Sound cues
The device has one piezo buzzer. A cue tells the rider that something happened, so the rider does not have to watch the screen. The app decides which cue plays. The platform decides what it sounds like, from one pattern table that the board, the simulator and the iPhone host share.
Five families
A rider can learn about five sounds reliably. So the app groups the cues by meaning, and does not give each cue its own sound:
| Family | Meaning | Cues |
|---|---|---|
| Tick | Got it | key click, hold done |
| Heads-up | Look at the screen soon | climb starts |
| Good | Resolved | back on route, GPS back, arrived, the volume preview |
| Problem | Something went wrong | off route, GPS lost, sensor dropped, battery low |
| Urgent | Act now | recording error, storage lost, battery critical |
Rhythm is the primary signal: the number of notes and their length. Rhythm stays audible in wind, where a change of pitch is easy to miss. Pitch direction is the secondary signal: rising notes are good news and falling notes are bad news. When two cues occur in the same pass, the more severe family plays.
When a cue plays
Some events are edges already: a climb starts, the rider arrives, a hold finishes a ride. Their cue plays once. Other facts are levels, such as off route or a live GPS fix. A level plays its cue only when the new level holds for a few seconds, and after a loss cue the same level is silent for one minute. A loss that still holds when that minute ends plays its cue then. A recovery cue plays only when its loss cue played. So a rider on the edge of the route hears one cue, not a stream of cues. The GPS and sensor cues play only while the ride runs, and GPS lost plays only when the GPS had a fix after the ride started. The battery cues play once at each threshold. A recording error and storage lost share one cue for each failure: it plays once when the failure starts. It plays again only when a failure occurs after one quiet minute. An incomplete ride log that the device finds at start-up shows the warning card and plays no cue, because the rider cannot act on it. cues.rs holds these rules.
Settings
The Sound page has two rows. Sound is Off, Quiet or Loud. Loud drives the piezo from two pins in opposite phase, which is louder in wind. A change to Quiet or Loud plays a preview at the new level. Key tones clicks on every button press, and it is off by default. A platform that has no buzzer does not show the page.