Most people I know claim they're totally fine with being suddenly woken up by LOUD NOISES. I say they're all filthy liars. It's just not how we were meant to be woken up. Our ability to wake up when we hear loud noises is something we evolved to make sure we don't get EATEN ALIVE by TIGERS - every time you wake up because of your alarm, it's because you subconsciously suspect that you're about to DIE.
Still, I've got to wake up at certain times of the morning just like everyone else, and I needed a way to make that happen without putting me on the defensive for the first three hours of every day. Luckily, I've got an iPhone, and have found a number of ways to do just that.
1. iWakeUp - iTunes link
Probably the simplest of the lot, iWakeUp is an app that, instead of jolting you to life, wakes you up gently by fading in a environmental recording of your choice (the above screen is from an old version, there are about eight different settings to choose from) over 15 minutes or so. The cleverest part is that, once those 15 minutes are up and the app reaches the specified wake-up time, it introduces a new noise over the environmental recording rather than simply shoving in a standard HOLY SHIT WAKE UP alarm. And the samples are specific to each setting - so the ocean theme introduces some seagulls, the rain theme brings in some gentle rolls of thunder, etc.
This was my favourite, until it went a bit weird and wouldn't let me use the rain theme any more, and I couldn't be arsed fixing it. 59p, though.
2. Ambiance - iTunes link
The alarm clock works in much the same way as iWakeUp, fading the sound in over a given period of time (you can actually set the fade-in duration yourself, this time), although disappointingly you can only pick from a bunch of standard alarms to go off when you reach the designated wake-up time.
I used Ambiance for months, until I stumbled across this bastard:
3. Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock - iTunes link
This app is basically brilliant, and waaaay cleverer than the other two. You set your alarm, right (the app has its own set of soft, gentle alarms designed not to fuck you up) and put the phone on your bed before you go to sleep. The app then watches the phone's accelerometer readings, and records your movement throughout the night - the idea being that, the more you're moving around, the lighter you're sleeping. And when it gets to half an hour prior to your desired wake-up time, it waits until you're in a light sleep-phase before sounding the alarm, thus waking you up without shocking you or violently ripping you from your unconscious haven.
Even better, it keeps a record of your recent sleeps, so you can actually see how well you're sleeping. Go for a late night of heavy drinking, and watch it completely flatline. Or, in my case, observe the spike in activity every time your dog decides to share your bed with you at 8am because your dad's just gone to work.
I was skeptical, but it really works - I haven't had a single shitty awakening since getting the app. Easily worth the 59p if you're curious.
Right, that's my second post for today. Bugger off. xxxx
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I can't wait to try this. You are very useful.
ReplyDeleteDuring uni, I used to leave my PC on overnight to let various TOTALLY LEGAL downloads come in during the night. My alarm in the morning would be a horrendously loud blast of System of a Down or Rammstein. When I left uni, i switched to the much gentler Machine Head and these days it's um... Brand New.
ReplyDeleteI'm not convinced that ambient sounds would wake me up! I used to beligerently sleep though the sound of my mum vacuuming outside my door.
I've been using sleep cycle, and it's brilliant - every morning it wakes me up with the vibration alone, and fascinatingly I can see when other people get up in the morning by looking at the graphs. SCIENCE.
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