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Sleep Focus how it works vs Do not disturb

Jay-Jacob

Jay-Jacob

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Sep 10, 2015
635
399
England
I am kinda bit confused with Focus.

At moment I have do not disturb switch on 10pm to 6am every night. So I don't get screen light up every notifications. I have allowed favourites to contact me.

Now there new focus thing. One of them called Sleep. I don't see how that works compare do not disturb and it doesn't seem have time set on it. I have to switch it on manually and switch off manually each night and each morning? It sounds less useful than do not disturb cos it set automatically for me. So what point of Sleep focus then?
 
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Look through them both. Off the top of my head the sleep one is based on the sleep schedule while do not disturb can have several distinct triggers to turn it off and on such as time.
 
jman240 said:
Look through them both. Off the top of my head the sleep one is based on the sleep schedule while do not disturb can have several distinct triggers to turn it off and on such as time.
Click to expand...
Thanks so sleep focus useless for me then? I don't want iPhone wake me up (I use my vibration alarm cos I am Deaf) switch sleep schedule on. Sounds like I have to stick with do not disturb after all then?
 
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I’m actually confused about this as well. In iOS 14 you could have both Bedtime and DND active at the same time.

Can you have multiple focuses active at the same time? If not then that will be an issue since the Sleep focus doesn’t have an option to dim the Lock Screen like DND does.

Edit:

I just played with it and Sleep focus automatically dims the Lock Screen so basically just pick one or the other. Other nifty thing is it activates on all iOS devices. The one “negative” is the schedule can only be changed on an iPhone.
 
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Morac said:
The one “negative” is the schedule can only be changed on an iPhone.
Click to expand...
That's cos it's the Bedtime one repurposed, which always was only changeable on iPhone, as it's part of the health app. Until they expand the Health App to iPads and Macs, it's always gonna be that way.
 
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Jay-Jacob said:
Thanks so sleep focus useless for me then? I don't want iPhone wake me up (I use my vibration alarm cos I am Deaf) switch sleep schedule on. Sounds like I have to stick with do not disturb after all then?
Click to expand...
You can disable the alarm functionality and treat sleep just like a schedule. You just have to manage the schedule in the health app. There’s a ton of toggles and settings. poke around and you should be able to do exactly what you need with the sleep focus.
 
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I think they completely broke "Do not disturb" in iOS 15.

Until iOS 14.8 I've always had Bedtime between 00:00 and 7:30 in the morning and DND between 22:00 and 9:00 in the morning. They always worked perfectly.

After upgrading to iOS 15 first of all I had to re-create my DND configuration: I set it between 22:00 and 9:00.

But... it didn't work at all! This morning, after waking up, I realised that around 8:00 in the morning, DND was already OFF.... why?! Well... I put it ON manually and I expect it to go OFF again at 9:00, but..... it doesn't work either!

Essentially I created a schedule for DND but it's being completely ignored.

See the screenshots:

In the left one you can see it's 8:12 and DND is already OFF. In the right one you can see it's 9:01 and it's still ON.

IMG_6422.PNG
IMG_6423.PNG
 
andreagrandi said:
I think they completely broke "Do not disturb" in iOS 15.

Until iOS 14.8 I've always had Bedtime between 00:00 and 7:30 in the morning and DND between 22:00 and 9:00 in the morning. They always worked perfectly.

After upgrading to iOS 15 first of all I had to re-create my DND configuration: I set it between 22:00 and 9:00.
Click to expand...

You can’t have 2 focuses active at the same time. Since both Sleep and DND are focuses, when sleep turns on DND will turn off. Use one or the other or set up 2 additional focuses that run from 22:00 to 0:00 and 7:30 to 9:00 respectively.
 
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andreagrandi said:
I think they completely broke "Do not disturb" in iOS 15.

Until iOS 14.8 I've always had Bedtime between 00:00 and 7:30 in the morning and DND between 22:00 and 9:00 in the morning. They always worked perfectly.

After upgrading to iOS 15 first of all I had to re-create my DND configuration: I set it between 22:00 and 9:00.

But... it didn't work at all! This morning, after waking up, I realised that around 8:00 in the morning, DND was already OFF.... why?! Well... I put it ON manually and I expect it to go OFF again at 9:00, but..... it doesn't work either!

Essentially I created a schedule for DND but it's being completely ignored.

See the screenshots:

In the left one you can see it's 8:12 and DND is already OFF. In the right one you can see it's 9:01 and it's still ON.
Click to expand...
It seems they merge DND and Bedtime into one thing Focus. Before iOS 14 they was separate thing. Now they same thing but different name, probably why not working?
 
The sleep focus is more useful than bedtime was because now you can turn off bedtime reminders which were annoying and useless. Also it tracks when you stopped playing with your phone in bed to track how much sleep you're getting more accurately.
 
