The company behind Instango, Bellshare, just let me know that they have released a new application for BlackBerry called BerryBuzz. This tool lets you customize the LED color of different alerts, reminders, and more. They offer a reasonable 7 day trial after which it goes for $5.95 in the store. The 7 day trial can be downloaded OTA at this link.
Save 50% until March 6th 2009: You can save 50% off BerryBuzz by using the coupon code berrybuzzbr50 during the checkout.
From the description:
The essential alert tool for every BlackBerry. BerryBuzz extends your default Blackberry alert system. BerryBuzz allows you to customize the LED color for many alert type and keeps the LED flashing for longer than the default 15 minutes your BlackBerry does. It will repeat alerts until acknowledged so you will never miss an alert again. Plus it adds a customizable vibrate for incoming calls. Finally you can have your BlackBerry vibrate while it is ringing.
Features:
- Customize the LED color and set an individual repeating alert for
- E-Mails (individual for each account or one for all)
- PIN Messages
- SMS (may not work with every carrier)
- Calendar Events
- Missed phone calls
- When multiple alerts are active at the same time, every color will flash in a repeating pattern.
- Customizable rapid flashing LED for incoming phone calls
- Customizable vibrate for incoming calls. Vibrates while ringing.
- LED will keep flashing until acknowledged (BlackBerry defaults to flash only for 15 min).
- Optional slow down of LED flashing after specified time to save battery life
- Optimized for minimum battery and memory usage
- Support for Instango custom colored LED (instango 2.2.83 or higher)
Paul Not Registered
Posted: March 3, 2009 at 3:20 PM EST
Can anyone compare and contrast this with Blackberry Alerts for me…. If it’s just the same, I won’t switch… but if it’s a lot better.. then I’m gettin it!
Tom ( View Profile) - Posts: 388
Posted: March 3, 2009 at 4:30 PM EST
There’s a seven day free trial — try it out for yourself, and decide! 😉
Paul Not Registered
Posted: March 3, 2009 at 4:33 PM EST
heh. Good idea
Yasmin Not Registered
Posted: March 3, 2009 at 5:06 PM EST
I am using this on my Bold and bought it right away. I once tried BBAlerts and just had problems. This one works great!
papped Not Registered
Posted: March 3, 2009 at 5:24 PM EST
One app that works better than a combination of two apps, for the sale price of half an app!
DZW Not Registered
Posted: March 3, 2009 at 6:32 PM EST
It is really good, I delete VibAndRing and only use it and the led color options is really nice. Good job
Jason Not Registered
Posted: March 3, 2009 at 6:33 PM EST
it works good, except the sms does not work.
i am on telus with a curve 8330.
anyone else having similar problems?
Pfluger Not Registered
Posted: March 3, 2009 at 7:31 PM EST
Try setting the SMS LED color in BerryBuzz and then do a battery pull.
SMS still seems to be an issue for some. We are working on this and hope to have something more stable for a future release.
Henrik
instango.com
m.bellshare.com/berrybuzz
Brandon Not Registered
Posted: March 3, 2009 at 7:38 PM EST
If you have Auto Standby and when your device is in AutoStandy mode, it doesn’t work.
Pfluger Not Registered
Posted: March 3, 2009 at 7:40 PM EST
This is a known issue and we are working on it.
Henrik
instango.com
m.bellshare.com/berrybuzz
Tom ( View Profile) - Posts: 388
Posted: March 4, 2009 at 11:18 AM EST
Have you contacted the developer of AutoStandby directly? Jeff has been EXTREMELY responsive, including developing an API for 3rd-party applications.
John Not Registered
Posted: March 3, 2009 at 7:40 PM EST
To enable SMS alert, you must disable the led in your profile.
1. Go to your active profile settings
2. Go to SMS Text
3. Turn off “Repeat Notification” by setting it to None.
4. Reboot/Battery Pull.
Good luck. Hope that helps.
Jeff Not Registered
Posted: March 3, 2009 at 8:45 PM EST
Any chance of adding in led colors for blackberry messenger .. in the future?
Pfluger Not Registered
Posted: March 3, 2009 at 8:50 PM EST
We would love to, but it all actually depends on Blackberry providing an interface for 3rd party application to be notified about incoming BBM messages.
