Sleep as Android
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Alarm settings

1. What it does

Alarm settings help you make your wakeup alarm a refreshing and pleasant experience.

Most of all:

We make sure even sleepyheads wake up on time with our CAPTCHA feature.

2. Where to find it

Alarms can be setup in two places. Each alarm has its own alarm-specific settings. Newly created alarms are by default based on Settings → Alarms.

Alarm-specific settings

Alarm-specific settings change behaviour of a particular alarm; those changes won’t affect other alarms or default settings.

Default settings in Settings → Alarms

Alarm default settings allow you to modify basic behaviour for all your alarms. Default settings are also applied to all new alarms.

3. Options

Ringtone

See Ringtone.
Gentle volume increase

Gentle volume makes sure to wake you with minimum volume required for a more pleasant wake up. Alarm starts at minimum volume and will gradually increase to maximum.

  • Disabled - Alarm rings at system’s alarm stream volume (or media stream when using streaming services or changing the Alarm output settings). For more details see the Ringtone section.

  • 30 seconds - a brief period of increased sound followed by sound at current system’s volume.

  • 1-24 minutes - Sets how long it takes to reach the max volume; the longer the period, the slower the volume increases and the longer it takes to reach the max.
Vibrate

Enables phone vibrations (do not confuse with vibrations on wearable).

  • Disabled - No vibrations on phone at all.

  • From start - Vibrations start at alarm time.

  • After 30 seconds - Vibrations start after 30 seconds.

  • After 1-24 minutes - Vibrations start after set time.
Delayed alarm sound start

You may want to first give chance to Smartlight or vibrations to wake you up, before the alarm starts sounding.

  • Disabled - Sound starts at alarm time.

  • 30 seconds - 24 minutes - Sounds starts after set time.
Play alarm in silent profile

Alarm sound will override phone’s silent mode.
Alarm Screen
Sunrise

Enable to use your phone’s screen as a smartlight for the sunrise alarm.
Always fullscreen alarm

Alarm will never show up as a heads-up notification. This includes Android 10 where this feature requires the Draw over other apps permission.
No screen orientation changes

Prevents changes of screen orientation while the alarm rings (prevents accidental snoozes or dismiss during orientation changes).
Snooze / Dismiss
Snooze

See Snooze.
Flip to snooze

Lets you snooze an alarm by flipping the phone (from screen to back and other way around).
Volume or camera button effect

Allows to snooze or dismiss the alarm with volume buttons.
Long press

Long press on dismiss button is necessary to dismiss the alarm (prevents accidentally dismissed alarms).
Backup alarm
Backup alarm

See Backup alarm.
Alarm timeout

See Backup alarm.
Dangerous options
Alarm output

Can force the alarm sound output to media stream, so the alarm is audible only in your headphones (not through the device speaker).

Note Please, test it before using it, on some devices the alarm output may be silenced due to DND or other settings.
Alarm-specific settings

All default options are also available as alarm-specific options.

There are also few options that are only available in alarm-specific settings:

Repeat

Set a schedule for repeating alarm, you can choose also Even / odd bi-weekly patterns.
Silent alarm (in Ringtone)

Sets an alarm without sound.
Bedtime notification

Bedtime notification for this alarm, if you need a different bedtime notification for specific alarm (see Bedtime notification)).
Sleep duration goal

A special option for polyphasic sleeping (see here for more details).
Terminate tracking

Enabled by default. Normally dismissing an alarm will end current sleep tracking. Disable this to continue tracking even after you dismiss the alarm.
Delete after ringing

Deletes this alarm completely after dismiss (useful for one-time alarms).

4. Guide

Create alarm only as vibrations on watch (no sound)

  1. Set the alarm silent (Alarm-specific settings → Ringtone → Silent) or set the delay on sound (Settings → Alarms → Sound delay).

  2. Enable wearable vibrations (Settings → Wearables → Vibrate).

    Note We highly recommend to set a sound delay instead of setting the alarm silent, especially when backup alarm is silent too.
Create silent alarm

  1. Set the alarm silent (Alarm-specific settings → Ringtone → Silent).

  2. This option is available only in Alarm-specific settings, not in Settings → Alarms. This is a safety measure to prevent unintentional silent alarms.

    Note We highly recommend to set a sound delay instead of setting the alarm silent, especially when backup alarm is silent too.
Postpone next alarm

  1. Open alarm → Postpone next alarm.

  2. Use the sliding bar or the drop down menu list for postponing alarm.

  3. Confirm the alarm time change.

    Note Works only for repeating alarms.
Skip next alarm

  1. Open an alarm → Skip next, confirm the change.

  2. Or long press on the alarm on alarm board → Skip next.

    Note Works only for repeated alarms.
    Note Skip next through long press can be used repeatedly, so that you can skip several days in advance.
Dismiss alarm before alarm time

  1. Open before alarm notification (appears one hour before alarm) from the notification bar on your phone.

  2. Dismiss from the notification.

    Note Won’t deactivate the alarm completely, so it has no effect on next alarms.
Use my own sound as alarm

