FREE alternative to BeBuzz - Advanced Calls & LED Control

By Kerri Neill on 5 Jan 2012 08:57 am

Advanced Calls and LED Control

I'm an avid fan of the popular LED notification light app called BeBuzz (aka BerryBuzz). The biggest complaint from most people about the app is the price tag. There are similar apps out there that offer almost the same experience at a fraction of the cost but most don't even come close to the original...until now. When glancing through the forums, I ran across Advanced Calls and LED Control by Sultan Al Sooz. With this free, yes I said FREE, app you have an unlimited amount of possibilities and extra uses on your phone. Not only does the app give you a variety of LED color choices for your notifications, you also get some pretty cool call control features as well. Keep reading after the break for all the juicy details on this fantastic FREE app!

LED Features:

Unlimited contacts for LED ID notifications
LED Color Picker: More than 100 colors and shades available using a color picker. Up to 4 colors per contact or app and 14 effects (not only blink, MIX and merge colors as well) per color.
LED Caller ID: Assign LED colors for Incoming calls, Missed Calls, SMS and Email messages to UNLIMITED number of contacts. Finally control LED notification time (customizable from 5 min upto 5 hours or unlimited).
LED control for BBM, Emails(Individual EMail Accounts), Facebook, Twitter, MSN, Yahoo, Google Talk, WhatsApp, Calendar Reminder, Network (data and voice) Coverage, Battery (charging, full, low), CALL CONNECT and much more.
LED Capture Mode: customization LED for ANY app, upto 4 apps. LED Night Profile: schedule what LED Lights you want to auto disable or lower color brightness at night.

Calling Features:

Redial Feature: Provides a redial screen for unanswered or failed dialed calls, fully customizable.
Speaker Feature: Provides auto loud speaker activation for all calls or only selected call directions. Also has privacy feature to deactivate loud speaker when dialed call connects.
Save Number: Prompts to save new numbers which are not in your phone contact list, for incoming or dialed numbers.
Call Timer (duration) Notification: Provides call duration notification during a call, to avoid over talking or spending on phone calls. -
Vibrate for all Call Events (I mean ALL of them): Call events starting from dialpad (comes with this app), incoming calls, dialing, Redialing (comes with this app), call busy, CALL CONNECT (can be set for outgoing calls only), call duration (comes with this app), call muted, call waiting (receiving a second call), on hold, on call end (adds Call End Sound Profile).
Miss Call Sound Profile: Adds a Missed Call to phone's sound profiles, to choose your own music alert for missed calls. This can be set to repeat the alert every few seconds or minutes.

Added Features:

Battery feature: Provides a sound profile for your battery status.
Vibrates when pressing keys on touch screens and keypad, choose between vibrating in Phone App only or (due to high demand) all apps except the Web Browser app.
DOES NOT USE BATTERY POWER STARTING FROM VERSION 8.7.
Backup/restore all settings on your Memory Card.
App Works on OS 4.6.1, OS 4.7, OS 5, OS 6 and OS 7.
Is EXTREMELY small in size with very small memory utilization.

Advanced Calls and LED Control is available for pretty much all BlackBerry devices (including the 9981) running OS 4.6.1 or higher (yes, even OS 7). The app is supported in all countries and across all carriers. If you've been looking for an LED notification app but have been holding back because of the price, look no further!

For more information / download Advanced Calls and LED Control

Topics: Free BlackBerry Applications Notification Light LED Call Controls Advanced Calls And LED Control Sultan Al Sooz BlackBerry Apps

Kerri Neill 162 (articles) 449 (forum posts)

57 comments

beemir Jan 5, 2012 at 9:02 am

nice! i'm an avid fan of bebuzz as well so i'll definitely check this out. thanks for the article!

swiedom Jan 5, 2012 at 9:03 am

I have BeBuzz but this looks great

Spawn12 Jan 5, 2012 at 9:08 am

I used to swear by Bebuzz until i found this app mentioned by someone on the forums...after using it for a few days, i finally kissed Bebuzz goodbye as this app is just as good if not better than Bebuzz and the best thing is??...its free compared to the rip off price Bebuzz is. Only downsides of this app i have found is that its not as pretty looking as Bebuzz but then thats not really a deal breaker.

