Last Friday I finally had to succumb and purchase a new phone, after checking in with several phone repair places in the city with no success, and even HTC itself (which has many attractive repair options for Americans but basically only the most expensive and awkward one for Canadians – costing me over half the price of the phone plus postage even though I’ve only had the phone for 7 months). So I headed down to my local (and beloved) Staples store and was marvelously served by a young and capable gentleman by the name of Dylan who got me hooked up with a new 2nd generation Moto G. Needless to say I spent the weekend getting it all up and running nicely.
But now, on to the alarms.
Thinking that maybe the apparent alarm clock conspiracy I was experiencing was due to the phone itself, I thought I’d take a clean run at setting up my alarms on this new phone. I set up my Google Music, downloaded the three songs I needed for my playlist, and decided to start with the “Alarm Clock xTreme” app which was a “close but no cigar” option on my last phone.
On Sunday night – excited about a brand new week starting up – I set up my individual alarms, connected the alarm to the appropriate track, and settled into bed with my fully charged sleepphones and promptly went to sleep.
At 2:00 am a neighbor’s car alarm sounded. It went on long enough that it first of all became an odd and integral part of a dream I was having. It continued to sound off until I was finally, irrevocably, awake. Now, I’m an amazing sleeper, but disruptions like this at 2:00 or later tend to mean that my night is over. However, I was determined to go back to sleep to test my alarms, and I really wanted to listen to this brain entrainment recording before I started my day. Besides, who wants to get up a 2:00am? That’s even too early for me!
To give myself the best chance of success at falling back asleep, I got up to use the bathroom without turning lights on and allowed my body to cool slightly. I gave myself a bit of a stretch, snuggled back under my warm sheets, and did some relaxation exercises to fall asleep. No luck. I tossed and turned for a while, practiced some more deep breathing, weighed pros and cons for getting up or continuing to struggle (knowing that a nap may not be an option for me today), and just as I was about to fall asleep my 3:50 alarm went off that was supposed to play my brain track (that’s what’s listed as the alarm sound in the app, and programmed in according to instructions). Instead what I got was this odd vibrating bonging sound (which seems to be the app’s default alarm sound) at full volume. For my husband’s sake I was grateful that the racket only occured in my sleepphones and he was blissfully unaware, but on my end of things I’m now panicking to find my phone, and while watching a screen that’s shooting 10,000 lumens into my eyeballs in a dark room, I pound the “dismiss” button on the alarm app to no avail. The app disappears from my screen while the bonging is still going on at full volume, and I’m having trouble locating it again – screen freezes, app won’t open when I do find it again, and so I finally just power down my phone.
Unfortunately the bluetooth disconnects about 20 seconds before the phone shuts down, so my headphones are no longer active but the phone is, sending peals of bonging sounds through the bedroom for another 10 seconds while the phone shuts off.
I am now wide awake, heart pounding. Tom is now awake. It’s still 30 minutes before I actually want to BE awake, and so I realize the jig is up. I drag myself out of bed and go to the livingroom for my devotions, but figure that I’ll do some testing while I’m reading.
I test several alarm scenarios – all 2-3 minutes apart – on the “Alarm Clock xTreme” app, none of which are playing my chosen track.
I then re-test my Sleep as Android app which records my sleep patterns and has the final “cuckoo” alarm that signals that it is indeed time to wake up. This is an alarm tone built into the app itself. I set an alarm for 3 minutes before the final alarm that should wake me with my playlist, and at the alarm time I get …silence.
Well. Glad I wasn’t testing that on a critical early morning wake up call.
I’m mulling this over and the time for my final alarm arrives – 4:20 – and instead of the cuckoo sound (which would be the best sound to celebrate my morning so far) I get a tiny little “bloop” and it stops.
Really? REALLLY? Sigh.
I spend most of this week playing with different apps, and find one that now seems to do exactly what I want. Woohoo!
Now I can’t get my phone to connect to my blue tooth headphones.
I’m going for a walk.
 |
Be A Star! Post your comments below and join in the conversation (or get it started!) and then share this post with your friends using the different share buttons on the blog. I'd sure appreciate it! Thanks! |
 |
Click here: www.darlenehull.com to find out! |
The post And the Alarm Clock Conspiracy Continues… appeared first on PraiseWalker.