Area51 Not Registered
Posted: March 3, 2009 at 8:59 PM EST
SMS don’t work for me neither, even after battery pull and color alternating is buggy at times, please fix. I love the rapid flashing LED on incoming call, shweeeeet.
webchetan ( View Profile) - Posts: 280
Posted: March 3, 2009 at 9:02 PM EST
looks like an excellent app!!!!!! Its for the keeps…
molio Not Registered
Posted: March 3, 2009 at 9:43 PM EST
I tried the application and I like it but I have some issues on my Bold 9000:
– as stated before as Autostandby put the device on sleep cancel the led alert. It’s not possible to make an exception because Berry Buzz isn’t listed in the active task from Autostandby.
– When you clear a led alert (missing calls) the green blinking led of the network won’t return on.
– Setting the system default led color for the missing calls doesn’t work. I get no signal for the missing calls. If I set a specific color it works.
If there’s more than one alert (missing call, e-mail …) the led don’t cycle as described. Only the last one is shown.
This is my experience.
Dan Not Registered
Posted: March 4, 2009 at 12:00 AM EST
great program! I like the simple interface much better than BBalerts.
Also, I got the SMS alert to work correctly on an 8330 after a battery pull.
In the future it would be cool if there was a feature to create your own LED color by adjusting R/G/B. I think BBAlerts had this feature.
Piepereit Not Registered
Posted: March 4, 2009 at 12:06 AM EST
Using a bold and have been a long time BB Alerts user. This program interested me in the ability of slowing LED alerts and the reminder alert feature.
I really like the program and am on the brink of switching from BB Alerts, however I have a couple issues. One is my SMS LED isn’t working either as others have posted above. The other feature that isn’t working is the repeating alarm. I have the LED slow at 5 minutes and the reminder alert at 5 minutes and the LED slows (which is cool) but the reminder alert isn’t happening (this is a bummer, I really was looking forward to this).
I hope you can work out the few bugs as I really like all the other features. The short pulse buzz during call is very cool and the quick flash bright white LED is very cool for the meetings where I have notifications off.
Keep up the good job and looking forward to the updates. Strongly considering the purchase.
Cheers
Pfluger Not Registered
Posted: March 4, 2009 at 1:13 AM EST
To configure the audible reminder alert set “Reminder Alert Every” to some interval (i.e. 5 minutes).
BerryBuzz will then create a new entry in your Blackberry profiles (i.e. “BerryBuzz – Missed Call Reminder”).
Configure this entry to set the alert sound/vibration etc.
Piepereit Not Registered
Posted: March 4, 2009 at 1:22 AM EST
Awesome…! Thank you for the tip on reminder alert. They are there as you have mentioned and work flawlessly…nice! I think you got me, I will be purchasing. Hopefully you can fix the SMS LED issue on the Bold … and I like the Dan’s feature request of user adjustment of R/G/B to create our own “special” colors. But boy, I got to say, nice job out of the gates!
Stu Not Registered
Posted: March 4, 2009 at 6:58 AM EST
Loving this app, changing the Repeat Notification setting that John stated got my SMS alerts working a treat
Any chance you could support gmails email app notifications
Thanks
Stu
E Not Registered
Posted: March 4, 2009 at 12:51 PM EST
this app is pretty freakin awesome, i have to say. i tried BBAlerts, and that was a waste of money (a lot of money, but that’s my own fault). It never worked properly.
BerryBuzz is right on the money however. Even with the issues they are working on (for me, it’s jus the SMS alert), the app gives you so much bang for the buck. So glad i could get it 50% off. Thanks so much, and looking forward to updates!!
E
Piepereit Not Registered
Posted: March 5, 2009 at 12:10 AM EST
Just an update: John’s post from back on the 3rd works perfectly on my Bold to get SMS notifications to work:
“To enable SMS alert, you must disable the led in your profile.
1. Go to your active profile settings
2. Go to SMS Text
3. Turn off “Repeat Notification” by setting it to None.
4. Reboot/Battery Pull.
Good luck. Hope that helps.”
