Alarm settings
1. What it does
Alarm settings help you make your wakeup alarm a refreshing and pleasant experience.
Most of all:
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Smart wake up wakes you at the right sleep phase
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Gentle volume increase finds the minimal sound to wake you
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Smartlight natural sunrise wake up
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and many more.
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
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Alarm-specific settings change behaviour of a particular alarm; those changes won’t affect other alarms or default settings.
- Default settings in Settings → Alarms
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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.
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| Vibrate |
Enables phone vibrations (do not confuse with vibrations on wearable).
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| Delayed alarm sound start |
You may want to first give chance to Smartlight or vibrations to wake you up, before the alarm starts sounding.
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| Play alarm in silent profile |
Alarm sound will override phone’s silent mode. |
| Sunrise |
Enables using 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 |
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 |
See Backup alarm. |
| Alarm timeout |
See Backup alarm. |
| 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).
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All default options are also available as alarm-specific options.
There are also few options that are only available in alarm-specific settings:
| Time |
Chooses the alarm time. |
| Day |
The first occurrence of the alarm, tapping on this option opens date picker. |
| Repeat |
Chooses the pattern of the repetition:
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| Next alarm |
A tool for one time change of the alarm time - for advancing or postponing the alarm one time.
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| Skip next |
skips the next occurrence of the alarm, you can choose only one skip, or choose a date from the time picker with Skip more days. |
| 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
4.1. Create an alarm only as vibrations on watch (no sound)
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Set the alarm silent (Alarm-specific settings → Ringtone → Silent) or set the delay on sound (Settings → Alarms → Sound delay).
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Enable wearable vibrations (Settings → Wearables → Vibrate).
We highly recommend to set a sound delay instead of setting the alarm silent, especially when backup alarm is silent too.
4.2. Create silent alarm
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Set the alarm silent (Alarm-specific settings → Ringtone → Silent).
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This option is available only in Alarm-specific settings, not in Settings → Alarms. This is a safety measure to prevent unintentional silent alarms.
We highly recommend to set a sound delay instead of setting the alarm silent, especially when backup alarm is silent too.
4.3. Postpone next alarm
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Open alarm → Postpone next alarm.
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Use the sliding bar or the drop down menu list for postponing alarm.
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Confirm the alarm time change.
Works only for repeating alarms.
4.4. Skip next alarm
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Open an alarm → Skip next, confirm the change.
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Or long press on the alarm on alarm board → Skip next.
Works only for repeated alarms.
Skip next through long press can be used repeatedly, so that you can skip several days in advance.
4.5. Dismiss alarm before alarm time
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Open before alarm notification (appears one hour before alarm) from the notification bar on your phone. On newer phones, you need to expand the notification with the expanding arrow.
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Dismiss from the notification.
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Tap the dismiss button on the finished graph.
Won’t deactivate the alarm completely, so it has no effect on next alarms.
4.6. Use my own sound as alarm
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Open Ringtone selection: Settings → Alarm default settings → Ringtone or Alarm-specific settings → Ringtone.
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Tap on folder
icon in right upper corner. -
Choose a sound file saved on your phone.
In the file picker you may first need to enable showing of external storage to be able to see your sound there.
4.7. Name an alarm
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Open an existing alarm details screen or create new alarm dialogue.
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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.
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Alarm label shows on the list of alarms and as a tag on the graph. |
4.8. Create odd / even schedule
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Open Alarm-specific settings.
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Choose Repeat dialogue (Repeat:Never or days of week listed below alarm time).
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Choose Weekly / Even / Odd pattern from the drop down menu list.
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The app will show you the date of the next scheduled alarm and also will label the alarm scheduled for the next week
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4.9. Create non-weekly schedule
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Open Alarm-specific settings.
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Choose Repeat dialogue (Repeat:Never or days of week listed below alarm time).
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Choose the pattern of the repetition - every 2nd - every 6th day.
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The app will show you the date of the next scheduled alarm bellow the alarm time, and on the alarm card.
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FAQ
Alarm rings before set alarm time
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Smart alarm is enabled (see Smart wake up), so the app is waking you within the smart period, when light sleep is estimated.
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If that is not what you expect, disable smart period in Settings → Sleep tracking → Smart period.
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You can also try different smart period: shortest period is 5 minutes, longest is 2 hours.
Alarm sound is too quiet
- Gentle volume increase is enabled or set for too long period
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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.
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- Your ringtone volume might be too too low
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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
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Make sure that you have selected the correct ringtone - check per-alarm settings and Alarm default settings.
