Alarm Clock HD Reviews

by Tsurowiec

I like to read reviews and choose things based on highest rating from most people. Unfortunately, I didn’t see that all of the glowing reviews are from previous versions of AlarmClockHD . In the last year they started to change, and I’ve been finding out why.

This morning is the 6th or 7th time that my alarm failed to make any noise and wake me up (I’ve been using AlarmClockHD for several months now). I’m a teacher so more often than not, I keep my ringer on vibrate and don’t bother to switch it on when I’m not at work. It appears that (sometimes?) AlarmClockHD requires the ringer to be on in order for the alarm to sound. Most of the time a little warning message pops up saying that the alarm won’t sound because my phone is muted, so I remember to turn it back on. Sometimes it says that the alarm won’t sound when muted unless the phone is charging. Sometimes it pretends everything is fine until morning when it makes no noise at all. On these days, half the time it indicates that it’d been “going off” for an hour and (I’m presuming) has snoozed itself enough times to just stop trying. The other half it’s like I never set an alarm - no indication anywhere that anything happened at the time my alarm is set for.

It’s heartbreaking because I wanted something that I could customize, and this was perfect! It’s too much of a gamble to be worth it though - alarms need to be consistent, and there’s truly no room for the possibility of it not going off.

by Magnus_Did_Nothing_Wrong

Unfortunately I have to finally delete AlarmClockHD after using it for a couple years. The ads appear full screen and all too often. If the device falls asleep and you haven’t clicked out of an ad then the alarm just doesn’t sound.

I’d be willing to support you guys with a one time payment, but you’ve taken away all incentive by making this a subscription service. I’m willing to bet most people aren’t going to be that stupid to pay for a subscription to an alarm clock app.

Update: Seriously, I’d love to support you and buy this to get ad free version. The full screen ads broke AlarmClockHD, but read the comments guys. Make it a one time payment, or get rid of the full screen ads. People want to support you, we want to pay you for your app, but subscription services aren’t for alarm clock apps. What premium service and support should I need with an ALARM CLOCK? If you added a one time fee option, I’d hazard a guess that nobody would choose the subscription service just because it has “premium support.” Stop trying to be EA Games.

by Hagg1s73

The one star is for the current version out there in the past you’ve been a 5. I have used this alarm app for years over the built in Apple one and never had an issue until this morning. Sorry to say the issue forced me to delete AlarmClockHD so I could use my phone.
This morning the alarm did go off but muted my phone volume so no alarm. This caused me to sleep in and because the alarm had muted my phone I didn’t hear the calls from my work wondering where I was. When my internal body clock woke me I was already an hour late and could not access my phone because the alarm app was looping and kept setting off the muted alarm. If I came out AlarmClockHD the volume indicator was also looping and showed the phone as muted and a constant notification alert that the alarm was going off. I switched the phone off and when it rebooted went straight into the alarm sounding. Once I entered my password it went straight back into the alarm muted loop. With some difficulty I managed to get AlarmClockHD deleted as all attempts to stop the alarm failed.
Let me know when you fix the bug as you have a good product that I’ve used for years with out trouble and I’m willing to give you another chance. Everyone is allowed an error just can’t trust AlarmClockHD until the issue is resolved.

by RChelpg

Had to downgrade my 5 star review from 4 years ago as I just had to uninstall AlarmClockHD. It’s been not going off in the morning. At first it wasn’t finding my music (again...this seems to be a constant affliction after any update). So I made it a special playlist. Solved. Then it wasn’t waking on time. So for the last 2 days I’ve set an old fashioned manual bell clock so i could wake up and watch my phone clock. Here’s what I saw both days.

1. The time for alarm arrives. App is on screen and display changes to a small overlay with tiny buttons. No sound is playing and though I’ve not touched anything, the snooze counter started counting from 7 minutes on its own. So I guess AlarmClockHD snoozed itself! Wait, what? Yea, that happened again when it got to zero. The snooze timer reset on its own and started counting down again.

2. So I manually hit the (now too tiny) Stop icon. Well, now my wake music starts playing and loudly right fast. I’m definitely awake. Oh and the snooze counter restarts again now.

3. I double click home button, swipe and close alarm app. It’s still playing my wake music. I uninstall the program. It’s still playing my alarm music. I turn my phone all the way off. Sweet silence. Day 1 I reinstalled to give AlarmClockHD another chance. It behaved the same Day 2.

So AlarmClockHD is currently very janky. I’ll watch the update info for when it’s back to working properly. Until then it’s not allowed on my phone.

by Missyn73

DO NOT DOWNLOAD IF YOU WANT TO WAKE UP! Not sure what is going on with AlarmClockHD lately. I have the paid version and I’ve been using it for years. My kids use it for school and work as well. The past 6-9 months have had lots of quirky issues. Unfortunately, it’s become more and more unreliable and this past week was the last straw when it caused my daughter to miss college classes, me to be late to work and for my son to miss one of his basketball games because it froze and never woke us up!! This past week I have woken up to seeing the snooze and stop buttons on the screen but no sound and the buttons could not be pressed. Another day similar situation but I was able to hit snooze but had to hit it several times for it to start but then it froze and never went off. Yesterday it froze at the alarm time with no snooze or stop buttons and no sound.
So disappointed! I loved AlarmClockHD. It was simple, easy to use and reliable. How hard is it?! I just want an alarm clock that works and now I’m thinking I’m gonna have to go back to the good old fashioned alarm clock and not my phone.