  1. Open Ringtone selection: Settings → Alarm default settings → Ringtone or Alarm-specific settings → Ringtone.

  2. Tap on folder ic folder icon in right upper corner.

  3. Choose a sound file saved on your phone.

    Note In the file picker you may first need to enable showing of external storage to be able to see your sound there.
Name an alarm

  1. Open an existing alarm details screen or create new alarm dialogue.

  2. Name your alarm in the Label field in upper right corner. You will see this name on the alarm dialog in the morning, so you can use it for TODOs or motivation texts and they will be written into your sleep graph description.
Create odd / even schedule

  1. Open Alarm-specific settings.

  2. Choose Repeat dialogue (Repeat:Never or days of week listed below alarm time).

  3. Choose Weekly / Even / Odd pattern from the drop down menu list.

FAQ

Alarm rings before set alarm time

  • Smart alarm is enabled (see Smart wake up), so the app is waking you within the smart period, when light sleep is estimated.

  • If that is not what you expect, disable smart period in Settings → Sleep tracking → Smart period.

  • You can also try different smart period: shortest period is 5 minutes, longest is 2 hours.

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Alarm sound is too quiet

Gentle volume increase is enabled or set for too long period

  • Try shorter period in Settings → Alarms → Gentle volume increase, the shortest period is 1 minutes - the volume goes from zero to full volume during one minute.

Your ringtone volume might be too too low

  • Check the volume of the ringtone in Settings → Alarms → Ringtone or in the settings of each individual alarm in per-alarm settings.

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Alarms do not play selected ringtone

Loading of the selected file may have failed

  1. Make sure that you have selected the correct ringtone - check per-alarm settings and Alarm default settings.

  2. Check if the file has not been moved or deleted and that SD card is available at the time of the alarm.

  3. Check that the app has storage permission to access that file.

Online service (Spotify, Google Music, online radio) may not have responded

When the service is not responding for too long, the app uses a build-in ringtone.
When alarm starts and your phone is locked we are unable to change the playlist or album in your Spotify app. In this case the app will play simply where you last left it.

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Alarms do not ring

  • Make sure no system restrictions are applied to Sleep as Android: Check our guide here.

  • If the guide won’t help, send us your log using Left ☰ menu → ic help q Support →ic bug Report a bug.

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Alarms go off exactly at the alarm time

  1. Increase the sensitivity of Smart wakeup in Settings > Sleep tracking > Movement intensity.

  2. If you feel the smart alarm is not working at all, please send us the application log by using Left ☰ menu → ic help q Support →ic bug Report a bug.

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Alarms go off exactly at the beginning of smart period

  1. Lower the sensitivity of Smart wakeup in Settings → Sleep tracking → Movement intensity.

  2. If you feel the smart alarm is not working at all, please send us the application log by using Left ☰ menu → ic help q Support →ic bug Report a bug.

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Alarms go off one hour late (59 minutes)

  • Your smart period is set to Power nap (see power nap)

  • When this option is selected as your smart wake up method, the warning screen with an explanation needs to be confirmed.

    1. Change the smart wake up period in Settings → Sleep tracking → Smart wake up → Smart period or in Settings → Sleep tracking → Smart wake up → Nap smart period

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Alarms play at max volume

  • Most probably your Backup alarm went off after regular alarm did not wake you up. Backup alarm is triggered when there is no interaction (no snooze, no dismiss) for more than 20 minutes.

  • Make sure you are using volume strong enough in Settings → Alarms → Ringtone, or enable Gentle Volume increase in Settings → Alarms → Gentle volume increase

  • Try vibrations (Settings → Alarms → Vibrate).

Send us your log using Left ☰ menu → ic help q Support →ic bug Report a bug.

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Calendar skipped my alarm

If you are using the Skip alarm for holiday feature, SaA might offer to skip your next alarm even if there is no holiday in your country tomorrow. This is because we use Google public holiday calendar, which is sometimes wrong.

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Captcha did not work at all

  1. Send us the application log by using Left ☰ menu → ic help q Support →ic bug Report a bug right after you encounter any troubles with the Captcha task. Please, add a short description, what exactly is happening.

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Google Play Music

Warning Online Google Play Music is not supported. We only support playlists of locally available music created by Google Play Music.

Sleep will only see playlists:

  • that are created from local music

Sleep will NOT see playlists:

  • that are created in Play Music web app (https://play.google.com/music/) and downloaded via Play Music

  • that are created from music that was downloaded via Play Music app (using the download button inside Play Music)

The reason is that we actually do not support Google Play Music at all. We support Android Playlist API which is supported by Play Music and other media player apps – they can register a list of songs as a playlist (locally on the phone), and then we see this playlist.
However Play Music in fact has another internal way of creating playlists, which is somehow different and not transparent to us, and we are unable to read these playlists.​
That’s why when selecting the playlist in Sleep as Android, sometimes you hear the playlist and sometimes not.

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How to disable alarm before alarm time

You can disable an alarm before the alarm time, if you wake up naturally before the alarm rings.

