Need help to make wake up alarm working on apple watch

[picollus]

Here is my sleep routine.

- I charge my iPhone on a dedicated table in the entrance of my home at ground floor.
- I go to sleep wearing my watch OR charging in nightstand mode. My bedroom is located upstairs.
- I have sleep schedule setup and Track my sleep enabled.

At scheduled wake up time,
- the iphone alarm go off as expected. However, since it downstair. I do not hear it.
- Nothing occurs on the watch in nightstand mode. No audible alarm sound or visual (ex : snooze).
- If i tap the table or the watch. I see the nightstand mode interface and next alarm sheduled hours.
- the watch is locked (pin required)

HOW TO GET THE WATCH TO SOUND THE ALARM IN NIGHT STAND MODE ?

 

[PaladinGuy]

At risk of sounding dumb, have you made sure that you don't have your watch muted? The control center has a selection with a crossed out bell that silences all sounds. There's also a setting that relates to snoozing your alarm.

 

[picollus]

Not muted or silenced.

I am starting to think this is passcode/lock related.

Is your alarm supposed to sound when locked.

 

[Christopher Kim]

Yes, I'm not 100% sure, but I think a wake-up alarm (eg. one that's set on your iPhone) will only go off on your Watch (instead of your Phone) when it's on your wrist. If the AW is off your wrist and charging, I think the alarm defaults to going off on the Phone instead.

 

[jz0309]

use the alarm app on the watch instead ... when your watch is on the charger, it I no longer connected to your phone (check BT), so watch cannot "know" that the alarm on the phone is going off

 

[picollus]

I found this explanation on a 2020 website.

"Nightstand mode alarms only work if you set them using the watch’s own Alarms app. The excellent feature where the watch takes over iPhone alarms, and alerts you with a haptic tap instead of the audio alarm, is only available when you are wearing the watch. This includes the iPhone’s Bedtime feature. In short, if you want to use the Apple Watch’s alarm when it’s in nightstand mode, you have to set that alarm on the watch itself. You can of course do this using Siri.

Source : https://www.cultofmac.com/691577/apple-watch-nightstand-mode/

This seem to replicate what is happening to me even if this was prior to "Focus" feature.

Documentation is really not clear about it.
In alarm setting of the Sleep feature, the note below the sound selection says "Sound will play if you wear your watch to bed".

The only explanation i have about this behavior is that the watch is smart enough to determine if it has enough juice to go through the night and warn you if you need to charge it before going to bed.

Thus, Apple is expecting you wear the watch for the full Sleep experience recording.

--

Still make no sense to me that the alarm for wake up in nightstand is not enablable. If you use nightstand, it mean you watch is near you, thus, the alarm should work. At bare minimum, you should be able to control where to send the alarm (iphone, watch or both!)

 

[jz0309]

I found this explanation on a 2020 website.

"Nightstand mode alarms only work if you set them using the watch’s own Alarms app. The excellent feature where the watch takes over iPhone alarms, and alerts you with a haptic tap instead of the audio alarm, is only available when you are wearing the watch. This includes the iPhone’s Bedtime feature. In short, if you want to use the Apple Watch’s alarm when it’s in nightstand mode, you have to set that alarm on the watch itself. You can of course do this using Siri.

Source : https://www.cultofmac.com/691577/apple-watch-nightstand-mode/

This seem to replicate what is happening to me even if this was prior to "Focus" feature.

Documentation is really not clear about it.
In alarm setting of the Sleep feature, the note below the sound selection says "Sound will play if you wear your watch to bed".

The only explanation i have about this behavior is that the watch is smart enough to determine if it has enough juice to go through the night and warn you if you need to charge it before going to bed.

Thus, Apple is expecting you wear the watch for the full Sleep experience recording.

--

Still make no sense to me that the alarm for wake up in nightstand is not enablable. If you use nightstand, it mean you watch is near you, thus, the alarm should work. At bare minimum, you should be able to control where to send the alarm (iphone, watch or both!)

When the watch is not connected to the phone, as in when it is not on your wrist, how should the phone know that your watch is nearby? Your argument I’m sorry to say makes no sense, AW requires to be connected to communicate with the phone.

Use the alarm app on the watch, works beautifully

 

[jz0309]

I found this explanation on a 2020 website.

"Nightstand mode alarms only work if you set them using the watch’s own Alarms app. The excellent feature where the watch takes over iPhone alarms, and alerts you with a haptic tap instead of the audio alarm, is only available when you are wearing the watch. This includes the iPhone’s Bedtime feature. In short, if you want to use the Apple Watch’s alarm when it’s in nightstand mode, you have to set that alarm on the watch itself. You can of course do this using Siri.

Source : https://www.cultofmac.com/691577/apple-watch-nightstand-mode/

This seem to replicate what is happening to me even if this was prior to "Focus" feature.

Documentation is really not clear about it.
In alarm setting of the Sleep feature, the note below the sound selection says "Sound will play if you wear your watch to bed".

The only explanation i have about this behavior is that the watch is smart enough to determine if it has enough juice to go through the night and warn you if you need to charge it before going to bed.

Thus, Apple is expecting you wear the watch for the full Sleep experience recording.

--

Still make no sense to me that the alarm for wake up in nightstand is not enablable. If you use nightstand, it mean you watch is near you, thus, the alarm should work. At bare minimum, you should be able to control where to send the alarm (iphone, watch or both!)

And yes, in order to use sleep tracking, you have to wear the watch while you’re sleeping

 

[Itinj24]

Do you have anything against charging the phone by your bed and using the alarm from your phone?

 

[picollus]

When the watch is not connected to the phone, as in when it is not on your wrist, how should the phone know that your watch is nearby? Your argument I’m sorry to say makes no sense, AW requires to be connected to communicate with the phone.

Use the alarm app on the watch, works beautifully

My argument was about the alarm on the watch. (If you use nightstand, it mean your watch is near you, thus, the alarm on the watch should work.

This "Wake Up" alarm both exists in the iphone and watch and don't required BT connection between them.

Both alarm could sound independently.

 

[picollus]

Do you have anything against charging the phone by your bed and using the alarm from your phone?

For sleep good practice, i don't want any device (iphone/ipad) in the bedroom. Would be too much easy to use them

So, the iphone always charge/stay in the entrance. A way not to forget it when i leave...
(Yes i am that much distracted in life !

In summary, i would need the default "Wake up Alarm" to be used when i sleep with the watch for sleep monitoring and a second alarm when i charge it during the night using Nightstand ! Not really intuitive as solution.

 

[jz0309]

My argument was about the alarm on the watch. (If you use nightstand, it mean your watch is near you, thus, the alarm on the watch should work.

This "Wake Up" alarm both exists in the iphone and watch and don't required BT connection between them.

Both alarm could sound independently.

nightstand mode means the watch is laying on its side when charging, as oppose to laying flat, that's all. it does not mean the watch is near you, eg on your nightstand. you can put it in nightstand mode anywhere, eg next to your phone in your house.

your easiest solution is what I said before, use the alarm app on the watch, it will work in nightstand mode as well as when wearing the watch.

the alarm on the phone will also work without having an AW ...

 

[picollus]

nightstand mode means the watch is laying on its side when charging, as oppose to laying flat, that's all. it does not mean the watch is near you, eg on your nightstand.

LOL, you realize it is called Nightstand of a reason right ?

But thanks for the workaround.

So i have to disable the sleep alarm and setup a duplicate sleep schedule in the alarm section to be compatible with in nightstand.

So i cannot use the sleep alarm sound with standard alarm ! Great