Peggy is an Android app that wants to be the digital secretary in your pocket, taking care of your missed calls and messages when you’re too busy, or unable to get to the phone. Featuring a simple, and easy-to-use interface, Peggy can be set up to automatically message people when you’re doing something like cycling, running or behind the wheel while driving. Peggy figures out that you’re currently indisposed by using Android APIs to detect motion indicative of these activities. With Peggy, you control what messages are sent and when, you control your data as it’s stored on your device, and there’s no need for an active internet connection. Peggy then collects all of the missed calls and messages in a sort of Google Now-style stack of cards to let you know who called and what Peggy sent back to them. Let’s take a closer look at Peggy, shall we?
Getting started was nice and easy, all you need to do is download Peggy from the Play Store – for free – and then you’ll be introduced to what the app can do.
There’s also some well-written in-depth explanations into exactly what Peggy can do as well. Documentation like this isn’t common these days, so I was happy to see this here.
Peggy will then ask for some direction on what it is you want her to do. Peggy can currently detect and act upon three different activities: Biking, Driving and Running. For me, someone who doesn’t drive, I can just choose Biking and Running:
In upcoming versions, users will be able to create their own custom profiles like “working out” as well as “at the gym” which will work on a predefined GPS geofence, and when you arrive at the gym, Peggy will take over from you.
There’s the option to apply this to all contacts (which I find works best) or to a select few contacts, you can search or simple check the box next to their names to included them in the selection.
With these contacts selected, Peggy will only send out messages to these people when they ring. Speaking of messages, you can quickly and easily set your own messages to be sent out as I have:
This is great, because not only will my contacts thing it’s me sending them a text, but Peggy takes care of the hard work for me. I am a little disheartened that Peggy doesn’t take care of walking for me, but then again I suppose I could just walk quicker on my afternoon jaunts. Once you have everything set up and go out for a bike ride for example, and then finish, you’ll see that Peggy has been busy:
In this example, Peggy has sent an SMS to John while driving, and didn’t take any action when Alice called, as Peggy wasn’t told to deal with calls from Alice. This is useful for a lot of reasons, but mostly because of how upfront and straightforward the whole process is. As of writing, Peggy doesn’t currently auto hang-up the call, but this is coming in later versions.
I know a lot of people that go for a run during their workday or at the very end of their workday, and I myself go for a brisk mile or two walk every afternoon as well. So, being able to go on that bit of exercise to clear your head and get out of the office without worrying about incoming calls is invaluable. It’s annoying when in the middle of a run or a drive to another meeting somebody rings you. Thankfully, Peggy just gets to work and deals with it for you, with little fuss, and all the correspondence, the time they rang and what SMS Peggy sent out is available for you to look over nice and neatly. It’s all done without you needing to actually know anything, and once you’ve set it up once, you don’t have to worry about anything else, it’s a breath of fresh of air to know that you can ignore calls and not come across as rude or anything like that.
Peggy is an app that’s actively in development, and more features are constantly being thought of and worked on, like the ability to create custom activities and more. The developer is a good listener and he’s always available at Peggy’s Twitter and Facebook pages.
Ratings
- Speed (4/5) – So simple, so straightforward and quick; Peggy is easy to get to grips with.
- Theme (4/5) – The app itself looks fairly decent, it’s not the flashiest out there, but it’s nice and easy to navigate and it presents all the info you need it to.
- Features (4/5) – Apps like these aren’t new, but Peggy just gets on with it without any hassle. It’s simple, and refreshing to just set something like this up and be done with it.
- Overall (4/5) – For those who spend a lot of time in the car, or like to get out of the office or even on the weekends to exercise, Peggy can save you from coming across as rude, and you might just get a little credit for being more active than your callers are.
Pros
- Super-easy to get to grips with, everything is explained and the settings are straightforward to apply.
- Automatically figures out when you’re moving, be it on a bike or on a run, or even in the car.
- Tells you when people called you, what SMS was sent to them and gives you a neat call back button.
- Everything can be done inside of Peggy, there’s no need for another app to use this.
Cons
- Overall look and feel might come across as a little basic to some.
- While not necessary for everyone, email support would be nice for longer drives.
All-in-all, Peggy is a quality Android app that doesn’t really do all that much, it just does what it does well. Apps like these aren’t new, but apps like these that are as easy to use as Peggy is are difficult to come across. Anybody can use Peggy and it’s great to see how well the app runs on even lower-end hardware and older devices. An easy recommendation, this is a nifty Android app.