Goodbye Bebuzz and hello advanced calls and led control.

howboutdat Jan 5, 2012 at 9:12 am

I have this and its revolutionized the way I use my 9800-it can be a little buggy from time to time, but its easily sorted out with an app restart-theres so much customization for being free, too! Blows BeBuzz and ColorID away in my opinion, had both free versions until I found this, then deleted em. Its a little tricky to get setuP at first, having to go thru every LED setting in the system to let this one take over, but completely worth the time and effort. DL it!

re_matters Jan 5, 2012 at 9:17 am

Nice to see this app getting some facetime on CB! Been using it for at least 2 weeks and I wouldn't leave a BlackBerry without it! I used to use Color I'd and was about to repurchase but when I found this awesome and free alternative I was amazed at how much more it could do. I've been recommending it to anyone and everyone with a BB. Great app and great review!

gtamhankar Jan 5, 2012 at 9:19 am

Take that, BeBuzz!!

ekafara Jan 5, 2012 at 9:20 am

Downloaded it, seems pretty cool so far. I've never had any of the other LED apps so I don't have anything to base it against. Should work really well for me though.

sbx9900 Jan 5, 2012 at 9:23 am

I used this for a month, more or less before bebuzz went on sale at half price. This is much more customizable and flexible than bebuzz paid version. The possibilities are endless!! Go for it even if you don't have issues paying the extra bucks for bebuzz.

This app was posted in the forums - that's how i discovered it, but it seems nobody noticed.

I'm sticking with BeBuzz for now since i already paid for it.

jjca Jan 5, 2012 at 9:28 am

I have used both but BeBuzz is tons better... if you purchase it...

ugbadboy Jan 5, 2012 at 9:39 am

Downloading now!!!

newcollector Jan 5, 2012 at 9:41 am

Thanks for the tip. I have downloaded the app and everything works without a hitch. Now to customize my contacts!

BENZ_O Jan 5, 2012 at 9:41 am

Just dl and its great! Bye bye Color ID

pantlesspenguin Jan 5, 2012 at 9:43 am

Nice!! I wish I hadn't left my BB at home today so I could start playing with this!

jordan559 Jan 5, 2012 at 10:05 am

This is a great app!! I hve set it up and use it for many different things.

the brother Jan 5, 2012 at 10:05 am

I have been using it for 3 weeks now but can someone reassure me that this app is not responsible for my recent battery woes?

PLEASE

jordan559 Jan 5, 2012 at 10:26 am

Its not. This is a great app and it does so much more than just the LED control. But it has had no major effect at all on my battery. Good luck to u.

AlphaColbalt95 Jan 5, 2012 at 10:53 am

Really? I actually found that it eats up quite a lot of battery. I have the led set for unlimited (same as bebuzz) and my battery usage went from 50% to 20% at the end of the day. I'm a light user so the only difference is this app. I'm going to keep on testing just to make sure but from what I know now this app would seem to be the reason my battery is draining faster.

9thfloormaniac Jan 25, 2012 at 11:35 pm

I too have had this problem on the 9900 and I have read in forums of others experiencing this as well. I didn't have this problem with the .74 leak, but started experiencing this when I updated to .190. It was draining my battery at an alarming rate. Once I deleted it, no more drained battery. I really like the app but I am afraid to install it on the .205 leak. Also the yellow light would randomly blink without any text or email messages being received. I hope the developer can take a look into this.

9thfloormaniac Jan 25, 2012 at 11:39 pm

edited

Anatomy Jan 5, 2012 at 10:07 am

bebuzz pissed me off when they demanded $ for the last update when they only added features that should have been there all along.

I'm grateful that this option is availabe. Downloading now :)

schwechel Jan 5, 2012 at 10:33 am

Wow, this looks great. Nice find and review. I currently have an up-to-date account with BeBuzz, but I'll be dumping them as soon as I have to pay for the next upgrade. After seeing all of the BerryProduct love, it's nice to see that you guys are not in their pocket and aren't afraid to show off a free competitor of theirs.

Sultan Al Sooz Jan 5, 2012 at 10:38 am

Nice,

Thanks everyone.

