows any third party writing Javascript plug-in for the Vobot (thanks to L. Mitchell)
Announce the time on the hour (thanks to B. Brianna )
Puzzle to dismiss alarm (thanks to L. Hughes)
Sleep coach (thanks to E. Lyness, J. Paz, etc.)
Control the Vobot via local network (faster response)
Display MAC & IP address of the Vobot in Apps
"Alexa" wake word (may be limited by current hardware)
Unable to connect Wi-Fi network with some special characters in name (comma)
Unable to connect Wi-Fi network with password more than 51 characters
New: "Daily Routine" feature to trigger alarm or reminder, once or regularly
New: "Night Mode", turn off or dim the brightness at mid-night. The display will be light up for 30 seconds when you touch it anywhere or press any button.
Enhanced: set different sounds for each repeating alarms based on daily routine feature (thanks to A. Mueller)
Enhanced: displays “SHAKE ME” when users choose to shake to dismiss alarm
Enhanced: add the option of holding sensitivity for dismissing alarm
Enhanced: new hardware since Dec. 15th, 2017 can wake up from deep-sleep when power plugged in
Enhanced: new hardware since Dec. 15th, 2017 can wake up before alarm, even if user turned the Vobot off by button
Enhanced: clean up the code and optimize memory usage
Enhanced: disable the prompt sound when upgrading
Enhanced: allow users to customize sound streaming urls of TuneIn radio as well as the urls without .mp3 suffix
Enhanced: an option to keep internal speaker playing after line-out plugged in
Fixed: the alarm/timer might get lost after a reboot during 00:00~00:59
Fixed: sometimes delivers a fault message of “NET FAIL”(when 'ping' is blocked)
Fixed: incomplete voice prompt when setup the Vobot or in other cases
Fixed: sometimes fails to play default sound when customized sounds cannot be downloaded in time
Fixed: alarm sounds may not last for 1 hour before it stops when it disconnected from the network
Fixed: flipping it over cannot snooze the Vobot when it disconnected from the network
Fixed: some built-in alarm sounds are too soft, so after playing, replaced by a default sounds
Fixed: sometimes displays alarm icon during snoozing
Fixed: displays incorrect active alarm information, especially for the alarm time after 2 days
Fixed: displays incomplete scheduled alarms information when turned on
Fixed: if user disabled "gradual increase", alarm goes off in a system volume which might be turned down last night
Fixed: sometimes music stops before completed
Fixed: the sound still noticable even in the VOL=0 or muted status
Fixed: before alert playing, always unmute the speaker if it's in muted status
Developer mode, allows any third party writing Javascript plug-in for the Vobot (thanks to L. Mitchell)
Announce the time on the hour (thanks to B. Brianna )
Puzzle to dismiss alarm (thanks to L. Hughes)
Provide weather information in idle patterns loop (thanks to E. Brianna )
Sleep coach (thanks to E. Lyness, J. Paz, etc.)
Control the Vobot via local network (faster response)
Display MAC & IP address of the Vobot in Apps
Stop or snooze the alarm in Apps
"Alexa" wake word (may be limited by current hardware)
Unable to connect Wi-Fi network with some special characters in name (comma)
Unable to connect Wi-Fi network with password more than 51 characters
Enhanced: shake-to-dismiss progress indicator
Fixed: blinking LED display when "Time" selected as the only pattern
Fixed: support Wi-Fi network ssid/password with ' or "
Fixed: show a correct snooze interval if other than 9 minutes
Fixed: sometimes "shake-to-dismiss" not working
Fixed: if there is no future alarms, don't go into deep sleep
Developer mode, allows any third party writing Javascript plug-in for the Vobot (thanks to L. Mitchell)
Announce the time on the hour (thanks to B. Brianna )
Set different sounds for each repeating alarms (thanks to A. Mueller)
Puzzle to dismiss alarm (thanks to L. Hughes)
Provide weather information in idle patterns loop (thanks to E. Brianna )
The daily routine / sleep coach (thanks to E. Lyness, J. Paz, etc.)
"Alexa" wake word (may be limited by current hardware)
Unable to connects Wi-Fi network with some special characters in name (comma)
The recurring alarm not working if the Vobot turned off before alarm go-off time
The alarm might lost after a reboot
New: shake to dismiss alarm (thanks to E. Bilich )
New: an Easter egg
Enhanced: adaptive brightness control has more preferences: brighter/darker (thanks to I. Ireland, S. Stracke)
Enhanced: another fail-safe wifi setup mode (thanks to C. Childress)
Enhanced: online becomes more stable (thanks to A. Bürgow )
Enhanced: holding Wi-Fi button has countdown before entering setup mode (thanks to E. Wilson)
Fixed: compatible with the modification of alarm/timer on Amazon Alexa App/Website (thanks to M. Girvan)
Fixed: time or date+time frozen if it's the only pattern selected (thanks to L. Russo, J. Brown )
Fixed: support Wi-Fi network ssid name with reverse solidus '\' (thanks to A. Fillis)
Developer mode, allows any third party writing Javascript plug-in for the Vobot (thanks to L. Mitchell)
Announce the time on the hour (thanks to B. Brianna )
Set different sounds for each repeating alarms (thanks to A. Mueller)
Puzzle to dismiss alarm (thanks to L. Hughes)
Provide weather information in idle patterns loop (thanks to E. Brianna )
The daily routine / sleep coach (thanks to E. Lyness, J. Paz, etc.)
