With great regrets, retired Locale today. Most regrettable because this is something I thought about as well, something that showed great promise, and something that can be greatly improved.
Doesn't seem that is destined to happen, though. At least not yet.
What makes projects great is transparency. Here, there is none.
Feedback, other than 915 ratings to date on Android Market, is hidden. Directions of further development are unknown. The only way to "get involved" is to send a mail (yeah, sure, let me whip out my spam filter). It is not known whether the project team is planning to make this an open source project, or make it a commercial application. It is not known and not clear whether the application is being actively developed, or maybe the team has reaped the benefits and moved on, releasing minor bugfixes once in a while.
Given the fact that the application is quirky and there is a lot of space for improvements (which I'm not even going to talk about until they put the cards on the table), I just call it quits.
This application is uncertain. Uncertainty is risk. Risk is threat.
The impact of this application on one's life can be a blessing or a curse - and curse much more often than a blessing, people usually notice things that go wrong and take what goes right for granted. Just imagine an alarm that's been missed because it fell into the "silent" zone, and you not making the once in a lifetime interview because of that.
*IF* Locale becomes a commercial application, I might think of buying it. But probably won't - you know, if the range top microwave falls and severs my SO's arm, I don't care much if if the installer had insurance to cover it.
But, if they decide to open it up... I just might be tempted enough to chip in my $0.02.
Too bad I don't have time to write it better from scratch, being busy doing other things...
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