If you have an Amazon Echo (Dot or Show) on your nightstand, you probably use it as an alarm clock. It's quite convenient to wake up every morning with the help of a virtual assistant and ask it to give you a summary of your day. If you haven't used the device as an alarm clock before, we'll show you how and how to choose the sound that will shatter your bliss of sleeping in.
How to use the Amazon Echo as an alarm clock
Whichever Amazon Echo device you have at home, you can use it as an alarm clock by creating an alarm from the official app. The most convenient way, and what most users will likely do, is to create the alarm using a voice command. That is, by simply saying, " Alexa, set an alarm for 9 a.m. ," the assistant will set the time to wake you up the next morning.
The problem with programming this conventional alarm with voice is that it will use a default melody and you won't be able to make some adjustments, so we are going to show you how to customize your wake-up call a little more with all the melodies included in the system. Thus, you can create different alarms according to your needs and program a different sound for each of them, choosing even the smallest parameter you can imagine.
Furthermore, if you have several of these devices at home, including in the children's bedrooms, you can configure the time they have to get up every morning so they don't linger before school. Of course, this only works as long as they're connected under your main ID.
All you have to do is go to the official Alexa app to manage your alarms. Follow these steps to complete the process:
- Open the Alexa app on your Android or iOS device and tap on the icon in the top left corner to open the dropdown menu.
- In this menu select Reminders and Alarms.
- Now it is possible to set reminders, alarms and timers. In this case we will focus on alarms, so select the tab that indicates it.
- If you have never created an alarm, the list will be empty, so let's create one to find out the details. Click on Add alarm.
- On the next screen you would have to configure all the parameters, starting with the time at which the alarm will sound. The points to configure are the following:
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- alarm time: The time at which we want the warning to sound.
- Device: Do you have several Amazon Echos at home? Here you can select which of all the home will sound the alarm. Are you in the living room and want to set the bedroom alarm? Here you can do it.
- Repeat: This will be where you define if you want the alarm to be punctual or to sound every day of the week. An alarm only for weekends? Single days? Choose what you need.
- Date: If you want the alarm to go off on a specific day, you can choose it here as well. Mark the desired date on the calendar and that's it.
- Sound: This is where we will be able to define the sound that we want the alarm to sound. Unfortunately we will not be able to use custom sounds or music, so we will have to limit ourselves to the list of melodies offered by the devices.
After configuring all these parameters, all you have to do is click on Save to store the alarm created. Your Echo will ring just at the time you have requested and with the chosen sound.
How to wake up with a song, or a radio
Waking up suddenly to a horrible noise designed to make us unable to stand it and force us to get up is torture that we can choose to endure for a long time or not, since there are always kinder alternatives and, above all, alternatives that are more in line with our (in this case) musical tastes.
Alexa not only lets you configure those annoying ringtones, but also allows you to set it up to play songs from the main streaming services available. Whether it's Apple Music, Spotify, Apple Music, or others.
To set that alarm to wake us up, you don't have to touch anything on the mobile screen, just go to your smart speaker (an Echo Dot or an Echo Show with a screen) and invoke Alexa with a simple phrase:
- Alexa, wake me up to [song name] by [artist] at [wake-up time].
Alexa will play the song at the scheduled time, prioritizing the streaming platform you've already linked as your primary platform to the assistant. Therefore, you won't need to mention it.
But, what happens if we want the news from this or that radio station to sound instead of a song? There are millions of people who, the first thing they do as soon as they wake up, is listen to the news from a station they have been following for a long time, so we can save ourselves the work of tuning in by creating a routine that will use the service that you have configured by default. Such as Apple Music, TuneIn, etc.
To activate an alarm clock with a radio station you must ask the assistant:
- Alexa, wake me up to [news service/radio network] at [wake-up time].
All these features are compatible with Amazon's own voice assistants, as well as other devices on the market that also work with Alexa. We've included two models that can help you start each day with the best possible information, whether it's about the weather, traffic, your schedule, or anything else you might need.
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