Your IPhone’s Alarm Clock Doesn’t Have to Be so Annoying
We all know that an iPhone alarm clock is nothing more than a gentle wake up call. “Radar “, as the warning tone is called, is sharp, startling, and unforgiving. Unlike competitors,Samsung in particular , it seems that Apple designed its default alarm clock to punish all of us who are fast asleep. However, we don’t have to live like this – Apple has added hidden alarms to the iPhone that are softer.
If you create an alarm using Siri or set a standard one through the Clock app, the default alarm sound will be “Radar”. You can change the sound, of course, but the only options that show up are Apple Ringtones. If you’re not a big fan of By the Seaside, these options might not seem like much of an improvement (however, iOS remembers your last chosen alarm sound and will use it from now on, so you’ll be spared the radar if you change this one time).
If you use Apple Music or have your own music saved on your iPhone, you can use it as an alarm clock. However, in my experience, this method is the fastest way to learn to hate a song you used to love. If you don’t want to feel like you’re drowning every time this track is played, you might want to consider another option.
How to Use Your iPhone’s Hidden Alarms
Instead of creating an alarm in the traditional way, you should try using your iPhone’s Sleep Alarm. This feature helps you manage your sleep habits by setting a schedule for when you go to bed and when you wake up. It can be a useful tool for cutting down on phone use before bed and keeping track of the amount of sleep you get each night, but best of all, it has nine amazing alarms.
Unlike Radar or other iOS ringtones, these sounds are designed to gently wake you up in the morning. Soft piano, wind chimes, even bird chirps are an immediate improvement over the panic-inducing wind chimes we know and hate. Why Apple only includes these alarm sounds in the sleep feature is unclear.
To find this feature for the first time, open the Health app, tap the Overview tab, and select Sleep. From here, you should see the “Set up sleep” option. Follow the on-screen instructions, which should resemble the video below, to select your preferred options for your sleep schedule. Skip any advanced options you don’t want to configure, such as the Wind Down shortcuts; these settings can be changed later.
Once you have set up your schedule, you can change the alarm tone. On the Sleep tab, click Full Schedule & Options, then click Edit below the schedule. Alternatively, open the Clock app, then tap Edit next to Sleep | Alarm clock . Scroll down, then tap Sounds and Feels. Here you can view nine sleep related alarms. “Early Bird” is the default and probably my favorite, but try them all to see what works best for your morning wake up call.
Now, this feature might seem like a big commitment coming from a standard alarm clock. Do not worry; you don’t have to go all-in or stick to a schedule. On this sleep settings page, you can turn off the Wind Down and Wind Down shortcuts if you don’t want your iPhone to get you ready for bed; in Options, you can turn off the feature, which turns on Sleep Focus during Wind Down, Sleep Screen, which reduces lock screen notifications, Sleep Reminders, and more.
If you tweak these settings to your liking, using the Sleep feature in iOS might not be much different from using a regular recurring alarm. However, now you get the added benefit of much better alarms.
Try a third party option like Sleep Cycle.
Using your iPhone’s sleep feature isn’t the only way to improve your mornings. One popular third-party option is Sleep Cycle , an app that tracks your sleep habits throughout the night to gauge where you are in your sleep cycle. The point is to wake you up when you are at the lightest stage of your sleep cycle so that getting up is not so difficult.
Because it looks for the lightest moment in your sleep cycle, you don’t actually set one alarm time, but choose a 30-minute range to wake up. For example, if you choose to wake up at 6:30 AM, Sleep Cycle will set the range from 6:00 AM to 6:30 AM and set the alarm to sound when it thinks you are in the lightest part of your sleep cycle.
The free version of Sleep Cycle also comes with some of its own soothing alarms; if you pay for premium, you get access to 18 additional sounds. However, if the app is doing its job, you may find that waking up at a lighter point in your sleep cycle is more important than waking up to a soothing sound.