How to Use Your Phone as a Bedside Alarm Clock With StandBy and Bedtime Modes

Whether or not or not you make the most of your cellphone as an alarm to stand up throughout the morning, want to take heed to podcasts or sleep sounds as you drift off, or simply want to make sure the battery is full come morning, a nightstand charger is a helpful gadget. We’re large followers of wireless chargers. Android telephones and iPhones moreover provide nightstand modes to rework your machine proper right into a bedside alarm clock for the night time time.

Having your smartphone sit in your nightstand with out enabling a quiet mode of some sort is a nasty thought. If notifications are waking you up, check out our guide on silencing your gadgets at night. You additionally wants to try how to create a bedtime routine. Nonetheless every sleep specialist we’ve spoken with suggests leaving your cellphone exterior the mattress room at night time time.

That said, it’s laborious to interrupt the habits of sleeping subsequent to your cellphone, and if it’s on the nightstand anyway, we would as successfully make itself useful.

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Apple’s StandBy is one amongst our favorite iOS 17 features. It enables you to use your iPhone as a bedside alarm clock, {photograph} physique, or present for actions or widgets.

To utilize StandBy, that you must have a MagSafe charger that permits you to join your iPhone in panorama orientation. Yow will uncover such a charger in our guides to the best Apple 3-in-1 wireless chargers or the best MagSafe accessories. The Twelve South HiRise 3 Deluxe ($150) is our current favorite.

Proper right here’s strategies to rearrange StandBy:

1. Open Settings in your iPhone, scroll down and tap StandBy.
2. Make sure StandBy is toggled on.
3. You additionally must faucet Present and choose when the present should flip off, whether or not or not you want to use Night Mode so it dims and has a crimson tint when it’s darkish to scale back disturbance, and whether or not or not you want Motion to Wake the present at night time time. (We recommend toggling every on.)
4. As quickly as organize, merely place your iPhone on a MagSafe charger in panorama orientation and press the facet button to see the clock.
5. It’s going to current a clock and calendar by default, nonetheless it’s possible you’ll tweak it by swiping up and down. It’s possible you’ll swipe correct to left to get pictures with the time present. Swipe as soon as extra, and likewise you get an enormous clock present. It’s possible you’ll swipe up and down on each mode to cycle by the use of additional decisions.
6. Your iPhone will keep in mind your hottest clock kind for that charger, so that you could be set one kind for the charger in your nightstand and one factor else for the charger in your desk or kitchen counter.

Discover: The Always-On Present can carry on fully if in case you might have an iPhone 14 Skilled, iPhone 14 Skilled Max, iPhone 15 Skilled, or iPhone 15 Skilled Max. For older fashions, merely faucet the show, bump the nightstand, or ask Siri to hold StandBy to life.

The Apple Watch has prolonged had a Nightstand mode that reveals the time. Like StandBy, you need a charger that helps Nightstand mode and ideally affords you a easy view of your Apple Watch show. We identical to the Belkin Boost Charge Pro Portable Fast Charger for Apple Watch ($60). Proper right here’s strategies to rearrange Nightstand mode:

1. Open Settings in your Apple Watch.
2. Go to Regular > Nightstand Mode and swap it on.
3. For those who want to set any alarms, open the Alarms app in your Apple Watch.
4. Faucet the plus icon in order so as to add an alarm and choose your time. You might also merely ask Siri to set an alarm.
5. When the alarm sounds, it’s possible you’ll press the Digital Crown to snooze it for 9 minutes or the Aspect button to indicate it off.

Although Bedtime started out as a Pixel distinctive attribute, Google has rolled it into the same old Android Clock app. In case your cellphone wouldn’t have the app, arrange Google’s Clock app from the Play Retailer.

We advise getting a stand (see our Best Wireless Chargers info) to prop your cellphone on the nightstand. The Twelve South PowerPic Mod Wireless Charger ($60) is our current favorite.

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