How to Create Alarms on Your HomePod

HomePod, much like an iPhone or iPad, can be used as an alarm clock replacement to wake you up in the morning or remind you of important tasks.

Using HomePod as an alarm clock is simple, but it is controlled separately than alarms on your iPhone and there are a few tricks to be aware of.

Setting Using Siri

The easiest way to set an alarm on the HomePod is to ask Siri. Siri can set a one-time alarm for you, or Siri can set recurring alarms that go off every day. Some sample commands:

Hey Siri, set an alarm for 10:00 a.m
Hey Siri, set an alarm for 9:00 a.m. every weekday
Hey Siri, set an alarm for 10:00 a.m. every Tuesday and Thursday
Hey Siri, set an alarm for 2:00 p.m. labeled Flight Check-In
Hey Siri, set an alarm for 9:00 a.m. every weekend

TIP: Labeling your alarms makes it easier for you to remember them and to reference them again when giving commands to Siri.

Managing Alarms Using Siri

You can manage your alarms with Siri, too. For example, if you want to delete an alarm, you can say something like "Hey Siri, delete the 2:00 p.m. alarm," or "Hey Siri, delete all of my alarms."

Changing an alarm is also possible, with a command like "Hey Siri, change the 2:00 p.m. alarm to 3:00 p.m, and if you want to know what alarms you have set up, say "Hey Siri, what alarms do I have on?"

Siri will run through all alarms that are set up on the HomePod with that command.

Managing and Setting Alarms in the Home App

Alarms that you set up on the HomePod through Siri can be viewed and managed in the Home app.

Open up the Home app.

3D Touch or long press on the HomePod icon on the main screen.

Tap "Alarms."

The "Alarms" section of the HomePod in the Home app looks a lot like the Alarm portion of the Clock app on the iPhone, so if you've used that, it should be immediately familiar.

If you tap the "+" button, you can set a new alarm, and if you tap the "Edit" button, you can edit or delete an existing alarm. Tapping one of the toggles next to an alarm turns it off temporarily.

With any alarm that you set or edit, you can add a time, cause it to repeat, and change the label.

NOTE: Prior to the HomePod's release, there were rumors suggesting users would be able to set songs as custom ringtones for the alarm feature of the HomePod, but that is not possible. There is no option to change the default sound of the alarm on the HomePod.

Disabling an Alarm

When an alarm goes off on the HomePod, an alarm sound activates and the top of the HomePod flashes with a white light. To turn it off, you simply need to tap the top of the HomePod.

If you don't have a free hand, you can also ask Siri to turn off the alarm: "Hey Siri, turn off the alarm." To snooze an alarm, you can say "Hey Siri, snooze" and it will snooze for a short period of time before the alarm goes off again.

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Top Rated Comments

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JoEw

13 months ago

Damn shameful you can't have the alarm set to a playlist, song or radio station on AM. This seems like a day 1 kind of feature for a device like this.

Rating: 5 Votes

Jobindoza

13 months ago

It is possible to snooze an alarm. The catch is that your have to speak the command: “Hey Siri, snooze”

Rating: 4 Votes

PlutoPrime

13 months ago

How about setting a "sleep" alarm for an audio device? The fact that you can't have your podcasts shut off after a certain amount of time kills about 33% of the usefulness of the home pod for me. It's a shame that so many day-1 features are missing.

I have a feeling that Apple knows all of this, and it was either ship HomePod with V1.0 Hardware V0.75 software, or ship Q1 2019 with 1.0 Hardware and 1.0 software.

Rating: 2 Votes

twocents

13 months ago

I prefer using my $600 Apple Watch as an alarm clock /s

Rating: 1 Votes

dfs

13 months ago

Nope, sorry. Apple won't let you change any HomePod of its system sounds. Andf all the system sounds available, it is as if Apple has chosen for its alarm sound the wimpiest and least likely to wake somebody up (that's what happened to me this afternoon). Better solution: iPhone/Pad transmit only music to any kind of outside speaker,not their own system sounds. So if these aren't loud enough for you, have it transmit a bit of music ("The Ride of the Valkyries" works just dandy) to your HomePod. Or if you insis t on using a special wakeup ringtone download one from the Web (you might like "Crystal Drops," which I use myself) and store it in your iTunes library. Your mobile device will treat it as music rather than a system sound and will transmit it to your speakers. Only drawback: what you lose is the ability to set an alarm by a voice command, you have do to it manually. But at least this is pretty much guaranteed to wake you up. (Nb- before going to bed the last thing you should do, besides flossing or flossing, is check Airplay and make sure your speaker is set as the target to which your music or "music" will be sent).

This sounds complicated but it's Apple's fault. They could make everybody's life easier by a.) using a more appropriate system sound for the HomePod alarm, b.) allowing us a choice of HomePod system sounds, and c.) allowing their mobile system sounds to be sent to an outside speaker (which you can do on a Mac).

Rating: 1 Votes

nicho

13 months ago

It is possible to snooze an alarm. The catch is that your have to speak the command: “Hey Siri, snooze”

This is what happens when a website focuses on quantity of articles rather than quality. Thanks for being their fact checker!

Rating: 1 Votes

chfilm

13 months ago

Damn shameful you can't have the alarm set to a playlist, song or radio station on AM. This seems like a day 1 kind of feature for a device like this.

Absolutely- especially since Sonos offers such a nice way of doing this, absolutely love their alarm with an Apple Music playlist and a smooooth fade in! It’s really a nice way of waking up! And Apple has such good curated playlists at Apple ,sic, that work perfectly in conjunction with Sonos. Would have totally expected the HomePod to do the same thing. Disappointing. Hope we’ll see a massive software update for this thing later this year!

Rating: 1 Votes

rturner2

13 months ago

This is really TERRIBLE.... the alarm feature should:
1) be able to play Apple Music playlist or radio station or genre
2) be able to fade on over X minutes
3) allow you to set the volume of the alarm

Rating: 1 Votes

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