Getting started
Install the application from the Download page, and place the new Nokia Bots widget on a free slot on your homescreen. If you want to try out the learning shortcut bars, add Contact Bot widget for top contacts and Shortcut Bot widget for apps as well. That’s all you need to do! Just keep using the phone as usual, during a few days of learning time the Bots will configure themselves.
When a Bot has learned enough, its status changes to ‘Ready’ and new features get activated. You can observe the learning status of each Bot from Nokia Bots widget’s status view, which is shown whenever there are no messages from Bots.
In case you added the Shorcut Bot as well, you can observe how it begins to learn used apps, and places shortcuts to them on its own widget. The shortcuts will stabilize in a few weeks to most frequently used ones.
In case you added the Contacts Bot as well, it is initially empty, but you can observe how it begins to learn your favourite contacts as you start making calls with them. The top contacts will stabilize in a few weeks to most frequently used ones. Please note also that after a few days use it could start highlighting also the if you're at home or work - based on what it has learnt from your daily behaviour.
The Bots communicate with you via suggestions that appear in the Nokia Bots widget. Note that some suggestions can be modified by tapping the text part.
You can easily accept suggestions with a single button press or ignore those you don’t care about. When the Bot icon on the right is tapped, the suggested feature is performed and indicated with a green tick. As long as the suggestion is visible, it can be deactivated by tapping the icon again so that it shows a red cross; the action has now been canceled.
FAQ
Who is this service for?
This service is aimed for everyone who wishes to let the phone help in many routine tasks, which we users sometimes forget and hardly ever get pleasure of. While the variety in the way people use their phones prevents us from automating these tasks by default, this service enables assistance to those users who likely benefit from it.
Why would I use this service?
You will likely appreciate profile change assistance provided by Profile Bot, if you regularly mark meetings to phone’s calendar. If you use your phone as an alarm clock or wish the phone to be silent while you sleep, the nightly configuration task will become much easier to do with Alarm Bot. As a regular shortcut user, you’ll find self-configuring Shortcut Bot handy. Battery Bot may save you from some annoyances related to a draining battery, in case you do not regularly recharge every night. Last but not least, Contact Bot provides shortcuts to your top four called contacts, as requested by the Beta Labs community
Which devices support this service?
Currently Nokia N97, N97 Mini and Nokia C6-00 are supported.
How much does this service cost?
Nokia provides this service for free for the customer. Normal operator data transfer rates apply for downloading the installation package. There is no data transfer during usage.
How much phone resources does this service use?
The resource consumption is minimal. It is very likely that the user does not notice any change in battery life or phone responsiveness. Disk and memory consumption are also very low.
I installed the software, but see nothing new anywhere. Where did it go?
In order to see the suggestions, you must manually add the Nokia Bots widget to your homescreen. This widget is used by all features provided by Nokia Bots services. You can add the widget to homescreen by making a long-press in an empty slot, tapping "Add Content", and then selecting a widget called “Nokia Bots” from the menu that appears. Initially the widget shows the learning status of each Bot. The new learning “Shortcut Bot” and "Contact Bot" must be separately added as well, if you wish to use them.
I added a meeting into the calendar, but nothing special happened. Now what?
When the software is installed, Profile Bot begins to observe if silent or meeting profile gets activated just before or during a calendar meeting. When this behavior is observed a few times, Profile Bots begins to suggest profile changes for meetings in homescreen (the suggestion appears when a calendar meeting is scheduled to begin). When user confirms the suggestion, profile will be immediately changed to meeting, and later on automatically returned to previous profile when the meeting ends. Only meeting events with proper start and end times can be taken into account.
Sometimes I get a Profile Bot suggestion, sometimes not. Am I doing something wrong?
Make sure that you create calendar events using meeting type, and both start and end times are properly marked (start and end time mustn’t be the same). Also note that if meeting profile is already active when a meeting begins, profile automation will not be suggested for it. In case multiple meetings overlap, profile change is suggested for the first one only and normal profile restored when the last overlapping meeting ends.
First I had to confirm profile changes, but then Profile Bot began to activate meeting profiles by itself?
Profile Bot can be used either in assisted or automatic mode. When it first gets activated, it begins in assisted mode where profile change suggestions need user’s confirmation each time. If user accepts offered profile change many times, Profile Bot promotes trying out automatic mode, where meeting profile is handled autonomously without confirmations. If this is not suitable for the user, it is possible to return back to assisted mode by selecting Profile Bot from Nokia bots widget’s status view and tapping the text part between ‘assisted’ and ‘automatic’ modes.
I installed the software, but didn’t get any alarm suggestion in the evening. Does it not work?
When the software is installed, Alarm Bot begins to observe the wake-up alarms that user creates with the built-in Clock application. Personal wake-up preference is learned in a few days of time (the exact number of learning days varies depending on how regularly user creates alarms and whether they appear on weekdays or weekends). When enough has been learned, the suggestions begin to appear on the Homescreen.
I got a few alarm suggestions, but then they stopped appearing. What happened?
Alarm Bots only shows suggestions if there have been enough alarms recently, since proper alarm time suggestion cannot be calculated if there is not enough usage. Alarms created with Alarm Bot and built-in Clock application are both taken into account, and suggestions begin to appear again when alarms are observed frequently enough. It is also possible that the user has already created an alarm manually with the Clock application; then Alarm Bot will not create a suggestion for that particular night.
First alarm suggestion appeared at 9:15pm, the second at 9:40pm. What’s going on?