"Alexa" wake word (may be limited by current hardware)
Unable to connects Wi-Fi network with some special characters in name (comma)
The recurring alarm not working if the Vobot turned off before alarm go-off time
New: vacation mode for alarms (thanks to C. Bell)
Fixed: in a rarely case, alarm/timer not playing (Amazon Alexa send the same SetAlert instruction twice) (thanks to G. Simpson )
Fixed: authorization Alexa timeout in setup procedure (thanks to B. Stark)
Darker or brighter Brightness mode
Announce the time on the hour
Set different sounds for each repeating alarms
Shake to dismiss alarm
Puzzle to dismiss alarm
Provide weather information in idle patterns loop
The daily routine / sleep coach
"Alexa" wake word (may be limited by current hardware)
Unable to connects Wi-Fi network with some special characters in name (comma)
Fix: sometimes alarm/timer not playing (thanks to D. Christofzik, lua s. hien, L. Miller, S.Casady, G. Simpson ,etc)
Fix: sometimes no "ding" prompt upon the voice interation
Fix: setup cannot go through in poor network (iot reconnect failure)
Fix: setup or upgrade deactivates all alerts
Fix: remove some unnecessary "oops" display (thanks to R. Kizhnerman, Cbryantcbx )
Fix: when muted, V+/V- still changes the volume
Fix: don't shutdown hotspot when Vobot is configured as the Wi-Fi Relay
Feature: upon low battery, go deep sleeping and wake up before next alarm (so we can leave it uncharged in the night) (thanks to B. Miller)
Feature: press MUTE key (the round button at the back of Vobot)once to cancel the snoozing alarm (in case the user already wake up) (thanks to David A. Stark)
Feature: add Active-Alarm to screen display, showing up to 2 upcoming alarms (thanks toT. Gentsch)
Feature: allow user to disable the feedback "OK, snoozing" after the flip-over (thanks to David A. Stark)
Feature: change the locale of LED display for to GB/DE (use DD/MM format) (thanks to J. Brown, A. Bürgow,T. Gentsch)
Feature: display month/the day of the week in German language (thanks to A. Bürgow)
Feature: allow user to customize the Playback Patterns Loop (thanks to N. Franklin)
Feature: support hidden Wi-Fi network (thanks to Suhail)
Unable to connects Wi-Fi network with some special characters in name (comma)
Enhance the unpolished UI/UX of the web/mobile Apps (Thanks to D. Stewart)
Provide weather information in idle loop
The daily routine / sleep coach feature
No "Alexa" wake words
Fix: the alarm/timer will not go off if Vobot unable to access the Internet all the time
Fix: unable to connect wifi network name with single quote "'" or space
Fix: sometimes, always display "Network Problem" or "Sign-in 40X"
Fix: when online alarm media not available, cannot not fall back to default sounds
Fix: display Authorize with Amazon Alexa correctly
Fix: flip-over-to-snooze not working if voice button touched
Fix: reduced the display peroid of hourly Alexa token refresh
Fix: cannot sign out of Amazon Alexa
Fix: when roaming to a new Wi-Fi network, sometimes lost the connection
Fix: don't prompt for APP download upon setup
Fix: snooze crash
Fix: DC-in/out not disappear (perform a factory-reset to fix this issue)
Fix: report update firmware downloading progress
Fix: sometimes no sound for alarm/timer
Feature: use Tune-In radio as the alarm sound
Feature: continous voice interaction (experiment)
Feature: play reminders from Amazon Alexa
Feature: show green LED as a notification from Amazon Alexa
Feature: world clock display
Feature: add recovery mode to make it never die upon firmware updates
Feature: press MUTE key (the round button at the back of Vobot)to stop the delivering alarm/timer
Feature: snooze interval settings
Feature: add failsafe Wi-Fi setup mode
Feature: roaming among Wi-Fi networks with the same name & key (connects to the best signal one)
Feature: use Amazon Dash Button as remote voice trigger (experiment)
Feature: options to show AM/PM, and switch between 12h, 24h display
Feature: config the cache size of media playback for slower network
Feature: enable Vobot as a Wi-Fi relay extender
Feature: release iOS/Android Apps (Thanks to Daniel Hernandez)
Unable to connects Wi-Fi network with some special characters in name (comma)
Enhance the unpolished UI/UX of the web/mobile Apps (Thanks to Dave Stewart)
Provide weather information in idle loop
The daily routine / sleep coach feature
No "Alexa" wake words
We strive to solve these problems, please let us know if such problems bother you.
