Alarmy - Loud alarm clock

As a chronic oversleeper and someone who has an endless list of alarms in my clock app just for waking up, I have tried numerous strategies. Getting enough sleep helps, sunlight too. I’ve tried setting different alarm tones so I don’t get used to it. Alas it still happens. I still sleep through class and often I don’t even feel like the one pressing stop. Like that’s unconscious me who has no regard for the consequences. Anyway this is all to say that this app forces the decision back into my hands. It’s not a cure all, but it wakes you up and stimulates your brain enough that it’s actually you. If I sleep in it’s because I choose to get back into bed after getting out and sobering up from sleep. You can make it as difficult as you want to incentivize you not to go back to sleep. Just make sure you don’t accidentally leave an alarm on after since they’re hard to turn off if it goes off in class, which is typically a pro but can be a con with user error. You can always resort to deleting it. My tips: if you resort to deleting it rather than waking up, disable deleting in parental controls on your phone to make that just as difficult. I like to use voice alarms because my mind doesn’t register that as an alarm noise. Also the picture mode can be a little finicky so I’d stick with QR codes personally unless you can guarantee lightning conditions and such.

I don’t typically struggle with oversleeping but I have a hard time with laying in bed so long that my kids miss the bus or I’m late to work. Using Alarmy’s body movement mission forces me to get out of bed to shut the alarm off. I also love that one of the movement mission options doing squats, which means that selecting that mission not only gets me out of bed but it’s also a baby step towards getting into better shape. Other things I love are the sleep analysis, wake up analysis, and sleep sound/white noise options. What I think could be done better is having more preset wake up music options (although this is slightly off set by the ability to record your own music or sync to Apple Music,) I don’t like having to leave the app running in the background in order for the alarm to sound, the steps body movement mission isn’t sensitive enough as I have to stomp and intentionally bounce while I walk for the app to count the steps, and lastly I wish there were other fitness choices in the movement missions so I could force myself to create a mini exercise routine that I have to complete before I can shut the alarm off. The app is also pretty pricey. While the app is a free download and includes a 7 day free trial, it’s $7 if you pay monthly or $59 a year. I’m able to afford that in my budget but many can’t and it’s a shame that those of us who most need apps like this to help get our lives together, likely due to to mental health struggles and/or neurodiversity, don’t have access to it because of financial barriers.

i’ve been using this app since high school after my apple alarm randomly stopped going off some mornings making me miss the bus. it was extremely helpful for those early mornings after staying up way too late to finish an overdue assignment…it has extra loud alarm options that get louder the longer you let them go off, and they’re so annoying that you’ll literally do anything (including getting up) to make it stop. it also has lots of different options for wake up missions, such as memory games and math problems you have to complete before you can shut off the alarm. overall it is an extremely reliable alarm app, as long as it is open in the background of your apps it will go off. however after the recent update the app has introduced morning messages after the alarm is turned off…it will pop up with something encouraging to start off your day. they started pretty normal, things like “you can do this” or “believe in yourself”, but i think they’re trying too hard to be creative because they have been almost creepy the last few mornings. a couple days ago it read “don’t push yourself too hard to be happy :)” and this morning it said “i’m going to miss you.” what’s going on? is alarmy closing their app? am i going somewhere? like idk is it just me or are these lovely good morning messages becoming rather ominous? needless to say they are very confusing at 5:30AM, but also somewhat entertaining because i never know what i’m gonna get.