Alarm suggestions appear on evenings at about the same time the user normally creates the alarms. If there is a lot of variance in usage, alarm time suggestions will appear at different times. Notice that there is no harm if you do not response to them immediately, you can activate the alarms when it best suits for you.
I get alarm suggestions regularly for weekdays but not for weekends. Why?
User’s preference for wake-up alarm time and night profile usage is separately learned for weekdays and weekends. It is possible that usage has been frequent enough for weekdays, but not for weekends.
I’ve been getting alarm suggestions, but no night profile suggestions. How can I activate them?
Night profile usage is learned just like alarm usage. If user activates silent profile in the evening and switches back to normal profile in the morning, night profile usage will be captured in a few days and suggestions begin to appear. Note that depending on usage, it is possible to get alarm suggestions, profile suggestions or both.
I like the Alarm Bot, except that the suggested time is not always what I want it to be. How can I change it?
Long press on the suggested alarm (left side of the widget) opens an editor, which can be used for adjusting alarm and night profile configuration for that particular night.
I added the Shortcut Bot widget, but it is empy / only partially filled?
Shortcut Bot learns your most frequently used apps when you use them. Initially it is empty but the slots become quickly filled in normal usage, and stabilize in a few weeks.
I get notification to charge my battery allready today. What does the Battery Bot actually do?
Battery Bot activates immediately after installation. It monitors your battery charge level in the evening and if it is likely that your battery will not last over the night, it will remind you to charge the battery. In addition, Battery Bot will notify you if the battery charge level drops too fast i.e. two bars consumed within one hour and there is only 2 bars left. The idea is to give you early battery warning during heavy phone use e.g. gaming.
Contact Bot does not seem to respond to any incoming calls or messages
This is correct. Contact Bot learns which persons in the phonebook the user tries to call the most often. Answering incoming calls has no effect on learning. This is by design, as high number of incoming calls from a certain number does not necessarily indicate that the user also wishes to call back to that number.
Are SMS and MMS messages taken into account in learning?
No. In the current release only outgoing phone calls are counted. However, this may change in the future.
I don't see anything related to location.
Contact Bot begins by learning the overall top contacts. Location learning happens at the same time in the background. When a location is learned - this may take several days - its label begins to show on top of the Contact Bot widget whenever your are in that location.
How is the location-awareness of new Contact Bot suppose to work?
Contact Bot observes mobile phone network cell changes in the background. Based on your daily rhythm, an algorithm learns where your home and work are most likely located. This will take a couple of days. After enough evidence has been collected, Contact Bot begins to show '@Home' or '@Work' on top of the contacts list when it thinks that you are at one of the learned locations. After learning a new location, Contact Bot begins to learn top contacts separately for this location.
Contact Bot tells me that I'm at work and I don't even have a job!
Based on your daily rhythm, location learning collects evidence on which mobile phone network cells are most likely related to your home and work locations. In case you spend a lot of time in a single location during weekdays, this location will be eventually learned and labeled as 'Work'. Location learning feature is very experimental, and currently does not allow customizing location labels.
I'm on a holiday and yet Contact Bot tells me that I'm at home.
If you stay nights in another location frequently enough, Contact Bot will re-learn your home location. The new place has become your new home...
Contact Bot has learned home location but does not seem to learn work location at all.
Depending on your local mobile phone network, cells that we use for positioning in Contact Bot can be very different in terms of size and form. If your home and work are geographically located close to each other, and especially if you live in rural areas where network cells are typically large, it is possible that home and work cannot be separated with this positioning method and thus '@Home' always appears.
Contact Bot tells me that I'm at home even when I'm several kilometers away.
If the mobile phone network cells are large in your area, positioning precision will be low. This is typical to rural areas. Usually the precision is from a few hundred meters to several kilometers.
When I stay at home, sometimes Contact Bot location label '@Home' appears and then a few minutes later it disappars, then appears again. What's going on?
Your phone switches between two network cells. Contact Bot has mapped one cell to your home, but not the other one - hence the the label appears and disappears. There are some complex rules when phone changes from one cell to another, but if you live near cell boundaries this behaviour is more likely.
Known issues
- Current release of Nokia Bots is not fully compatible with Symbian Anna. All the features should work, but some texts in the home screen widgets may have wrong contents / be empty. Unfortunately the Bots team is busy with something else, and we cannot give an estimate when/if this issue will be fixed.
Alarm Bot learning algorithm does not suit for users who do not have a regular sleeping rhythm (for example people who do shift work), as in this case wake-up time cannot be estimated well.
Enabling and disabling Alarm Bot alarm repeatedly in the homescreen widget may affect to suggested alarm time in the following nights, as created alarms are used for learning the suggested alarm time.
- If an alarm is first created and then deleted using the Clock application, Alarm Bot suggestion may not appear that particular night. This happens because a suggestion that has been once disabled does not get reactivated. Workaround is to create the alarm manually that time using the Clock application.
- If a new wake-up alarm is created to trigger the day after tomorrow or later, it is not recognized and eventually Alarm Bot will create a suggestion for that day even though an alarm already exists. User can ignore Alarm Bot suggestion, if an alarm has been created already.
- Night profile automation will not take place if phone is rebooted after night profile has been set. Night profile must be manually controlled for that night.
- Night profile automation will take place even if related alarm gets deleted. A workaround is to reboot the phone, which disables the night profile automation for that night.
- If the phone is rebooted during a meeting, previous profile will not be restored when the meeting ends. In this case profile needs to be restored manually.
- An alarm created/edited/deleted with Clock application does not get updated to homescreen widget.
- ShortcutBot supports only native Symbian applications. E.g. Java and WRT applications are not supported.