Most of the settings are for customizing the app, but the defaults work well without customizing anything. To set an alarm just go into the settings and tap "Add alarm". Set the "Alarm time". Everything else is optional.
If you want the alarm to trigger more than once, set the "Repeat". Tap "Sound" to select one of the built-in alarm sounds or music from your device.
That's it!
When the alarm fires it makes its announcements and then plays music. At any time during the alarm you can tap the screen. If you have configured a snooze interval, tapping the scren will start a snooze. If no snooze time is configured, tapping the screen will cancel the alarm. Tapping the screen during a snooze cancels the alarm.
You don't want to miss an alarm because the device's music volume just happened to be set low earlier in the day. You may also want an alarm volume that is higher than the volume for sleep music.
The volume slider allows separate adjustment of Sleep music volume (S) and Alarm music volume (A). Sleep volume is set from the Music app's current volume if it is playing when TA is launched. It is used for Sleep music and announcements while sleep music is playing. Changes to Alarm volume affect everything else: Alarm music and all announcements when Sleep music is not playing.
Any changes you make to Alarm and Sleep volume are saved, and restored when TalkingAlarm is started. The system volume is not changed as TA exits or suspends, so the device's music volume stays wherever TA set it.
All of this changes when AirPlay to HomePod is active on iOS versions 12.3 or later. See AirPlay in the Issues category.
You can do that and still get alarms by turning on "Background Alarms". HOWEVER... we strongly recommend that you use TalkingAlarm as a bedside alarm clock: Background alarms off, the screen unlocked/open, the app running and the phone charging.
Background alarms have limitations imposed by iOS on all non-Apple apps - if the screen is locked the only thing an app can do to get your attention is display an alert banner with up to 30 seconds of canned sound. That's it. You then have to tap the banner and unlock the screen to enter the app and get all the features of the app such as announcements and music.
If you have an iPhone that works with wireless charging (iPhone 8, 8 plus, X, XS, XS plus) you can buy a very nice wireless charging stand from Amazon here that holds the phone in landscape with an adjustable angle to make a perfect bedside alarm clock with a very large time display.
This was the very first feature of TalkingAlarm. If you have trouble seeing (especially without glasses or contacts while sleeping), or your eyelids stick shut in the middle of the night, you can just reach out and tap anywhere on the screen to get an announcement of the time. No need to find a button - just give the screen a fwap.
Snooze can be individually configured for each alarm. You can set the snooze time from 5 to 60 minutes. Once a snooze time is set you can also select Flip-to-snooze which will trigger a snooze if the phone is flipped to face-down while the alarm is sounding.
You can also select Auto-snooze which will do just what it says - automatically trigger a snooze from 30 seconds after the alarm fires to a maximum of 5 minutes after the alarm. The auto-Snooze duration is not afected by the auto-Snooze kick-in wait time.
The "Skin" setting allows you to make separate display configurations for portrait and landscape orientations by using the Rotate arrow at the bottom of the Skin settings screen. You can choose the font, text color and background color or background photo. You can choose to display either a digital or analog clock. We recommend using a digital clock for landscape orientation to get the largest time display. If you choose to have a background photo you can select either the built-in photo or one from your photo library.
The time display may be too bright if you like the room very dark while you sleep. You can dim the display by touch and hold (for more than 3/4 second) on the clock display. The display will dim to a level controlled by the brightness slider on the app's Display Settings screen. It will stay dimmed until the Alarm sounds, and will redim if you tap with Snooze enabled. Touch and hold again to toggle the brightness between the dimmed setting and normal brightness.
The default skin for landscape orientation (thin, green font on a black background) makes for the darkest display. An OLED display (iPhone X) can dim even darker as an OLED's black background is true black with no backlight.
You have several choices for Alarm music or sounds:
1) Music - you can select a one or more songs, or a playlist, from your device's Music library. All Alarm music must be downloaded to the device (just open the Music app, find the songs or playlist and tap the cloud/download icon).
2) Streaming news radio - TalkingAlarm has built-in links to several streaming news radio stations. More will be added in future updates.
3) Sounds - TalkingAlarm has more than 25 built-in sounds, ranging from serene to totally obnoxious (for those who need real stimulation to get out of bed in the morning). You can also select Silence from the Sounds menu if you just want the alarm announcements and a period time announcement.
Even the dimmest display may be too bright if you like the room very dark while you sleep. You can blackout the display entirely by turning on "Allow hiding clock" in the app's Display settings. When this is configured, you can swipe on the clock display to hide everything but the background picture or color (and the ads, sorry). If the display is set to a black background (and you've bought ad-free) this will blackout everything on the display. Swipe again to show the clock display. The clock display will return automatically return when the alarm sounds or when the app is restarted.
Keep in mind that unless you have an OLED display (iPhone X), there will still be a backlight which will leak through even a black background.
Your next appointment can be announced with an alarm. You can also choose to announce only appointments with reminders or all-day appointments.
TalkingAlarm looks at your calendar and picks the next appointment within 24 hours which isn't already in progress. e.g. if the alarm is set for 7:00AM it will skip over an appointment that runs 6:30-7:30 (you're late for it already).
