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The iPhone alarm the least reliable alarm in the history of earth?

S

Soundburst

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 4, 2006
691
20
hey everyone,

Second time in two weeks I've been late for work because I've woke up... looked at my phone and the alarm is displaying on the phone but there's absolutely no sound coming out.

Watch is charging as it always does.

How can this silent alarm stuff still happen a decade on from the first iPhone?

How do you fix this?

Thanks a lot
 
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Soundburst said:
hey everyone,

Second time in two weeks I've been late for work because I've woke up... looked at my phone and the alarm is displaying on the phone but there's absolutely no sound coming out.

Watch is charging as it always does.

How can this silent alarm stuff still happen a decade on from the first iPhone?

How do you fix this?

Thanks a lot
Click to expand...
Have you tried changing some alarm settings to see if it makes a difference? Perhaps resetting all settings if not restoring?
 
check your phone ringer volume, if its all the way down it affects the volume of the alarm. I've never had an issue not hearing an alarm on the iphone, but I make sure my ringer volume is down low before going to bed or I'll be woken up by a jarringly loud sound in the morning.
 
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This happens to both Android and iPhone. Ringer volume needs to be up. Go to Settings --> Sounds and notice that under the two options on the top there is a : "Ringer and Alerts" ---- if this is turned all the way down, then you'll experience what you have. I keep my phone's silence switch on ALL the time because I don't often use my phone as a phone. But the Ringer and Alerts volume is about 60%.

Open up Youtube --- play a video - you can use the volume buttons to turn that down without affecting the Ringer and Alerts volume. I wish it was more apparent because when I'm in a meeting and I want to open an app I know has sound, I freak out because there's no easy way to change that volume without first playing a sound.

However, sitting at the home screen, if you hit the volume buttons AND you have the option: "Change with Buttons" for Ringer and Alerts ---- and you put the ringer all the way down, it will silence an alarm.

So here's what I do: Set DND (Do Not Disturb) for 10pm - 7am. Leave Silence Switch On. Open Youtube and play a video and turn that volume ALL the way down. But make sure Ringer and Alerts is at 60%. That's how I leave my phone 100% of the time.
 
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I don't see why my volume would have been down but I'll see if that solves it.

My phone is always on silent at night as I don't want to be woken by a text or phone call when sleeping.

The alarm overrides silent (to the person saying they only got a silent alarm when they left their phone on silent) @Lappen71
 
I've started using "bedtime" instead of the alarm; I prefer the more soothing wake up tones.

Anyway, I missed an alarm the other day because the time was set correctly BUT I didn't have that day enabled for the repeating alarm in "options."
 
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If your volume is all the way down it won't make a noise. I solved this by going to settings, sounds and haptics, and turning off change with buttons while having the rining with alearts turned up. This makes it so even if you left the system audio on low the alarm will still be on loud.

Another thing I noticed is if an alarm is left rining for a while it will eventually stop making a sound.

If the mute switch is on or off it makes no difference. Mine is on mute 95% of the time.
 
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Soundburst said:
I don't see why my volume would have been down but I'll see if that solves it.

My phone is always on silent at night as I don't want to be woken by a text or phone call when sleeping.

The alarm overrides silent (to the person saying they only got a silent alarm when they left their phone on silent) @Lappen71
Click to expand...

No it doesn't. If you turn of the ringtone the alarm will be quite.
 
Lappen71 said:
No it doesn't. If you turn of the ringtone the alarm will be quite.
Click to expand...
If the silent/vibrate switch one the side of the phone is enabled the alarm will still produce sounds/vibrations.
[doublepost=1488571674][/doublepost]
goobot said:
If your volume is all the way down it won't make a noise. I solved this by going to settings, sounds and haptics, and turning off change with buttons while having the rining with alearts turned up. This makes it so even if you left the system audio on low the alarm will still be on loud.

Another thing I noticed is if an alarm is left rining for a while it will eventually stop making a sound.