Im updating my app tomorrow, hope you will all enjoy the new popup and backlight control features :)

im also renaming my app, it will be "Advance OS and LED" instead of "Advanced Calls and LED Control", just so everyone knows its the same 100% free app ;)

Thanks for mentioning my app Kerri.

the brother Jan 5, 2012 at 10:46 am

Thanks Sultan! Great work...you must have spent a lot of time studying the OS capabilities? Are you a genius or what?

Also, can you guarantee us that this app will not cause adverse battery life on BB7 devices?

Thanks again!

The Brother (Canada)

Sultan Al Sooz Jan 5, 2012 at 11:04 am

Sure, its commonsense, if you keep the LED light ON for hours without noticing or on heavy disco use, it will affect your battery, cause of the energy required to light the LED bulb, that is why the original LED light blinks dark red every 4 seconds, and that is also why i have the night led feature ;)

Hope that clears the confusion.

PostMortem Jan 5, 2012 at 12:14 pm

Sultan (nice name by the way),

I just wanted to stop by and say; THANK YOU! I absolutely LOVE the options that you gave me. I also like your default settings for it, not many apps start working the moment you install it.

When I fisrt installed it (some time ago), I noticed it right away and was impressed right from the start. Naturally, I have since customized everything to work how I would like it.

Glad to hear that you're working on updates for it.

Keep up the fantastic work!

mrpinkbullets Jan 5, 2012 at 2:16 pm

This is hands-down THE ultimate LED control app for BB at any price. It's a bit tedious to get set up at first (you'll have fun experimenting with all the different fading and blinking patterns) but after that's done (THANK YOU Mr. Al Sooz for adding the backup settings feature!) everything works so beautifully, you'll wonder how BeBuzz and ColorID can possibly justify charging even a penny for apps that pale in comparison to this product's feature set and customizability.

Mr. Al Sooz, just one minor gripe: The SMS LED notification is occasionally buggy on my 9900. Usually works fine, but every once in a while instead of showing my custom LED colors it will flash just the standard BB red light. All my other notifications work perfectly. Any hints or explanation?

jordan559 Jan 5, 2012 at 2:34 pm

If it flashes red every so often on its own its because its conflicting with the native LED setting. U need to make sure in the sound profiles in the options of the phone tht the LED idicators are set to off. Its needs to be turned off for the emails as well. This will stop it frm flashing red on its own.

jadb56 Jan 5, 2012 at 2:58 pm

I downloaded your app on my 9800 but I can't use it. Can I have your email, Sultan, so I can email you my problem? I really want to be using it today. Thanks!

dzorbas Jan 5, 2012 at 10:44 am

I've been using this for a few weeks because I didn't want to pay for BeBuzz. This utility is awesome and you can't beat the price. Tons of flexibility and lots of options. It took a few minutes to figure out the LED colour combinations and how to set them but now I spend more time figuring out which colours I want to use and what pattern I want them to flash in. I mentioned this to a few other friends and they've downloaded the app as well and are really happy with it.

And did I mention you can't be the price?!

JPMorgan_ Jan 5, 2012 at 10:57 am

I have BeBuzz but this looks good too

Frosty_Power Jan 5, 2012 at 11:06 am

My favorite app on my 9900. I highly recommend this. Works great!!!

shebmiller Jan 5, 2012 at 11:12 am

Hmm'... I just got this.. Lots of cool customization with the LED mixes and all, but the UI isn't the best. And I can't customize single BBM contacts or at least I don't know how... I think it's a great app and you can't beat the Free'ness of it.

pNoyz3Ro Jan 5, 2012 at 11:21 am

Been using this for over a month, & love It!
Never tried BeBuzz cause I never had a reason to. This app is free & has almost every option!

tr1ad Jan 5, 2012 at 11:35 am

this rocks

ndsouza Jan 5, 2012 at 11:37 am

I liked the idea of the touch vibrate but I cannot get it to work on my Torch 9860. I've done a reboot and reinstall. Does anyone have any ideas or have you got it to work?

shebmiller Jan 5, 2012 at 11:42 am

Okay I'm annoyed.. why are my LED notifications still flashing after I've verified the specific notification. Is there not a way to bypass going to my menu and turning off the LED?

shebmiller Jan 5, 2012 at 2:07 pm

NVM.... It was my Bluetooth indicator for my paired PlayBook... Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb...