Fix: after snooze, failed to play next alarm
Fix: a crashing problem while stopping concurrent alerts
Fix: sometimes unable to control or config the Vobot via https://myvobot.com
Fix: in some circumstance, Vobot cannot play any sound
Fix: alert cannot fall back to default when URL invalid
Fix: don't display wifi lost when boot at first time
Fix: in some wifi environment, wifi device list is empty(rescan sometimes helps)
Fix: brightness level 15 is not working
Feature: switch between CLIENT/RELAY wifi mode, customize hotspot name & device name
Feature: show LED dots on booting as progress indicator
Release iOS/Android Apps (Thanks to Daniel Hernandez)
Enhance the unpolished UI/UX of the web/mobile Apps (Thanks to Dave Stewart)
The alarm/timer will not be available if Vobot always unable to access the Internet after a reboot
If setup Vobot with a poor wifi, user may hear "unable to connect your Wi-Fi...", then follow a "Wi-Fi connected". Please try setup again
Provide weather information in idle loop
The daily routine / sleep coach feature
No "Alexa" wake words
We strive to solve these problems, please let us know if such problems bother you.
Feature: show battery icons of "charging", "low" and "full". It flashes for 1s in idle loop mode (Thanks to Jack Chu/Dave Stewart)
Feature: alarm/timer sounds now configurable as online media URL
Feature: return to the date/time display after offline or wifi disconnected for a minute(Thanks to Jack Chu/Craig Beavers)
Feature: display more accurate metadata for the current media
Feature: configurable alert countdown threshold (default to 30-min) (Thanks to Dave Stewart)
Feature: set a named timer, it will annouce the name along with the sound upon timer done (Thanks to Richard Kashdan)
Feature: configurable fade-in of alarm/timer (alarm default to 15s, timer default to 5s)
Feature: configurable idle loop mode, pick time/date/day-of-week/compact-datetime patterns (Thanks to Dave Stewart)
Feature: configurable LED brightness mode (Adaptive/Manual/Keep-Off-Till-Next-Alarm)(Thanks to Ron Benson)
Fix: stuttering while playing HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) media type (Thanks to Dave Stewart, Rich Plakas and many others)
Fix: a bug of "ding" sounds in midnight (Thanks to George Musser, Dave Stewart)
Fix: a bug of unable to stop the alarm/timer by just saying "stop"
Fix: a bug of the timezone cannot be updated under a specific occasion (Thanks to James Monahan)
Fix: a bug of the alarm wouldn’t ring under some special conditions
Fix: enable the DSP for a better microphone capture, enhance the recognition in noisy environment
Fix: reduce the screen holding time from 5s to 2s, make it easier to stop the alarm/timer (Thanks to Joseph Goff)
Fix: in the hour between 10 to 12, only show a single line of time instead of compact date+time (Thanks to Russel Culla)
Fix: upgrade the audio decoder to the latest version for better processing of online media formats
Fix: a bug of the audio decoder to handle some AAC format iHeartradio/TuneIn stations (Thanks to Rich Plakas)
Fix: a bug that Vobot says "your Vobot is online" even though there is no network connection during setup (Thanks to Eric Rochow)
Fix: optimized the UI display with different processing steps during setup
Fix: a bug that fails to setup upon server busy
Fix: a bug that some customers have to do a factory reset before set up (Thanks to Chris Bell)
Fix: a bug that sometimes shows black/frozen screen while Alexa is speaking
Fix: fallback to default alarm/timer ringtones upon invalid/silent online media assets
Fix: a bug that cannot keep the configuration during upgrade
Fix: enhance the security by upgading the transportation to TLS v1.2
Fix: reduce the CPU/memory consumption of network detection
Fix: a crashing problem while stopping multiple alerts with hands
Fix: a bug that the volume cannot be restored to the default value after the alert
Fix: a crash when the alert is deleted upon the external link of alert is being opened
Fix: the noise while flipping over to snooze the alert or touching the activation sensor to stop it
Fix: a crashing problem while stopping concurrent alerts
Fix: reduce the failure rate of firmware upgrade
Fix: set a timer longer than 30-min, cannot show the countdown once less than 30-min left (Thanks to Dave Stewart)
Fix: reduced the idle 'eye' flash time (Thanks to Dave Stewart)
Sometimes unable to control or config the Vobot via https://myvobot.com, please wait for 5 minutes or do a manual reboot
In some circumstance, Vobot cannot play any sound, and requires a manual reboot
Release iOS/Android Apps (Thanks to Daniel Hernandez)
Enhance the unpolished UI/UX of the web/mobile Apps (Thanks to Dave Stewart)
The alarm/timer will not be available if Vobot always unable to access the Internet after a reboot
Under some uncertain conditions, the timer/alarm cannot be stopped via say "stop", please use hand-holding or "stop the timer/alarm" instead
The countdown will conflict upon setting multiple alarm/timers
If setup Vobot with a poor wifi, user may hear "unable to connect your Wi-Fi...", then follow a "Wi-Fi connected". Please try setup again
Provide weather information in idle loop
The daily routine / sleep coach feature
No "Alexa" wake words
We strive to solve these problems, please let us know if such problems bother you.