I don’t understand why this sometimes wakes me up abruptly with the full volume angry alarm early in the morning. I am always too sleepy to figure out what’s going on and forget to check into it, but I captured a screenshot this morning when it happened:
I don’t know why it’s at full blast at 7:21 when it’s supposed to be a gentle water sound alarm later. These are the settings:
Jello @o12345,
the alarm has 30-minute smart period, so at 7:21, it could have been in progress for 21 minutes (if the smart alarm was triggered really early).
If you had the selected ringtone, but very loud, the gentle volume increase could have been already at 90-95% of the volume.
If you heard a basic sirene ringtone, the backup alarm (full volume alarm) was already triggered after 20 minutes. The backup alarm is triggered if you do not react to your alarm for more than 20 minutes.
If you need more time to wake up, prolong the alarm time out in Settings > Alarms > Alarm time-out.
Or, try another ringtone if the gentle water sound does not wake you up even at a loud level.
(if the smart alarm was triggered really early).
What triggers the smart alarm? Shouldn’t the backup alarm wait until the end of the “smart” period? This morning the gentle alarm was still going at 7:30 am as I would expect.
The smart alarm is triggered when a light sleep phase is detected.
The alarm time-out has no connection to the smart period, it is triggered after 20 minutes after the alarm start. You can configure a different alarm time-out period if needed.
Kept happening to me night after night. I have the Hail Mary song. Full blast, woke me up like I was late for church. I don’t use Smart Wake up nor backup alarm just regular alarm. I keep setting volume to low mid range but nope next morning full blast went to alarm screen and was at full volume did that 3 night in a row, fourth night it gave up and accepted my settings 
Hi, are you using the Gentle volume feature, or do you have “current system alarm volume” configured?
If you rely on the system alarm volume, it might not be suitable for waking you up, and the app won’t be able to change it when the alarm already started. Any other app, or the system can alter the alarm system volume.
The Gentle volume feature gives the app full control over the alarm volume, and it always goes from zero to the max (or till you snooze/dismiss).
So talking to Lenka by email, this is not actually a bug, but the way it is meant to work?
The backup alarm can start before the alarm time with the smart period - the same way the smart alarm can start before the alarm time. They are connected, the backup alarm is a feature of the regular alarm, not an individual alarm scheduled 20 minutes after the alarm time.
The backup alarm will trigger before the alarm time ONLY if the smart alarm triggered before the alarm time. Always 20 minutes after the alarm start. Not 20 minutes after the alarm time.
I don’t think this is the way it should work, though. The Backup Alarm should behave as an actual backup alarm, as a last resort if the usual alarm doesn’t work. So if my alarm time is 7:30 and the Backup Alarm is set for 20 minutes, then the Backup Alarm should always go off at 7:50, regardless of when the smart alarm tries to wake me up.
Yes, this is intentional - the backup alarm is not a individial alarm. It is a feature of the alarm.
So if the alarm started earlier, the backup alarm will also start earlier.
If your regular alarm went off for 20 minutes and you did not wake up, the backup alarm (the last resort alarm) starts.
If your alarm starts at 7:30, your backup alarm will start at 07:50.
If your alarm starts at 07:01, your backup alarm will start at 07:21.
Please change this. This is not how a backup alarm should function. The backup alarm should be a backup for when the main alarm doesn’t wake up the user.
We use this approach since the beginning - and this might be the first negative feedback on how the backup alarm is designed. But of course, if we have more suggestions from our users, we will reconsider this.
He’s actually right, the mode you have “backup” alarm working is not actually how a real Backup of anything works. Backup means if something doesn’t work as it should the backup will kick in. It’s not " the main function works but let’s also activate the backup just because" it just makes no sense and it is not again how a backup works and what a backup is.
The backup alarm will trigger ONLY if the regular alarm fails to wake you up.
How else should the backup alarm work?
Backup means "if the lights goes off, the generator goes on " it’s not if the light it’s on for 15 minutes and you don’t realize it’s on we will turn the generator anyhow.