Configure this in the app's Speech settings.
Your local weather can be announced with an alarm. You can choose current conditions and/or forecast. You can select auto-location or manually specify a location. Use Settings / Weather.
TalkingAlarm uses three weather data providers in case one is not available when you need it. If one provider provides data from a station that is closer to you (or more accurate), you can change the priority of the providers in the app's Weather settings.
Swiping the screen in any direction while alarm music is playing will skip to the next song (if you selected a playlist or multiple songs).
Setting up Sleep in the app Settings puts a sleep play/stop button on the clock display. A long press of the sleep play button will start Sleep music and the sleep countdown timer. At the end of the set sleep interval the volume will slowly fade to zero over one minute.
If the iOS Music app is playing when TalkingAlarm is launched, that music will continue playing and the sleep button will start the sleep timer. If the Music app is not playing when TA is launched, tap the Sleep play button to start the music you configured in the app's Sleep music settings.
TalkingAlarm can also play relaxing sleep-aid sounds all night, such as rain or ocean sounds. Simply set Sleep music to one of the built-in sounds and the duration to "On". The soothing sleep music will play all night until the alarm triggers in the morning.
EZWake can be set for any alarm. If set it will take the screen brightness from its current brightness level (usually very dark) to full-on bright white very slowly, starting five minutes before the alarm time. This can be very effective for starting a gentle wake-up in a dark room, especially with a large phone (or iPad) that is on edge facing the sleeper. If set it will start the alarm music at zero volume one minute before the alarm time and very slowly ramp up the volume until the alarm time.
If HomeKit lighting devices are configured for the alarm, these will be very slowly brightness ramped over the same period as the screen brightness.
EZWake brightness and volume can be configured seperately for each alarm.
Leave time begins after the alarm triggers to periodically remind you how much time is left before you have to leave. Leave time can be set individually for each alarm.
If you do not cancel the alarm, alarm music will keep playing during the leave time period. If you do cancel the alarm (but keep TalkingAlarm running), TA will issue leave time remaining announcements every five minutes (and every minute during the last five minutes).
At the leave time TA will go beserk with a very annoying klaxon until leave time is cancelled. Cancelling leave time requires a tap followed by a slide-to-cancel.
TalkingAlarm will announce a change to the next alarm time (including to Off). It will also announce the next alarm time when the device is rotated to landscape with the clock display showing. This is to confim to you what the alarm is set to (or not) as you are setting your bedside clock for the night. It only announces the alarm set time once, but if you find this annoying (maybe it wakes your partner) you can turn this off in the app's Speech settings.
You can set the "Slide to cancel" switch in the app Settings and instead of a tap to cancel the alarm, a tap during snooze gives a time announcement and a "slide to cancel" control (like "slide to power off").
TalkingAlarm can use any English voice that is in your device. Use the device Settings under General -> Accessability -> Speech -> Voices to download additional voices into your device. We recommend "Ava (Enhanced)" for the most natural sounding English-US voice.
Once the voice you want to use has been downloaded you can select it in TalkingAlarm's Settings -> Speech -> Voice.
TalkingAlarm can make two different types of custom announcements:
1) A recording you make which can be played back with any or all alarms, e.g. you mother yelling "Get your lazy butt out of bed!". There is only one of these but it can play with any alarm.
2)A custom text announcement which is read by the app. Each alarm can have its own unique custom text announcement.
TalkingAlarm can ask a trivia question at the end of the other alarm announcements, with the goal of helping to kickstart your brain when waking. You can configure the categories and difficulty level of the questions.
I didn't make these up - the questions (and answers) come from a public trivia database, so if you think some are silly, too obscure or just plain wrong, please don't blame me!
In addition to selecting a photo or a color for the clock background, you can also choose to display a streaming video of air, land or sea creatures, mostly live.
CritterCam only works when the phone is in landscape orientation because the videos are wider than they are tall and look really silly in the center of a clock screen in portrait orientation.
Set up CritterCam in the app's Skin settings. To enable the CritterCam icon, tap the Rotate icon in the lower left of the screen to put the clock screen image into landscape orientation.
CritterCam is not available with AirPlay as the video's background music can't be shut off when AirPlay is active.
CritterCam pauses automaitcally when the screen is dimmed.
The iPhone/iPad must be connected to the internet via Wi-Fi for CritterCam to operate so wireless data isn't used up.
TalkingAlarm can do this, but it needs to stay running which uses the battery and is a pain when you want to use the phone for something else. We recommend another app, TalkingTime, which does this function in the background without using power, keeping your iPhone free for other uses.
If your device does not have internet access, TalkingAlarm can only play music that resides on the device. With Apple Music some (or many) songs will live only in the cloud.
This alert is just advice - you can ignore it if you plan on having internet access when TalkingAlarm is playing music. If you don't have internet access when the alarm is triggered, the app will just play downloaded songs from your selection and ignore the others.
