Push Notification or Polling Service in an Android app

Question

I am developing an Android app that allows sports team coaches to update the attendance for events like training/matches. A feature I would like to add would be to display a notification on the device to remind them that they need to update the attendance for the event when it has started.

I have been reading online a bit and it seems that push is the preferred method for data that is changing. But because i know the start times of the events, would it be better to create a background service using something like the following?

https://stackoverflow.com/a/9933130/2039505

I basically want the user to receive a vibrate notification which when they click on it, it will open the events attendance screen. Hopefully someone will have some insight into which option is best!

Answer 1

Since all you need is a notification on a timer, the AlarmManager would be the best way to go.

If you used Push Notifications(GCM), that would require server side code and a method to store the device id to send the notification to.

Overkill if you ask me.

Here are links to the official documentation and example code:

Official documentation

Vogella's example on services