It should ONLY turn on if the primary for “any” reason doesn’t trigger. If it doesn’t make a sound THEN backup sounds. It’s not " in going to trigger primary and let it run from 14mins if you don’t wake up and acknowledge the alarm I will also turn the backup " no that’s not the definition of backup, that’s definition of a REMINDER. If you didn’t wake up and acknowledge it then 2 minutes after the end of primary I will start a REMINDER that will sound for 5 minutes.
Hope you understand
So you think there should not be any backup alarm, even when the regular alarm did not wake you up?
You can configure the backup alarm as silent, but if the regular alarm will not wake you up, and there is no backup alarm, you will oversleep. So use it with caution.
There might be some confusion about the terms used in the apps…
There is fallback ringtone, that is launched, if the chosen ringtone fails to play for some reason (Spotify does not have connectivity, online radio is blocked by a VPN service, the file is no longer available…).
And there is backup alarm. It does not trigger out of nowhere, nor starts screaming randomly. It triggers only after 20 minutes of ringing of the regular alarm. It is the last resort attempt to wake you up.
Sir you are confused as to the meaning of “backup” again backup means if primary source of something doesn’t work or turn on or start or whatever,then the backup system goes on. Your definition of backup is ( even if the primary source is on, working, starting, after x minutes also turn the backup on ) that’s totally wrong. Imagine a house that has a backup generator for when the lights go out, will you configure to turn it on after 3 hours of the lights being on just because the lights in the closet are off because I forgot or just didn’t turn it on? Does it even make sense? No, doesn’t make sense in the app either. Like I previously said, term can be changed to Reminder alarm but NOT backup, it’s not it’s purpose.
The primary job of alarm is to wake you up. If it does not wake you up, it is not doing its job = does not work.
The alarm did not forget to wake you up (like you would forget to turn on the lights), it failed to do its only job.
But I hear you, and I noted, that you think we should remove a fetaure, that can be turned off, and has saved many users from oversleeping.
When and where did I say to take it off? I’m just agreeing with the OP. The TERM backup is not the correct one. It is not what the app is doing,all it’s doing is a reminder of the primary alarm because user didn’t wake up, period
Hope you can come around and just understand
So the ChatGPT says, the backup alarm is a secondary alarm set to ensure that you woke up.
For example due to a user error - like configuring the alarm not prominent enough, or have it as silent by mistake. Yes, I completely agree with this!
The OP did not say it should not be used as the alarm, that goes off after the regular alarm. He wants the backup alarm to start after 20 minutes after the alarm time, not after the alarm start.
It should not do that. It should trigger 20 minutes after the alarm time. If the regular alarm does not wake you up because the app misjudged that you are partially awake, then the backup alarm is going to start screaming and startle you awake before the alarm time, which is very bad.
It’s OK for the gentle ramped alarm to try to wake you up early if it thinks you are partially awake, but if that judgment was wrong, it should just keep gently trying to wake you up until the set alarm time, and then the backup should only fire 20 minutes after that fails.
If I set my alarm for 7:30, there is absolutely no reason it should be startling me awake with a loud alarm at 7:20.
The idea is, if you are fine with being woken up at 07:00 by the smart alarm, it should not be an issue to be woken up at 07:20. The problem here is, that you seem to have very gentle regular alarm, that is not waking you up even a slightest, so the backup alarm is then too prominent, which makes the wake-up experience unpleasant.
Are you using the gentle volume increase? How long period? Do you use vibrations? Or smart lights?
The gentle volume increases from zero to max - so you should be at least partially awake after 20 minutes of the alarm ringing.
Letting the alarm ring for 49 minutes till 07:50 means you can be again in the deep sleep, and will be startled - just a little later, and being woken up from the full deep sleep would probably just make it even worse.
Do you think the smart alarm is too sensitive, so are in fact not in the light sleep? This can be fine tuned in the settings.
You can use a gradual alarm - start with a gentle sound increase for a few minutes, then add the vibrations (wearable or phone). And only if the alarm rings at max for a few minutes, the backup alarm will trigger.
Ideally you rarely (or even never) reach the backup alarm. It should be the very last attempt.