Keep in mind that if your device has no Wifi connection - only a cellular connection - TalkingAlarm will not have an internet connection unless you enable the app in the device's Cellular settings.
Version 9.2 replaced the default clock screen background photo with a new "light mode" photo in preparation for iOS 13 which will have both light and dark mode photos. On iOS 12 you can manually select the dark-mode clock photo in the app's Skin settings. With iOS 13 the app will switch automatically between light and dark mode, respecting the iOS setting.
Are you trying to get an alarm when the phone screen is locked (a Background Alarm)? For background alarms to work you must: 1) have background alarms turned on in the app's settings, 2) have the mute switch off (not red), 3) have the ringer volume loud enough to hear the alert sound (check this in the phone's Sounds settings). With all that properly set all you will get at the alarm time is an alert banner with a 30 second sound.
SO... we strongly recommend that you use TalkingAlarm as a bedside alarm clock: no Background alarms, the screen unlocked/open, the app running and the phone charging.
Background alarms have limitations imposed by iOS on all non-Apple apps - if the screen is locked the only thing an app can do to get your attention is display an alert banner with up to 30 seconds of canned sound. That's it. You then have to tap the banner and unlock the screen to enter the app and get all the features of the app such as announcements and music.
If you have an iPhone that works with wireless charging (iPhone 8, 8 plus, X) you can buy a very nice wireless charging stand from Amazon here that holds the phone in landscape with an adjustable angle to make a perfect bedside alarm clock with a very large time display.
The settings button is only shown in portrait orientation, and is disabled when the display is dimmed with a long press. Both are so you don't accidentally go to settings when you fwap the screen for time in the middle of the night.
The volume slider is disabled when the display is dimmed with a long press (same as the settings button, above), and when volume is being ramped down (Sleep) or ramped up (EZWake).
You can triple-tap the clock display to hear the weather announcement at any time. If you don't hear the weather, then most likely the app cannot access the weather server. The Weather Settings screen displays a diagnostic message if there is a problem accessing the weather server.
You can also change the priority order of the weather data providers in case one works better than others in your location.
Version 9.2 supports AirPlay to HomePod, but with some restrictions imposed by iOS. When AirPlay is active:
a) CritterCam videos are disabled.
b) With iOS 12.3 or later, volume control by the app (or any non-Apple app) is not available over AirPlay. Instead, you must tap the AirPlay icon/button to bring up the AirPlay Route Picker which has its own volume slider where you can select a volume for each device.
c) EZWake volume ramp is disabled when AirPlay is active (same reason - no volume control by the app).
d) Sleep Music fade is disabled when AirPlay is active (same reason).
TalkingAlarm respects the 12/24-hour setting of the device. If the device setting is changed, the app will automatically change to match.
You can dim the ads (and the screen) by using the touch/hold feature (above). But if that's not enough you can get rid of the ads entirely by an in-app purchase of Ad-Free Forever. This option gets rid of the ads immediately and they stay gone when the app is updated.
If you later delete the app and reinstall it or download it onto another device, you can restore Ad-Free Forever on those devices at no charge, as long as you are using the same Apple ID as when you purchased Ad-Free Forever.
If the ads are back it's probably because you deleted the app and later reinstalled it or downloaded it onto another device. In any case, you can restore Ad-Free Forever on your devices at no charge, as long as you are using the same Apple ID as when you purchased Ad-Free Forever.
Go to Ad-free in the app's Settings and tap on Restore.
TalkingAlarm can be configured to trigger HomeKit automation actions with an alarm. For this to work you must first configure your Home using the Apple Home app (or other app capable of configuring a HomeKit Home).
Once this is done you can then configure TalkingAlarm for the HomeKit actions you want to trigger with an alarm. There is only one HomeKit Actions configuration that applies to all alarms that have HomeKit actions enabled.
Each alarm has a setting to enable HomeKit actions, optionally only when at your Home location (so you don't turn the bedroom lights on in the morning while you are away from home).
The only HomeKit devices that TalkingAlarm supports are lights and shades. We recommend Lutron Caséta light dimmers as they work well with EZWake's very slow brightness ramp-up. Slow light ramp-up works best with filament light bulbs, which are difficult to find but are still available in vintage style with exposed filaments. LED bulbs, even if dimmable, tend to go from off to half-on in one step.
"Your next appointment is at..." spoken with the alarm gets its data from your calendar. If you have disallowed access the app will not be able to announce your next appointment until you go to the device's Settings -> TalkingAlarm -> Calendars and set the switch to ON.
The weather information announced with the alarm is based on your location. If you don't want TalkingAlarm to access your location you can enter a location manually in the app's Weather settings.
If you have disallowed access the app will not be able to automatically find your location until you go to the device's Settings -> TalkingAlarm -> Location and set it to "While using the App".
So the app can play music from your Music Library for Alarm music or Sleep music.
"I hate those annoying push notifications". TalkingAlarm does not use push notifications - it uses Local Notifications and only for Background alarms. These Local Notifications just display an alert banner at the time of the alarm. Nothing else.
You can view the TalkingAlarm Privacy Policy here.