Bedtime Reminder and Wake Alarm built into iOS 10 Clock App

Apple’s Clock application gets an update in iOS 10.  It uses a new dark theme for the whole app and includes a new Bedtime tab.  Starting the Bedtime section for the first time causes the app to ask you a few questions such as “What time would you like to wake up?”, “Which days of the week should the alarm go off?”, “How many hours of sleep do you need each night?”, “When would you like a bedtime reminder?”, and “What do you want to hear when you wake up?”.

You can later adjust the Bedtime or Wake times in 5 minute increments by dragging the moon or bell icons around the circle.  You cannot set different times for different days of the week, but you can enable/disable different days from the Options menu.  In addition, you can adjust the volume of the alarm independently of the ringer volume.  From options you can also adjust how far in advance the bedtime reminder fires, and change the wake up sound.

The bedtime reminder is a silent full screen notification.  When presented you have the option of “snoozing” the reminder or letting the app know that you are in fact going to sleep.  The app then uses the user reported data to display a simple sleep analysis bar graph showing how consistent your sleep patterns are.

It would be nice if Apple integrated the new Bedtime feature with the “Do Not Disturb” and Night Shift features, so all three could be adjusted at once.

Some existing apps in the App Store that help you get a good nights sleep include “Deep Sleep Sounds” which plays a variety of white noises and soothing sounds to help you or a baby drift off to sleep.  Download for free on the App Store.

If you want an app that uses a microphone to analyze your sleep cycles and wake you up during the lightest sleep phase than try out the “Sleep Cycle alarm clock“.

An existing third party app that will send you bed time notifications is “To bed“.  Unlike Apple’s clock app, it allows you to specify different wakeup times for different days of the week.