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Check if the file has not been moved or deleted and that SD card is available at the time of the alarm.
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Check that the app has storage permission to access that file.
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- Online service (Spotify, Google Music, online radio) may not have responded
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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.
Alarms do not ring
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Make sure no system restrictions are applied to Sleep as Android: Check our guide here.
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If the guide won’t help, send us your log using Left ☰ menu →
Support →
Report a bug.
Alarms go off exactly at the alarm time
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Increase the sensitivity of Smart wakeup in Settings > Sleep tracking > Movement intensity.
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If you feel the smart alarm is not working at all, please send us the application log by using Left ☰ menu →
Support → Report a bug.
Alarms go off exactly at the beginning of smart period
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Lower the sensitivity of Smart wakeup in Settings → Sleep tracking → Movement intensity.
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If you feel the smart alarm is not working at all, please send us the application log by using Left ☰ menu →
Support → Report a bug.
Alarms go off one hour late (59 minutes)
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Your smart period is set to Power nap (see power nap)
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When this option is selected as your smart wake up method, the warning screen with an explanation needs to be confirmed.
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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
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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.
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Make sure you are using volume strong enough in Settings → Alarms → Ringtone, or enable Gentle Volume increase in Settings → Alarms → Gentle volume increase
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Try vibrations (Settings → Alarms → Vibrate).
Send us your log using Left ☰ menu → Support → Report a bug.
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.
Captcha did not work at all
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Send us the application log by using Left ☰ menu →
Support → Report a bug right after you encounter any troubles with the Captcha task. Please, add a short description, what exactly is happening.
Google Play Music
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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:
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that are created from local music
Sleep will NOT see playlists:
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that are created in Play Music web app (https://play.google.com/music/) and downloaded via Play Music
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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.
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.
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From notification - 1 hour before alarm time, the "Before alarm notification" appears in your notification bar; expand the notification and choose "Dismiss".
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From the tracking graph - if you terminate the tracking, you can dismiss the alarm directly form the resulting graph.
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From main screen - long press on the alarm card, and select "Skip next".
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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. |
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).
I had to solve Captcha (not at home) when I was not at home
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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 → Support → Report a bug.
Lockscreen does not unlock on alarm
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.
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Go to Settings → Alarms → Always fullscreen alarm (might be hidden under Advanced in Snooze/Dismiss section), and enable this option.
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It will take you to the system settings, where you need to grant the Draw over other apps permission.
On Xiaomi/MIUI, you need to grant special permission to Sleep as Android so that it may unlock your screen during alarm.
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Go to System Settings → Permissions → Advanced Permissions → select Sleep app and give it permission to access Lockscreen.
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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. |
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.
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Disable Border lights for Sleep as Android in your device’s settings.
My selected Spotify playlist / album is not played on alarm (or different playlist, different album)
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Unfortunately our Spotify integration is all reverse engineered and thus may stop working any time Spotify updates their app.
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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.
My watch vibrates only once
On Wear OS platform and ONE UI Watch (Galaxy Watch 4 + 5), we use gentle vibrations for even more natural wake up.
It starts with a single vibe, another in 30s, than again in 20s and so on. After few minutes the vibrations will be continuous.
If you are worried this won’t be enough, you can set a delayed start of alarm sound on the phone. And there is always the backup alarm.
Only the first created alarm goes off
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When multiple alarms are created close together, they might overlap each other.
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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.
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.
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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.
Figure 1. Tap on the (+) icon
Figure 2. Tap on the desired time - hours first
Figure 3. Tap on the desired time - minutes second -
Confirm the selected time with SET button, it will show you the new alarm settings. Confirm the alarm with DONE.
Figure 4. Confirm the time with SET button.
Figure 5. Now you see the new alarm’s settings.
Figure 6. Confirm with DONE -
Smart wake up makes sure to find the best time for your wake up between 7:30 – 8:00 based on your sleep cycle.
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You can now see the alarm scheduled on the main screen.
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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).
We recommend turning on airplane mode during sleep tracking -
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
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After dismissing the alarm in the morning you will see your sleep phases, deep sleep % and more..
Silent alarm goes off with a sound
- Battery optimization was enabled
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When battery optimization is enabled, vibrations do not work, so the app is loading the built-in ringtone to ensure your wake up.
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Check Settings → Sleep tracking → Battery optimized.
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Do not enable Save battery option from the Tracking screen → Stop and save pull up menu → Save battery.
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- Phone was rebooted
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When the phone screen is locked after a reboot, the app cannot load any files.
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The phone rings with the build-in ringtone and vibrates.
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