THINKERBIT DARK MODE

Wake N Shake Review

November 22, 2011
alarmi

A while ago I mentioned an alarm clock app, Wake N Shake, that seemed pretty promising for people who typically have trouble waking up to their alarm in the morning. The lack of any kind of snooze button and ruthless shaking mechanism are its distinguishing features, and after using it for a few weeks I'm actually pretty impressed with it. Yes it's quirky, and yes for most people the included alarm clock app will do just fine, but for the night owls out there who consistently shun the sunlight of morn by hitting snooze 6 or 7 times this is a pretty good option. *See Special Notice at bottom

Let's start with looks: Wake N Shake looks good. It does. Instead of offering customizable colors and themes like many other alarm clock apps do, Wake N Shake sticks with its one well-made design and that's it. No unnecessary weather widgets, no animated backgrounds, just the amount of time left before you need to wake up and Alarmi, a friendly little alarm clock guy who's ready and waiting to wake you up.

alarms

The alarm settings are accessed with a little plus icon on the main page, and once again, Wake N Shake keeps them simple. The first tab lets you set recurring alarms and the shake intensity of each, so if you need a lot of help on Tuesdays when you wake up at 7am but don't need much help on Sundays when you wake up at 11am you can adjust for that. The second tab lets you quickly start a nap timer and the third tab just has a few extra settings for default alarm sounds and vibration and whatnot. It's clean, easy to understand, and once you've set it up you should be good for weeks.

Speaking of alarm sounds, Wake N Shake includes some of the most creative, annoying, and entertaining sounds I've ever heard in an alarm app. There's a GLaDOS-like robot who loves french toast, a bear mauling somebody, exploding bombs and gunfire, a "Espanish"-speaking guy who wants to have "brahfest" with you and salsa-dance, some classic circus music, annoying kids, a guy eating chips really obnoxiously, and a bunch more. I hope the developers keep on adding more sounds like these because, even though the app probably has enough already, they're just so darn entertaining to wake up to. Being jolted awake by a stampede of noisy instrument-playing Brazilians is so weird that my brain seems to wake up even before shaking the phone, and that's a good thing.

shake

As its name suggests, Wake N Shake requires you to shake your iPhone in the morning to turn off the alarm. This may sound dangerous (either for your phone or you), but so far I haven't had any problems: knowing that you're handling an expensive device instead of a $12 clock radio from Target makes you pay a bit more attention, which, in turn, keeps you alert. If you have some sort of case for extra grip I think you should be good, but if you don't then you should use your discretion. My "Morning Me" is usually conscious enough to know that he shouldn't hit the source of screaming Chimpanzees, but your "Morning You" might be scared of chimps and throw a rampage, I don't know. Have a discussion with "Morning You" to decide if shaking your phone in the morning is a good idea.

Wake N Shake is also persistent about making sure you don't just quit the app and go back to sleep. If you do so a notification with sound pops up boasting that you, "can't escape", but unfortunately that's not entirely true. Flipping the silent switch while on the home screen makes every notification just turn into a brief vibration that's completely sleep-throughable.

There's another important detail about this app (and third-party alarm clock apps in general) that I haven't discussed yet: because of iOS's restrictions you need to be careful about the state of your phone before going off to sleep. For example, if your phone is unplugged, on silent, and the app isn't running then the alarm will just make your phone vibrate for a brief instant every minute (by sending notifications) and that's it. You probably won't wake up from that. iOS 5 improved the capabilities of these apps a little bit, but it's still not fool-proof, and that's unfortunate. The good news is that if you use a speaker dock your phone's volume is automatically turned up and the alarm goes off even while in silent mode. I tested the app in a variety of configurations and posted the results at the bottom of this review if you want more details.

All in all, Wake N Shake is a cleverly designed and simple alarm clock in a sea of overly customizable and multi-functional weather/radio/clock/alarm apps. It wakes you up reliably, and that's it. Despite my suspicion that he would do so, "Morning Me" hasn't abused the currently unfixable loopholes that I found, and he's been waking up more reliably than ever before. It's because of this touching success story and the app's craftsmanship, personality and simplicity that I proudly award Wake N Shake 5 out of 5 points/stars/kudos. Thanks for helping me wake myself up, Alarmi.

*Special Notice: Of course, these kinds of wake-up-or-else alarm clock apps aren't necessary if you diligently follow a regular and healthy 8-hour-or-so sleep schedule, but for the rest of the population that isn't either retired, jobless, lazy, living in a basement or on Summer vacation, Wake N Shake continues to be worthy of your consideration.

Wake N Shake Test Results:

In-app, full volume, full ringer: notification and loud sound
In-app, full volume, low ringer: notification and loud sound
In-app, low volume, low ringer: notification and low sound
In-app, silent mode, low volume: notification and low sound

Out-app, full volume, full ringer: notification and loud sound
Out-app, full volume, low ringer: notification and low sound
Out-app, low volume, low ringer: notification and low sound
Out-app, silent mode: notification, no sound, vibrates once

In-app, in-dock, silent mode, low volume: notification & low sound
Out-app, in-dock, silent mode, low volume: notification & low sound