Smart Alarm Clock Review – iOS App
Do you ever wonder if you’re getting enough sleep, or maybe you feel you’re getting too much sleep? Well, Smart Alarm Clock, an iOS app by Arawalla Corporation, might be the app for you. The Smart Alarm Clock app has features that may aid your sleep patterns. The most interesting feature that we liked was how it can monitor your movement at night to detect the types of sleep you are getting; as in light, deep, or R.E.M. (rapid eye movement) sleep. Not only does this app act as a monitor but can also perform basic alarm functions if you wish.
Smart Alarm Clock Review
The interface is simple to use – just pick and choose what you want to do. If you want an alarm then choose it, but if you want to see the potential of this app, use it as an alarm and a monitor.
A feature of this app is its “sleep cycle alarm mode.” If you are setting the alarm at 7 A.M as an example, the app will wake you up at the lightest part of your sleep. This could be 20 minutes before 7 AM or perhaps 3 minutes after. It is really impressive that the app is able to detect this and work so well. Waking up in the morning after using this feature, we felt neither tired nor deprived of sleep. There are more sleep options but only for a paid version, and our goal was to test the main function of this app, which is sleep cycle mode. The other mode offers to monitor the types of distractions or noises during sleep which we did not feel was important for this review.
Settings:
Before using sleep cycle mode, performing a placement test is a must in order for the app to recognize your movements while asleep. By placing the phone face down while the test is running, you will see that any movement you make will set off a sound to indicate movement is happening. There are other functions to clear the stats, tap sound off-and-on, 24-hour clock mode, and of course, the useful help button.
Music options:
Another feature allows you to add music to the alarm if you wish. One sad thing is that you can not add your own tracks from your phone’s personal library unless you purchase the paid version of the app. The tracks already included with this app are pleasant soft sounds; some are similar to soft jazz whereas others are rain forest/nature sounds. Waking up to these sounds are not scary at all and they will not make you jump out of bed unless you are using personal sound tracks – and that depends on what style of music you use.
Stats and graphs:
When using the app for your first time, you will be prompted with a message to check your stats when you wake up. It basically shows you the hours of sleep you had, what time you went to bed and what time you woke up. The graph below shows how many parts of light, deep and R.E.M sleep were monitored in a single night.
Final thoughts:
Overall the application works very well. It sticks true to its claim about monitoring your sleep patterns and waking you up in time. The only negative points we that see are not having the option to add our own tracks to the alarm in the free version, which would have been a great plus; and its recommendation to have the device plugged in all through the night.
We don’t believe paying the full price of $1.99 for the app is worth it as the free version is perfect for the user who just wants help with his or her sleep. Although there are similar free and pay for apps on the market that offer the same functions, we found this one to be quite good.
Download it here.
