Set do not disturb exceptions by schedule

[Matty72]

I have do not disturb active on my Android phone overnight until 6am with all notifications blocked. Between 6am and 8am, I would like to leave do not disturb on but allow phone calls. i.e. silence all notifications except for phone calls. Setting exceptions to do not disturb appears to apply to all schedules. There doesn't seem to be an ability to set exceptions only for selected schedules which I think is a poor design. Is there any other way to achieve this?

 

[Clementine_3]

You can set up another schedule that will kick in at 6 when the other one ends and have different options.

Settings/sound and vibrations/do not disturb/schedules/add more/time (name it whatever you) and choose days, start/end times, DND behavior etc.

 

[Matty72]

@Clementine_3 That's what I was trying to achieve i.e. create another schedule for 6am to 8am and change the exceptions for that schedule only to allow phone calls. However, I can't see how exceptions can be set only for a specific schedule. There is a section at the bottom of the "Do not disturb" screen in the settings with title "Allowed during Do not disturb" but it appears that those settings apply to all schedules. Is it possible to set a different set of exceptions for each schedule?

 

[Clementine_3]

Yes. How far did you get in creating a second set/selection? After you make a 'add new' block and pick the days and start/end times look all the way at the bottom and select 'do not disturb behavior ' then select custom settings and click the settings cog - everything is in there, pick what you want. I have a Pixel 7 but am assuming it's the same or similar - what phone and Android version are you using?

 

[Clementine_3]

Oops, forgot this one

 

[Matty72]

@Clementine_3 My "Do not disturb" settings look different. I am running Android v13. I have added a new "Morning" schedule to "Do not disturb". How can this schedule's behavior be changed without changing the behavior of the "Sleeping" schedule?

 

[Clementine_3]

So you don't have anything like the 'do not disturb behavior' in the morning rule you created (that's at the bottom for me) to get to where you can customize that rule? That's where you'd add phone calls. Then when both schedules are selected it should run them both as you've defined them. One allows nothing then the other only calls at the designated time.

Click your 'morning', what are all the things listed?

What phone are you using?

 

[Matty72]

This is what I see when I click on the "Morning" schedule. The only items available to edit are the days of the week and time range.

I am using a new Samsung S23 Ultra with latest Android OS installed. Can Android OS features and behavior be different with different phone types?

 

[Clementine_3]

Can Android OS features and behavior be different with different phone types?

They absolutely can and I'm pretty sure that's what's going on here. Samsung does their own thing.

Hopefully someone with a Samsung phone can help figure this out, sorry I couldn't help more :/

 

[Matty72]

@Clementine_3 Thanks that's good to know. I suspect this feature is not natively supported on my device save for some kind of hack using Tasker.

 

[Clementine_3]

Yeah, Tasker may be your next step. Silly Samsung

 

[Hadron]

They absolutely can and I'm pretty sure that's what's going on here. Samsung does their own thing.

Hopefully someone with a Samsung phone can help figure this out, sorry I couldn't help more :/

I do have a Samsung, and it's the same: the exceptions are defined for DND overall, no ability to set them differently for different schedules.
Was the same for Android 12 (didn't have 11 long enough to notice). So this is presumably a Samsung thing.

 

[Matty72]

@Hadron Thanks for clarifying. I think the Samsung design is very illogical. I would have thought one of the main purposes of having multiple schedules would be to allow them to behave differently.

 

[Hadron]

Yes, it's an obvious feature. Pixels have it, as @Clementine_3 has shown, and from glancing at a couple of other brands' online documentation I think they aren't alone. Samsung also lacks any feature to trigger DND on calendar events, which others have (though I have used Tasker for that since I got my first Android), so it does look like Samsung chose to dumb it down.

I don't know whether Bixby can be used to provide more sophisticated options, because I have that turned completely off (likewise Assistant - the data collection these things require is beyond my tolerance). But even if it can it would be very silly to remove options from the Settings and force you to use some proprietary thing like that to achieve the same result. Software has never been Samsung's strong point, but it's kinda weird that they take so much out of DND when their approach to phones is generally "stuff everything we can think of in even though most people won't use most of it".