Most of us rely on our smartphones to wake up in the morning. Unless your battery really sucks, we don’t encounter a Home Alone situation very often. But when your alarm isn’t reliable, and you have someplace important to be, you have a big problem. and that is what going on with Android’s Clock app, as a new bug breaks the alarm function so many of us use every day.
There are many reports of unhappy (but presumably well-slept) Android Clock users bemoaning their alarms not going off. The app’s page in the Play Store is flooded with one-star reviews, and a Reddit thread shows off the wide variety of Android users who are confused, frustrated, and looking for answers. While the Pixel line is among the most common afflicted, users of other devices such as OnePlus and Oppo, have also complained.
Those who have experienced the alarm clock bug say that their alarm will start to vibrate, but will immediately stop. One Redditor says that after testing their device, the alarm would go off five out of six times. Essentially, they’re playing Russian Roulette with their alarm clock; who wants to take those odds?
Is there a fix for the Android alarm clock bug?
The bad news is, unfortunately, no; there doesn’t appear to be a fix for the app at this time. Users have claimed that typical troubleshooting tactics for buggy apps — like clearing the cache or uninstalling and reinstalling the app — have no effect on the bug. If your app is afflicted, you’re bound to see the issue come back again.
It’s easy to imagine that Google is working — ahem — around the clock to send out a patch for the app’s disastrous bug. If you have auto-update apps enabled, the patch should install itself once it’s available. To check for a new update manually, go to the Play Store, and search for Clock (or tap here). Tap on the one by Google LLC; if you see “Update” as an option, tap it. We’ll update this article when that patch is available, including the software version number so you can be sure you’re downloading the right update.
Download a third-party alarm app in the meantime
Until then, the only real fix is to use a different source for your alarm. Luckily, the Play Store is rife with options. So many options, in fact, that you could likely pick one at random, download it, and wake up tomorrow morning just fine. But if you’re in the market for recommendations, we have a couple you might like.
If you’re looking for something a little different, you might want to consider Sleep Cycle. This free app actually tracks your sleeping patterns to determine which sleep cycle you might be in at any given point. It takes that info to try to wake you up when you’re in your lightest point in the cycle. By default, you set a 30 minute window you’d be ok waking up in; if you need to be up by 6:30, Sleep Cycle would wake you up anywhere between 6:00 and 6:30, whenever it thought you’d have the easiest time getting up.
If you have a really hard time waking up, you could consider Alarm Clock for Heavy Sleepers. As the name implies, the app is designed for people who usually sleep through or accidentally shut off their alarms. That’s because it allows you to set “challenges,” which force you to complete a task before the alarm can be turned off. That could be a Captcha task, maths problem, light challenge, the list goes on. You might want to experiment with different challenges to find the one that best forces you awake.
Alarmy is another great choice. Like the last app, Alarmy has “missions” you can set to shake yourself awake in the morning. Take a picture, shake your phone, or choose a set number of maths problems to complete before you can turn it off. And you’re going to want to turn it off because Alarmy gets loud. It also touts itself as the highest-rated alarm clock app in the world; if peer review matters to you, Alarmy might be your app.
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