If the mute switch is on or off it makes no difference. Mine is on mute 95% of the time.
Click to expand...
You can turn the ringer (and thus alert and alarm) volume down to the lowest setting, but not fully silent as it won't go beyond the lowest setting. In that case the alarm will still go off, although it will just be fairly quiet (but not silent).
 
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I had to reset my phone as new the other day due to a corrupt 10.3 beta update. with no modifications, the vanilla install of 10.2.1 defaulted to setting the ringer volume to zero, and the speaker volume to normal, resulting in no alarm sound in the morning. Then when I re-paired the phone with my car bluetooth for navigation prompts, it again appeared to set my car's HFP volume to zero, but kept regular bluetooth audio at normal volume. Needless to say, it was a frustrating morning trying to get to an important meeting.
 
It happens to my wife all the time. I usually have to check it for her. If the volume is all the way down in settings, you can bet there will be no sound when the alarm goes off.
 
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Jnesbitt82 said:
It happens to my wife all the time. I usually have to check it for her. If the volume is all the way down in settings, you can bet there will be no sound when the alarm goes off.
Click to expand...
There should still be sound as ringer volume (which is used for alarm) can't be fully off in settings just very low.
 
C DM said:
There should still be sound as ringer volume (which is used for alarm) can't be fully off in settings just very low.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure why it does it. But when she turns the volume off using the buttons on the side, she no longer has sound from her alarms. The screen lights up and the word "alarm" pops up but there won't be any sound.
 
Jnesbitt82 said:
I'm not sure why it does it. But when she turns the volume off using the buttons on the side, she no longer has sound from her alarms. The screen lights up and the word "alarm" pops up but there won't be any sound.
Click to expand...
Odd. I tied it all just earlier today and could only go to the lowest setting for ringer volume which would be low but not silent, and the alarm worked the same way.
 
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Soundburst said:
hey everyone,

Second time in two weeks I've been late for work because I've woke up... looked at my phone and the alarm is displaying on the phone but there's absolutely no sound coming out.

Watch is charging as it always does.

How can this silent alarm stuff still happen a decade on from the first iPhone?

How do you fix this?

Thanks a lot
Click to expand...

This has never happened to me at all. The only problem I have ever had was turning the alarm off.
 
Soundburst said:
How do you fix this?
Click to expand...

My alarm has never failed to go off, but I'm a heavy sleeper and it's not at all uncommon for me to oversleep my alarm, especially if the ringer volume isn't turned to max. Turning your ringer volume to max has its issues too as you already commented on so I prefer to keep my phone on vibrate and put it on a hard surface like a table. This makes such a racket and such an annoying sound that it wakes me up as effectively as a loud sound without disturbing the peace.
 
BigMcGuire said:
This happens to both Android and iPhone. Ringer volume needs to be up. Go to Settings --> Sounds and notice that under the two options on the top there is a : "Ringer and Alerts" ---- if this is turned all the way down, then you'll experience what you have. I keep my phone's silence switch on ALL the time because I don't often use my phone as a phone. But the Ringer and Alerts volume is about 60%.

Open up Youtube --- play a video - you can use the volume buttons to turn that down without affecting the Ringer and Alerts volume. I wish it was more apparent because when I'm in a meeting and I want to open an app I know has sound, I freak out because there's no easy way to change that volume without first playing a sound.

However, sitting at the home screen, if you hit the volume buttons AND you have the option: "Change with Buttons" for Ringer and Alerts ---- and you put the ringer all the way down, it will silence an alarm.

So here's what I do: Set DND (Do Not Disturb) for 10pm - 7am. Leave Silence Switch On. Open Youtube and play a video and turn that volume ALL the way down. But make sure Ringer and Alerts is at 60%. That's how I leave my phone 100% of the time.
Click to expand...

There is an easy way to change media volume without first playing a sound. You don't even have to unlock the phone to do that. Simply swipe up the control panel then swipe to the right, you'll see the volume slider. Drag the slider to the left. Done. No more freaking out during meetings when opening apps that have sound ;)
 
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Switch to silent and then on the home screen turn the volume up. Simple as that.
 
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