Wake Up Smarter
For WatchOS 6 and higher, AutoSleep has a native Apple Watch Smart Alarm. You can now set an alarm directly in the Watch app or setup a weekly alarm schedule with the iPhone app. The smart alarm even works in flight mode! No iPhone connection required.
A smart alarm helps you wake up in lighter sleep. If you are woken in deep sleep you can often feel groggy for the whole day!
Setting Up The Smart Alarm
Smart Alarm is all setup from the AutoSleep Watch app.
There are two main options to understand when setting up the alarm, and you can even combine them. These options are:
Time Window (setting a time range to be woken)
Early Wake (using your sleep state to be woken earlier)
1 - Time Window
Firstly, you set a time window in which you would like to be woken. The default is within 15 minutes of your set alarm time. You can change to anything from 1 minute to 28 minutes prior to your final alarm.
Once that's in place you can choose your options.
Arousal - one strategy is to have your Apple Watch "tap", "tickle" or "nudge" your wrist every minute during your time window. Tap and Tap Tap are very gentle, Tickle is light, Nudge is a bit more intense. What this will do is take you out of deeper sleep. You may not even feel it at the time. Or just think "what was that?" and then go back to sleep. This however, will take you out of that deep sleep phase. You can even test it by tapping 'Try it' when setting up the alarm.
Tip - We find setting an arousal to be the best option to wake up. A 10 minute window with tickle is a terrific way to wake up. It's like having snooze but without the negatives of snooze. It makes early wake much less appealing, but if you really want this feature, then we've included that too.
2 - Early Wake
The other strategy is to let AutoSleep examine how deep your last 5 minutes of sleep was at 1 minute intervals. There are two options here:
Light Sleep - If you enable this option, if AutoSleep detects you are in a lighter sleep phase according to your AutoSleep calibration settings, then it will wake you up early.
Medium Sleep - If you enable this option, if AutoSleep detects you are not in a deep sleep phase then it will wake you up early.
Switching Watches at Bedtime
Some users now have a dedicated 2nd Apple Watch they wear to bed due to upgrading an older Watch. This is fine but a couple key things to remember:
The alarm needs to be setup on the Watch you are wearing to bed.
When changing Watches at bedtime, allow a couple mins for the Watch to properly sync to the iPhone before setting the alarm. If you strap the Watch on and set the alarm up instantly, the Watch may still be completing all its background syncs and clearing processes and wipe the alarm process. So just give it a couple minutes with the passcode entered on your wrist before setting.
Lights Off Mode
Lights off is a feature in AutoSleep where you tell the Watch app that you now intend to go to sleep. You can learn more by going to the Lights Off page.
You can optionally combine lights off and setting your alarm in one step. If you do this, AutoSleep will set your smart alarm, start tracking your sleep and switch to the live sleep tracking display. In smart alarm mode it will show the time until your alarm sounds instead of the time in bed display. Pressing Done on the live sleep tracking display will turn off your smart alarm should you wake up early by your own means.
Turning On Alarm
If you don't want to use Lights Off, you can just enable the smart alarm at any time during the day and it will sound according to your settings. We recommend the large modular complication on your sleeping Watch face as this makes it very clear whether the alarm is enabled or not. If you are using two Apple Watches, you need to enable it on the Watch you are wearing to bed. Its a bright green button called 'Set Alarm' to activate, you cant miss it.
Important Note: You must enable the alarm each day at some time on your Watch as this is an Apple operating system requirement of the native Smart Alarm functionality on Apple Watch. However, we created a weekly waketime schedule where you can enable the smart alarm for any day of the week, refer to Scheduled Alarms below to understand more.
You then turn the alarm on or off as desired. To deactivate, a bright pink button called 'Turn off' will show:
Smart Alarm Flow Chart
Here's a chart that covers all the options in the Smart Alarm function, as well as providing a walk through with step by step instructions.
Click on it to expand.
Scheduled Alarms
In the Tonight's Bedtime tile that is found on the Today tab in the iPhone app, you can configure wake times to better optimise your bedtime recommendations to keep you in sleep credit (or get you out of sleep debt). Scheduling wake times also lets you enable a smart alarm for any day of the week or a reoccurring basis. We recommend reviewing the 'Configure Wake Times' section in the Tonight's Bedtime page first to understand all about scheduling your week, as seen in the sample image below.
Next Scheduled Alarms
If you do setup a wake time schedule in the iPhone app and enable the smart alarm switch, a new option will appear in your Watch under the Smart Alarm menu called 'Auto Schedule', this will otherwise be hidden. See below I have setup a schedule and have the smart alarm switch enabled for Tuesday (T) and Friday (F). This will be the default view if you have a schedule setup but the alarm is not scheduled for the next day.
Activated Scheduled Alarm
If you have a scheduled alarm for the next day, you will notice your Smart Alarm menu shows an 'auto scheduled' under the day and time (see below). You can apply and set any smart wake features the same as a daily alarm, such as time windows and arousal methods like nudge.
Tap into the Auto Schedule alarm menu and you will see 2 options:
Skip Today - we understand that even the best planned schedules sometimes change, so we added a skip function that lets you easily disable your wake time schedule for the coming day. This means you don't have to go and edit your schedule in the iPhone app, you can easily skip direct from your Watch. For example, my usual Wednesday morning gym session just got cancelled and I had a scheduled wake up alarm for 5:00am, so I will use the 'Skip Today' switch and instead setup a new once off alarm for 6:00am (ahh, a sleep in)
Disable - this option will turn off all scheduled alarms. So you can keep your schedule setup but turn them all off with this switch. This would be handy for going on holidays, or any other scenario where your usual schedule has changed temporarily. Disabling will not reset the next day, it will stay disabled until it is turned off
Remember you can manage your scheduled wake up alarms in the iPhone app, under the Tonight's Bedtime tile found in the Today tab.
Waking up Silently with Haptics
Haptics are the silent taps that the Watch gives to notify you of something without annoying everyone in your vicinity.
However, a small number of people still have those annoying sounds on the Watch. Argh.
You can turn them off by swiping up on any clock face. This displays the Watch control centre. You then touch the button with a bell on it so it looks like this. Your friends will love you for it.
Have 2 or More Watches?
When changing Watches at bedtime, allow a couple mins for the Watch to properly sync to the iPhone before setting the alarm. If you strap the Watch on and set the alarm up instantly, the Watch may still be completing all its background syncs and clearing processes and wipe the alarm. So just give it a couple minutes with the passcode entered on your wrist before setting.