blackmoe Jan 5, 2012 at 11:52 am

Will any future version support a custom LED for a single bbm contact? For me that would be an awesome feature as I have one contact (my school age daughter) that I want to separate from the stuff I can ignore while at work.

siddo_d Jan 5, 2012 at 11:53 am

I LOVE THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HAD IT WHEN IT WAS RELEASED

djdnz Jan 5, 2012 at 12:19 pm

Awesome app!! Thanks Sultan for developing it :)

Any chance you would be able to control the LED's from the bluetooth? I hate having my playbook bridge constantly giving me a bluetooth light so I just turned it off, but on the other hand I do like having it to know if I'm still connected to my headset and my visor mount in the car.

Thanks again, and thanks CB for mentioning this app :)

JosephN Jan 5, 2012 at 12:38 pm

He is going to have pop up notifications soon. I gave him the idea of the color slider, and he really listens to complaints about the app. He is a pretty cool guy.

shebmiller Jan 5, 2012 at 2:08 pm

Always a Plus!!

Ronzdaname Jan 5, 2012 at 2:37 pm

I agree, always a plus. I really liked that feature on BeBuzz. I'm using this app now, and it seems to be working pretty nice.

mssca Jan 5, 2012 at 1:52 pm

I am sooo glad that I didn't buy BeBuzz!

AcADIeN Jan 5, 2012 at 2:27 pm

if a lot more developper could release free app, that would push the price down (remember there wasn't any free battery app monitor ? as soon as I release mine free now there is plenty of battery app for free. We just need a quicklaunch free alternative now ;p (my next project)

Sultan Al Sooz Jan 5, 2012 at 3:43 pm

Funny you mention a quicklaunch app, it will be my next feature to add after popups ;)

I would love to answer everyone's questions, therefore please use the email provided in my app, in the "About" menu.

lets keep this thread for opinions :)

final thoughts, bbm individual contacts is not magic and it is doable, its just whether people would like to enable "save chat history" option or not. Yes i will add it later, why not ;)

Please use my email for any other questions you would like to ask :)

KrepE Jan 5, 2012 at 11:44 pm

Please Add the individual bbm contacts that would make your app perfect to my eyes

tightlybound Jan 5, 2012 at 3:17 pm

Love it! Thanks for turning me on to this.

peteygrizz Jan 5, 2012 at 3:48 pm

DAMMIT! I just paid for BeBuzz two days ago. I am always leery of free apps but I wish I had tried this one first.

erin_elizabeth Jan 5, 2012 at 6:41 pm

I've been using this app for a couple months now and I've recommended it to all my BB using friends. Its by far the best and what I love the most is that there are some awesome updates coming soon. Bebuzz seems boring compared to this app!! Its a MUST HAVE!

edwintg Jan 5, 2012 at 7:27 pm

Thanks Sultan! :)

cavingjan Jan 5, 2012 at 7:38 pm

Can LED colors be set per profile or is it all or nothing?

chriskaboo Jan 5, 2012 at 11:09 pm

I love this app
And its free
Would have never known it existed
Thanks crackberry

misskalunji Jan 6, 2012 at 1:08 am

I'm going to try it out.

buwee Jan 6, 2012 at 4:44 am

The only problem I found with it so far is that if an email or a call or anything else for that matter comes in the led works fine but if something else comes in afterwards the 1st notification no longer flashes so you wouldn't know by just looking at the phone if more than 1 notification came in. BeBuzz would flash purple for email then green for text then blue for BBM (On my phone) but this app would only flash blue if the same notifications came in. In other words the purple and the green would be cancelled so a quick glance at the phone would tell me the only thing waiting is BBM but would leave no indication that there were emails and text messages prior to the BBM

il309 Jan 6, 2012 at 10:09 am

I've been using this for a month or so and absolutely love it. This program is loaded with features! So many features in fact that I don't use half of them. This program is so powerful and even though I hesitate to pay for apps, this one could easily make some money and I would pay after getting hooked with a free trial. No more boring blinking red light for everything. Thank you for keeping it free!

b-dubya Jan 9, 2012 at 4:46 pm

Since downloading this, has anyone else noticed that their incoming messages (email/text) are now being verbally read as they come in? I didn't notice it until after I had downloaded this app...any thoughts?

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