aka Alarm vs Tick Sync

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.

When standard time radio signals do not reach your area, or walls and interference prevent your watch from receiving them—Tick Sync provides another path to the correct time. Start with radio-controlled watch assistance. Place the watch near the built-in speaker of your iPhone or iPad and begin manual reception. Tick Sync generates time codes for JJY 40/60, WWVB, MSF, DCF77, and BPC, helping the watch attempt synchronization over a very short distance. For explicitly compatible Bluetooth watches, pair and connect the watch, wait until it is ready to sync, and then send the current local time manually. With Advanced Features, Tick Sync can maintain an eligible Bluetooth connection in the background. When the watch reconnects and becomes ready, Tick Sync normally obtains a fresh NTP correction and sends the time automatically, reducing the need to open the app for every sync. Background timing is determined by iOS or iPadOS and watch connection events rather than an exact schedule. Your time source is not limited to the device’s system clock. Free Single NTP mode queries a server you choose. Multi-NTP mode compares at least three independent sources, finds a majority-agreed time range, rejects inconsistent responses, and displays estimated uncertainty. HIGHLIGHTS • Very-short-range JJY 40/60, WWVB, MSF, DCF77, and BPC radio-controlled watch assistance • Manual and background automatic Bluetooth time sync for explicitly compatible watches • System Time, Single NTP, and Multi-NTP sources • NTP server management, optional location preselection, outlier rejection, and uncertainty estimates • Watch battery level display • No account required Radio assistance, manual Bluetooth time sync, System Time, and Single NTP are free. Background automatic Bluetooth sync and Multi-NTP features require an auto-renewing annual Advanced Features subscription. Tick Sync is an independent utility and is not affiliated with any watch manufacturer. Bluetooth compatibility depends on the watch model and firmware, while background operation depends on iOS or iPadOS and watch connection events. A successful Bluetooth write does not guarantee that the watch applied or displayed the new time. An iPhone or iPad does not transmit a normal 40–77.5 kHz longwave broadcast. Radio-assisted results vary with the device, watch hardware, volume, placement, and interference. Always verify the final time independently before relying on it. Terms of Use (Apple Standard EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Supplemental Terms of Use: https://ticksync.dishangti.com/legal/en/terms.html Privacy Policy: https://ticksync.dishangti.com/legal/en/privacy.html