*Thanks John*
Question for Henrik,
Do we need to do this for the other notifications? Do we need to disable the default LED reminder in profiles for say Messenger (PIN)? I have found that my BB Messenger LED is the default red (not the turquoise I set in BerryBuzz) just as the SMS was before I disabled the repeat in the profile settings? I also noticed that periodically the “Slowing” LED doesn’t engage and I am wondering if it is because I still have the LED set in profiles…?
Pfluger Not Registered
Posted: March 5, 2009 at 12:43 AM EST
We have issued an update (Version 1.0.25) which should fix the SMS problem. A battery pull is no longer needed. Simply re-download.
All other notifications never needed a battery pull and should work right away.
BB Messenger is not supported. PIN Messages are messages you send via the default messaging application (The one you use to send e-mails).
Disabling the repeat in Blackberry profile is not mandatory. It only sometimes avoids seeing a short red flash before the custom color kicks in.
Right now the delay for slowing LED will be reset every time a new notification comes up. So when you receive another e-mail it will reset.
We may change this so the slowing LED timer will not be reset every time another notification comes it but only on the first time the LED starts flashing.
Tom ( View Profile) - Posts: 388
Posted: March 5, 2009 at 7:12 AM EST from my BlackBerry 8830
Resetting the timer for slow LED flash on the first notification sounds like an excellent battery saving idea. Thanks!
Curtis Not Registered
Posted: March 5, 2009 at 3:51 PM EST
Does BerryBuzz support audible reminder alerts or is it just for LED?
Pfluger Not Registered
Posted: March 5, 2009 at 5:33 PM EST
It does support audible reminder alerts.
To configure the audible reminder alert set “Reminder Alert Every” to some interval (i.e. 5 minutes).
BerryBuzz will then create a new entry in your Blackberry profiles (i.e. “BerryBuzz – Missed Call Reminder”).
Configure this entry to set the alert sound/vibration etc.
piepereit Not Registered
Posted: March 5, 2009 at 7:20 PM EST from my BlackBerry 9000
Uh oh…update to you new revision and now calender reminder LED does not work. I have tried battery pull, disabled BerryBuzz and then re-Enabled but the calender stays as default. Anything I am doing wrong?
piepereit Not Registered
Posted: March 5, 2009 at 7:24 PM EST from my BlackBerry 9000
Let me clarify a bit better. I have set the LED in BerryBuzz to Yellow for Calendar, however when a calendar alarm goes off, the LED just blinks the standard red default.
piepereit Not Registered
Posted: March 5, 2009 at 9:35 PM EST from my BlackBerry 9000
Hello again. I have been playing around with BerryBuzz for a bit this afternoon and believe I may have found another little bug and then have a feature request.
Bug: I have Missed Call set for “white” LED, I have slow set to 5 minutes and audible repeat alert set at 2 min. When I practice a missed call and don’t touch the device, the audible alert works perfect at every 2 minutes but the slow LED does not kick in…it stays fast.
Feature: have an option to select the number of audible repeats ( so like after 3 it stops the audible alerts and only the slow LED is going)
Thanks.
Pfluger Not Registered
Posted: March 5, 2009 at 10:50 PM EST
There is currently a bug that would reset the slowing down of the LED whenever any other event comes in. This should be fixed in a future release.
Interesting idea for the limiting of audible repeats!
Piepereit Not Registered
Posted: March 5, 2009 at 11:42 PM EST
“There is currently a bug that would reset the slowing down of the LED whenever any other event comes in. This should be fixed in a future release”
When I tested the miss call alert though, I had the phone sitting in front of me and no additional events came through…so the LED started fast, 2 minutes later my audible went off, then 2 minutes later the audible again…then in one more minute the LED should of slowed…but it did not, then the audible again etc. I sat and watched it and the audible went off consecutively 5 times (so a 10 minute span) and the LED stayed fast. Double checked and the setting for slow LED was set at 5 minutes.
Ideally, I would love to set the audible for every two minutes for a max of say 5 times. That way if I miss a call or SMS, Email etc….the phone will “ping” and flash the LED fast..two minutes later another audible etc. At 5 minutes the LED slows….a couple more audible pings and then after 10 minutes no more audibles…just the slow LED. That way if I leave the phone on my desk and don’t grab it for a while..it won’t sit and ping audibles for hours…but I would like a few additional audibles just in case I am close by etc.