  1. From notification - 1 hour before alarm time, the "Before alarm notification" appears in your notification bar; expand the notification and choose "Dismiss".

  2. From the tracking graph - if you terminate the tracking, you can dismiss the alarm directly form the resulting graph.

  3. From main screen - long press on the alarm card, and select "Skip next".

Note Any of these options won’t have any influence on future alarms - if you have repeating alarm, the alarm will ring at the next scheduled time.
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I don't see alarm screen with buttons when the alarm is going off

Unfortunately, Google made it impossible to start screens from background on Android 10. This is why we can no longer show the alarm screen with the big buttons under usual settings. On Android 10, the app can just show notifications from background if screen is on when alarm starts. If screen is locked we usually are able to show the full screen alarm.

To get full screen alarms back:
. Enable the option Always fullscreen alarm in Settings → Alarms → Always fullscreen alarm (might be hidden under Advanced in Snooze/Dismiss section).

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I had to solve Captcha (not at home) when I was not at home

  • Not at home feature only works when we see your location is significantly different from the home (±5km at least) as we do not collect fine location for privacy reasons.

Send us the application log by using Left ☰ menu → ic help q Support →ic bug Report a bug.

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Lockscreen does not unlock on alarm

Generally all new Android versions

Google made it impossible to start screens from the background on newer Android versions. This is why we can no longer show the alarm screen with the big buttons under usual settings. The app can just show notifications from the background if the screen is on when the alarm starts. If the screen is locked we usually are able to show the full-screen alarm.

  1. Go to Settings → Alarms → Always fullscreen alarm (might be hidden under Advanced in Snooze/Dismiss section), and enable this option.

  2. It will take you to the system settings, where you need to grant the Draw over other apps permission.

XiaoMi / MIUI

On Xiaomi/MIUI, you need to grant special permission to Sleep as Android so that it may unlock your screen during alarm.

  1. Go to System Settings → Permissions → Advanced Permissions → select Sleep app and give it permission to access Lockscreen.

Note If you are using a Captcha task from the Captcha add-on, please, make sure the permission is granted to the add-on as well.
Samsung

When alarm goes off, it does not disable the lockscreen and you have to manually unlock the device to tap snooze or dismiss.

You may have Sleep as Android enabled under Border lights (Edge Lightning on some versions). This causes the alarm popup to not display over the lockscreen, as the notification is being shown as a light around the edge of the screen.

  1. Disable Border lights for Sleep as Android in your device’s settings.

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My selected Spotify playlist / album is not played on alarm (or different playlist, different album)

  • Unfortunately our Spotify integration is all reverse engineered and thus may stop working any time Spotify updates their app.

  • When alarm starts and your phone is locked we are unable to change the playlist or album in your Spotify app. In this case the app will play simply where you last left it. We have not found a fix for this yet.

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Only the first created alarm goes off

  • When multiple alarms are created close together, they might overlap each other.

  • If you created more alarms to make sure you are waken up, please note, that the app has a Backup alarm feature to make sure you are waken up.

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Quick guide to start with Sleep as Android

At first Sleep as Android may look complex with all its options, but in fact it is fairly easy to get started improving your sleep and wake up.
You can delve deep into all the amazing options Sleep as Android provides later on. But to get started just rely on our carefully selected defaults.

  1. Use the top right plus icon to set up your Alarm time (e.g. 8:00). Tap the desired time directly on the clock - hours first, minutes second.

    create alarm 1
    Figure 1. Tap on the (+) icon
    create alarm 2
    Figure 2. Tap on the desired time - hours first
    create alarm 3
    Figure 3. Tap on the desired time - minutes second

  2. Confirm the selected time with SET button, it will show you the new alarm settings. Confirm the alarm with DONE.

    create alarm 4
    Figure 4. Confirm the time with SET button.
    create alarm 5
    Figure 5. Now you see the new alarm’s settings.
    create alarm 6
    Figure 6. Confirm with DONE

  3. Smart wake up makes sure to find the best time for your wake up between 7:30 – 8:00 based on your sleep cycle.

  4. You can now see the alarm scheduled on the main screen.

  5. Tap the moon and Sleep tracking starts, we use your phone’s sensor to find out what sleep phase you are in (see How it works).

    create alarm 9
    Note We recommend turning on airplane mode during sleep tracking

  6. Now just place the phone on the mattress near your body (see Setup sleep tracking) so it is able to sense your movement and wake you in the right sleep phase to bring your wake up experience to a new level

  7. After dismissing the alarm in the morning you will see your sleep phases, deep sleep % and more..

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Silent alarm goes off with a sound

Battery optimization was enabled

  • When battery optimization is enabled, vibrations do not work, so the app is loading the built-in ringtone to ensure your wake up.

    1. Check Settings → Sleep tracking → Battery optimized.

    2. Do not enable Save battery option from the Tracking screen → Stop and save pull up menu → Save battery.

Phone was rebooted

  • When the phone screen is locked after a reboot, the app cannot load any files.

  • The phone rings with the build-in ringtone and vibrates.

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