Using your phone as an alarm clock is quite common practice now and Unplggd has featured many apps and docks for your iPhone over the past few years that help making sure you rise on time. Despite this, we've found in lieu of a fancy clock radio setup, we still prefer the standard iPhone alarm tone to rouse us in the morning. Below is the set up we have found to work, while not ideal for everyone, we think it is worth a try.
Our iPhone Alarm Setup:
- iPhone is required for this set up...
- Sleeping is serious business and consequently you might want to try an iPhone app like the sleep cycle Alarm Clock, we just stick with the default clock app that came on the phone to wake us up but that is only because of our preference. Apps like sleep cycle are slick and might help you get a better night of shut eye.
- You need a good way to charge your phone, while we know you are not supposed to charge your phone every night having a bed side charger makes it easier to keep your phone juiced up. We found the Incase Combo Charger to be an excellent option for at-home and on-the-go, thanks to its ability to use both home outlet and car cigarette charging port.
- We have found that we like to dock our phone for ease of visibility and as a clock radio replacement. Any dock will do and we stuck with the stock Apple one. If you are of the crafty sort a Lego dock or other DIY project can spice things up!
- To replace out nighttime clock we wanted a slick clock that could be read from across our bedroom. We have previously reviewed Flip Clock and recommend it again to make your night time clock watching as pleasant as it can be.
- Experiment to ensure your system is working for you. While this is perfect for us your own set up might need more tweaking, or be as bare bones as possible. Happy sheep counting!
(Top image: Flickr member @cdharrison licensed for use under Creative Commons)
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It's actually not a bad thing to charge your iPhone every night. Actually, with the lithium-ion battery of the iPhone, it's better to only let it do a full discharge once in a while, and do frequent small recharges the rest of the time. http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm
Also, why does every article on here consistently say "we" and "our"? Do all the writers share the same exact preferences? Is it some sort of ridiculous style decision made by your editors? Whatever it is... it's really annoying.
Faisca, thanks for the link. My i-Phone is no longer holding or taking a charge, so I am starting to research if it can be fixed an how.
In regard to the plural pronouns, that is standard editorial practice and has been for over a century in English journalism. It's not unique to the AT blogs.
Cheers!
As pointed out above it's not bad to charge every night. However, it is bad to have a clock in view of your bed. For a lot of people, myself included, having an easily visible clock can make it more difficult to fall asleep. We have the tendency to stare at the clock and get preoccupied with how long it is taking us to fall asleep, which in turn makes it more difficult to fall asleep.
I keep my iPhone at my bed side, and use it as an alarm, but I keep it off so I can't see the clock. I can press the button to see the time if I need to, but I don't want to have that clock staring me down all night reminding me of how much I'm not sleeping.
Tres cool!
Definitely thinking of going for a Lego dock! they look awesome
And using we and our is pretty standard on blogs like this. It creates a sense of comfort and lets the readers know that their not just talking to a faceless business/corporation.
After writing this whole article raving about the iPhone alarm clock, how cool did you feel the day after the daylight savings switch? iPhones don't know how to automatically change time like every other phone in the universe, so everyone who depends on an iPhone's alarm clock was late that day. haha! I'm glad they got the problem fixed quick though. http://www.ewinginc.com/