5 Evil Alarm Clock Apps Guaranteed to Get You Out of Bed
By Mihir Patkar, Make Use Of, 11 April 2017.
By Mihir Patkar, Make Use Of, 11 April 2017.
Oh, that infernal alarm clock. We need it, but we hate it. And we hate it even more when it doesn’t wake us up properly. If you need to guarantee that you’ll wake up on time, you need one of these evil apps.
Let’s face it, some of us are heavy sleepers. We love that snooze button. But it all contributes to our own downfall, as we end up being late. That’s why we need such alarm apps, which won’t stop ringing till you perform a certain activity.
1. Walk Me Up: Get Up and Walk Around
This is the simplest alarm concept to ensure you are awake. You can dismiss Walk Me Up (Android, iOS) only if you get out of bed and walk around. It counts your steps as you walk to ensure you aren’t faking it.
When you set the alarm, you can also tell the app how many times you can hit the snooze button, or enable the “evil mode” to disable snooze altogether. You will also need to tell Walk Me Up how many steps to count in the morning, without which it won’t switch off.
I tried cheating Walk Me Up, but the app actually seems smart enough to figure out your tricks. If what you need is an alarm that forces you to move around, then you should use this hilariously annoying alarm app.
2. Alarmy: Take a Photo in a Particular Place
Everyone has a morning routine. What’s the first thing you do after your alarm goes? Maybe you head to the bathroom, or hop to the kitchen to brew a pot of coffee. Whatever your routine destination is, mark it in Alarmy (Android, iOS). The only way to dismiss the alarm then is to take a photo of you in that place.
In a way, Alarmy is making sure you aren’t only awake, but have started doing the task you need to. It’s a technology hack for your morning routine. Alarmy recommends choosing a place that is far from your bed, and where the lighting is consistent. The bathroom usually works best for this. Try out the app a couple of times before you start using it, you don’t want to be stuck with a blaring alarm in the morning after you’re wide awake.
Alarmy also offers other modes like solving math problems or shaking the phone. But the “photo from a location” works flawlessly.
3. Wake N Shake: Shake the Phone Relentlessly
Like Alarmy, there are several other apps where you need to shake the phone to stop the alarm. But none worked as well as Wake N Shake (iOS) did, in my test.
With all the other apps, I could shake the phone vigorously enough without getting out of bed. But boy, Wake N Shake tested my muscles.
That little video isn’t lying. Wake N Shake will force you out of your slumber and relentlessly shake your phone before the alarm switches off. There is no chance that you aren’t waking up for this one.
It only works on iPhones now, but hey, you can’t argue with the price tag.
4. Shake-It Alarm: Shake It or Scream Into It!
Like Wake N Shake, in the world of Android alarm clock apps, Shake-It makes you shake the phone to dismiss the alarm. It’s pretty easy to cheat though. You know what’s not easy to cheat? Screaming into your phone.
Shake-It Alarm’s second mode makes you shout into your phone repeatedly. You need to fill up a meter, and only then does the alarm stop. It’s a lot of work and you’ll need to really give it a go.
Shake-It Alarm (Android) also has a neat feature where it sends a message to someone in your contact list if the alarm isn’t switched off. That way, in case the alarm hasn’t woken you up, a friend will!
5. I Can’t Wake Up: The All-in-One Alarm Clock App
If you don’t like all the methods mentioned above, check out I Can’t Wake Up (Android, iOS). It has multiple tasks to annoy you into getting out of bed, both mental and physical.
There are math problems, memory problems, and logic problems. You can shake the phone, scan a barcode, and write some words. My favorite is the “repeat this sequence”, which shows you a sequence and you have to repeat it, forcing you to wake up and pay attention to the screen.
I Can’t Wake Up is also supremely customizable. You can set ringtones, record your voice, and even wake up to your favorite songs. Plus, you can set different tasks for different days and alarms, so it doesn’t get repetitive.
Clocks vs. Phones: Which Alarm Is Better?
It’s a common scenario these days. You wake up to your smartphone’s alarm, and before you know it, you’ve spent an extra 15 minutes in bed checking out the notifications and updates you’ve got. It kind of defeats the purpose of the alarm, doesn’t it?
A new productivity technique is to ditch smartphones and replace them with traditional bedside alarm clocks, so you aren’t tempted to look at your phone before getting through your morning routine. Heck, you could even build your own smart alarm clock.
WakingNews Alarm Clock app
ReplyDeleteWakingNews Alarm Clock is yet another beta app release with some potential. It functions primarily as an alarm clock. You set an alarm as usual and it goes off on time as usual. However, this one reads you the news from a variety of sources when it goes off. So it functions a little bit like old school radio alarm clocks. It has several good news sources, including Yahoo Finances, Yahoo Sports, Engadget, etc. However, there are some lesser sources of words there as well. Thankfully, you can choose the sources that play when the alarm goes off. It's in beta so there are definitely bugs. It is also free and has potential.