# aka Alarm — A gentler way to wake up

> A gentler way to wake up (iPhone/iPad app by Aleksandr Alekseev.)

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/aka-alarm/id6769459959 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`)
- Developer: [Aleksandr Alekseev](https://appshunter.io/developer/1896660147)
- Category: Utilities, Productivity
- Price: Free
- Age rating: 4+
- Requires: iOS 26.0 · 1 MB
- Languages: American English
- Released: 2026-05-14
- Data updated: 2026-08-18
- User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/aka-alarm/id6769459959/reviews.md

## What is aka Alarm?

aka Alarm wakes you at the right moment in your chosen window — not at an arbitrary fixed time.

Pick a wake-up window (any time, plus 30 minutes). Tap Start. aka Alarm listens to the ambient sound of your room and builds a rolling baseline of how quiet it really is. When the window opens, the first time you turn over, sigh, or shift the duvet, the alarm fires. If nothing happens, it fires at the end of the window so you never oversleep.

• Gentle wake-up — the alarm tone fades from 1 % to 100 % over a minute, so you come out of sleep gradually instead of being jolted.
• Smart snooze — lightly move the phone to snooze. The snooze duration is randomised between 60 seconds and 15 minutes, clamped to whatever's left of your window.
• On-device only — audio never leaves your phone. Nothing is recorded, stored, or transmitted. No accounts, no servers, no analytics.
• Native iOS 26 design — Liquid Glass throughout, no custom skinning.

How it works in one paragraph: the app continuously samples microphone input to compute the ambient sound level (in dBFS) and maintains a five-minute rolling baseline. Within the wake window, a level rise above the baseline by a configurable threshold triggers the alarm. The microphone is active only while an alarm is set. Audio samples are processed in memory and immediately discarded.

aka Alarm is open source under the MIT licence.


## Version history (last 3 releases)

### 1.2.0 — 2026-08-18

- New: sensitivity setting. Tap the gear and adjust how easily sounds above your room's baseline wake you - from Very low to Very high. The level bar now shows a red trigger line, so you can calibrate it live against real room noise.
- New: "Start listening" setting. The microphone now stays off until shortly before your wake-up window (1 hour by default, adjustable from "right away" to "5 minutes before"). Kinder to your battery, and the mic runs only when it matters.
- Fixed: the microphone could go completely silent while AirPods were connected. Bluetooth is now used for audio output only - your iPhone's own microphone always does the listening.
- Fixed: a several-second freeze when tapping Start.

### 1.1.0 — 2026-05-26

1.1 — wakes you up more reliably.
• Better sleep-movement detection. The alarm now catches brief stirring sounds (sheet rustles, sighs, duvet shifts) that the 1.0 algorithm averaged out. Stays calm on steady ambient noise.
• Fixes the AirPods bug: connecting or disconnecting Bluetooth audio no longer silently kills the microphone listener.
• Recovers from being interrupted by other apps (phone calls, YouTube, Siri). If something steals the mic, you get a notification and the listener auto-resumes when you reopen the app.
• Keeps the screen on while an alarm is armed, with a gentle dim so your room stays dark. Tap to wake.
• Remembers your last alarm time on next launch.

### 1.0 — 2026-05-15

No release notes.

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*Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-08-18.*