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zorinlynx said:
The sleep focus is more useful than bedtime was because now you can turn off bedtime reminders which were annoying and useless. Also it tracks when you stopped playing with your phone in bed to track how much sleep you're getting more accurately.
Click to expand...
Problem sleep focus have no option to set time if don't use bedtime. That main problem for me so that why I still using DND instead.
 
Morac said:
You can’t have 2 focuses active at the same time. Since both Sleep and DND are focuses, when sleep turns on DND will turn off. Use one or the other or set up 2 additional focuses that run from 22:00 to 0:00 and 7:30 to 9:00 respectively.
Click to expand...
Thanks for your help, but let me say that this is ridiculous (nothing against your advice but I can’t accept this from Apple).

With iOS 14 I simply could have this.

If now I set a DND between 7:30 and 9:00 and some day I need to anticipate my alarm to 7:00 or 6:30, this means I will have to manually set the DND to start from 6:30 instead of 7:30.

Before I had to do nothing at all apart from moving the gear on Bedtime.

This is a huge regression for me.
 
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andreagrandi said:
Thanks for your help, but let me say that this is ridiculous (nothing against your advice but I can’t accept this from Apple).

With iOS 14 I simply could have this.

If now I set a DND between 7:30 and 9:00 and some day I need to anticipate my alarm to 7:00 or 6:30, this means I will have to manually set the DND to start from 6:30 instead of 7:30.

Before I had to do nothing at all apart from moving the gear on Bedtime.

This is a huge regression for me.
Click to expand...
You can always just not use the Sleep focus. Just use the old fashioned Do Not Disturb and schedule it as appropriate, and set an old fashioned alarm when you want. Alarms still break through Do Not Disturb like before.
 
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zorinlynx said:
You can always just not use the Sleep focus. Just use the old fashioned Do Not Disturb and schedule it as appropriate, and set an old fashioned alarm when you want. Alarms still break through Do Not Disturb like before.
Click to expand...
As far as I know, the old "Do not disturb" is gone. It's only available inside "Full Immersion" -> "Do not disturb". About "Bed Time / Sleep", its schedule is set by the "Sleep" app when you configure it in Apple Watch (which I have). Am I missing anything else?
 
Do not disturb doesn’t work on my phone anymore.. I have it set to turn on automatically at 22:00 - 08:00 and it doesn’t do it.. am I doing something wrong?

CBB55F1E-DE41-479D-BBCB-9D9C16709725.jpg
 
As I imagined: I had to move my usual bedtime from 00:00 / 7:30 to 23:45 / 6:45 today and I had DND between 7:30 and 9:00. The result is that between 6:45 and 7:30 I could receive all the notifications and calls. This is a terrible regression!
 
I don't like the new sleep focus at all. They force us to set a whole sleep planning schedule with alarm and all in health app when I just want to create a normal schedule just like DND. The sad thing is I won't get the weather anymore on the lock screen in the end of a normal DND schedule and I must active a sleep schedule to trigger it but I don't want the other sleep stuff.

I think the whole focus feature is confusing with way more options that we actually needed. The only useful new feature is now it sync between all other devices but other than that I think they made it too complicated for what it is.
 
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I agree. Sleep focus need give option same as other focus allow set time in sleep focus not force go bedtime or health etc etc. I don’t need that. I stuck with DND since it only one works well.
 
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andreagrandi said:
As I imagined: I had to move my usual bedtime from 00:00 / 7:30 to 23:45 / 6:45 today and I had DND between 7:30 and 9:00. The result is that between 6:45 and 7:30 I could receive all the notifications and calls. This is a terrible regression!
Click to expand...

If I understand correctly, what you want is to have DND activate automatically after the sleep focus turned off and then stay active until 9:00, correct ?

If that's so, you can just add an automation inside the shortcut app:

When => Sleep / At Wake up / Add an action / Activate Focus: "Do not disturb" / toggle Off the "ask before execute" button

Let the DND schedule as it is above (activate between 7 and 9).

If you set these options:
- DND will activate only when you toggle the sleep focus OFF
- DND will turn off at 9
 
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SoYoung said:
I don't like the new sleep focus at all. They force us to set a whole sleep planning schedule with alarm and all in health app when I just want to create a normal schedule just like DND. The sad thing is I won't get the weather anymore on the lock screen in the end of a normal DND schedule and I must active a sleep schedule to trigger it but I don't want the other sleep stuff.

I think the whole focus feature is confusing with way more options that we actually needed. The only useful new feature is now it sync between all other devices but other than that I think they made it too complicated for what it is.
Click to expand...

You don't have to set an alarm when setting up a sleep schedule... Therefore you can set a schedule just like DND, it's just in the Health app, cos it's connected.

If you're going to complain, at least get the facts right.....
 
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