Thanks again, great product…just trying to help make it that one that no blackberry should be without…it is already close.
Cheers
Andy Not Registered
Posted: March 5, 2009 at 11:05 PM EST
I upgraded to version 1.0.25. My SMS and Calendar notifications aren’t working.
Also, are there any plans to include Tasks in a future update? Or are they just not working for me because Calendar notifications aren’t working?
Andy Not Registered
Posted: March 6, 2009 at 10:17 AM EST
Okay, it seems both the SMS and the Calendar notifications are working this morning.
And it appears that Tasks aren’t covered by the Calendar settings. So, any plans to include them?
piepereit Not Registered
Posted: March 6, 2009 at 8:47 PM EST from my BlackBerry 9000
Well, I double and triple checked and cannot get calendar LED notification to work on my bold. It worked fine with your first release, but when I updated to .25 it went back to the standard red default normal flash. Hope you can replicate. I am running OS .237
Cheers
ian Not Registered
Posted: March 7, 2009 at 9:08 AM EST from my BlackBerry 8900
I found a bug that I’m hoping can be fixed with an update. Other than this, I absolutely love this applicationn. I have ringtones on my phone that are only 1 or 2 seconds long.Before I installed BerryBuzz, those ringtones would repeat for the entire duration of an incoming call. Now that I have berrybuzz, I have it set to vubrate and ring simultaneously, and those short ring tones only ring once, then silence for the duration of the incoming call. The vibrating continues on though. Can you put out an update that makes short ringtones repeat when they finish before the incoming call gets sent to voicemail? This seems to be a problem on t-mobile’s blackberry curve 8900 and t-mobile’s blackberry pearl flip phopne. Let me know if this can be fixed with an update please. Great job on the app…thanks very much!
Tom ( View Profile) - Posts: 388
Posted: March 7, 2009 at 9:30 AM EST
Try setting your Profile to Tone only as opposed to Vibrate+Tone. 😉
ian Not Registered
Posted: March 7, 2009 at 11:08 AM EST from my BlackBerry 8900
I have tried setting my blackberry sound settings to “vibrate + tone” and just “tone”. I am having the same problem with both settings.
ian Not Registered
Posted: March 7, 2009 at 11:14 AM EST from my BlackBerry 8900
Keep in mind, I tried setting the blackberry riner settings to both “tone” and “vibrate + tone”….as for the berrybuzz settings, I do want it to vibrate and ring simultaneously, I also want my short ring tone to continuously repeat the sound until the voicemail picks up. Right now, it’s just ringing once, while the vibrating continues on.
Pfluger Not Registered
Posted: March 7, 2009 at 4:29 PM EST
We are currently working on this. It is not clear whether this is a BerryBuzz problem or a BlackBerry OS problem.
There are two ways you can work around this:
1 – As mentioned by others, set a ringtone that is longer than 5 seconds.
2 – Set the vibrate + vibrate pause in BerryBuzz to at least 5s. This seems to solve the problem, too. So i.e. you can set the vibrate to 2s and the pause to 4s.
Let me know if either of them worked for you.
Keith Not Registered
Posted: March 12, 2009 at 11:21 AM EST
I have email set to vibrate + tone and now it will not vibrate when I get a message.
JP Not Registered
Posted: March 14, 2009 at 9:40 AM EST
Does BerryBuzz function on the Blackberry Storm (9530)?
techphets Not Registered
Posted: March 28, 2009 at 1:00 PM EST from my BlackBerry 8330
Nice app. Even nicer too see communications from the developers.
OS: 4.5.0.77
BerryBuzz: 1.0.25
Phone: Verizon Curve 8330
I have not purchased yet because of a problem with calendar events.
Flashin LED does not work. I’ve reconfigured calendar to none, tone, and vibe/tone. I’ve set calendar to none and LED repeat reminder- the only time I see reminders is when set on and these are the normal, red, default reminders. If calendar alert is after others, the red LED overrides all others. If a different alert occurs after the calendar alert, the calendar alert is overridden.
I use only calendar, phone call, and email alerts.
How often are updates usually release?
Are older version available for download in the case where features are broken in updates (as has been suggested with .25)?
Is this a known bug? Is this being worked on?