by Wiretalker

I have been using AlarmClockHD since the first iPad came out. Then iphone. Finally I decided to try the watch and my alarm just quit sounding I deleted AlarmClockHD off the phone hoping the alarm would revert back no luck. I went through every feature I could find no way to select which device sounds. Also adds became more frequent and annoying my Apple Watch is series 6. I only remember ads when I kept the screen on before now they sound when I’m trying to turn off the alarm. This is the kind of thing that ruins relationships way to early in the morning. I know it’s because of the new watch but there needs to be a gentle nudge on the watch and the normal sound on the iPhone or iPad right now I just get a nudge from the regular watch alarm otherwise I would have missed work luckily I have woke early the first time the alarm failed me and setup the watches basic alarm. Please make selectable a slide that determines if the phone sounds and revisit the watch app it is not right.

by Stephanie From Chicago.

UPDATE: Note to developers; The problem first appeared on the paid version which I deleted to reinstall. But the icons seem identical for both free and paid so I probably accidentally downloaded the free version. However the reboots happened in both versions. I’ll try out the updated paid version and see if anything has improved. Original review: I’ve been using this for years, but just like the other poster, I’m having major problems with this installed so I had to delete it entirely. First, it soft reboots my screen constantly. Then the alarms no longer work. If you open AlarmClockHD when the alarm is supposed to go off, only then does it miraculously start beeping. Then reboots my screen again. I tried to uninstall then reinstall and reboots start again. I don’t understand but it works fine on my iPhone 6 Plus but 7 Plus is my main phone so I can’t use it on that. This just started recently so I don’t know if you did something in the background or if it’s the update. But this is really bad and I need to find a new, reliable alarm app for now.

by Tunedelicious

AlarmClockHD is clean and has most of the features I’d look for, like unlimited alarms, a lot of customization, ability to use your playlists instead of choosing multiple songs, etc., but there’s one drawback: too often it just doesn’t play anything. My specific method is to connect to a Bluetooth speaker next to the phone the night before, test the volume, set an alarm and leave AlarmClockHD running. It’s supposed to wake with sound if it was the front-focused app when you put the phone to sleep, but that was inconsistent. Now I don’t even shut the iPhone off, I just turn it upside down to hide the screen, and the same problem occurs. The Bluetooth speaker is ready, the phone has volume up, but AlarmClockHD is silent. And it’s running; the screen says “stop” and “snooze,” so the timer is running, just no audible alarm. I’m deleting and installing again as a test, but if this continues, into the trash you go.

by NerdWriter

I really liked this alarm and how soft it sounded since I’m a light sleeper and all other alarms are quite loud. I don’t need one that scares the living daylights out of me so early. I liked it so much I even paid for a subscription. It wasn’t until this morning that I noticed that it was draining my battery quickly. I went to sleep at 11 pm with 100% battery and woke up at 5 am (without an alarm) to find it at 72%! My battery has been draining quickly lately and I couldn’t figure out why. Then I saw that it was because of AlarmClockHD! It used up more than 50% of my battery in a 24 hour period which is saying something since I’m a heavy IG user. If I had all the bells and whistles turned off (RSS feed, weather, notifications, etc) turned off and it still drained my battery (which is still in good condition) that quickly, I’ll look for another app or even a physical alarm instead.

by SY331

One of the reasons I love AlarmClockHD (I've used it every single day for years) is because its display on my iPad is so big--I can read the time without my contact lenses. But the display changed in this week's upgrade. Now when the alarm is going off or it's in snooze mode, both the countdown to the next alarm and the actual time are so small that I can't read them at all unless my face is a few inches from the screen. The STOP button also got smaller, and instead of being red (which was easy to see when you're fumbling around in the dark), it's just white like the snooze button--you actually have to read the button text to make sure you have the right one. Clearly, the developers have better eyesight than I do.

The other thing I noticed is that the volume gets loud a lot more quickly than it used to. I really appreciated the long fade in because I could usually turn the alarm off before it got loud enough to wake my husband. It's also a lot less jarring to wake up when it fades in slowly.

Bring back the colors, the big font size, and the slow audio fade!

by Isthiswhereiputanickname

PROS: it looks cool, if you buy the subscription version with no ads. It has a weather widget built in the display. It enables slightly faster access to the flashlight than opening the control center. I guess.

CONS: a recurring subscription is required for no ads, and if you don’t pay it the ads render AlarmClockHD too irritating for me to tolerate. There are only a handful of alarm tones, and though it will play your music, it doesn’t have access to any tones you make or buy from iTunes. Except for the weather widget, AlarmClockHD doesn’t do any more than my built in iPhone alarm clock.

MY PERSONAL VERDICT: not worth a subscription, and not worth putting up with the ads otherwise. Now, if you want to change my mind, you could add some better and useful options, like enabling the selection of alert/alarm tones on my phone, followed by voices to announce the time and the current weather while I’m waking up. I would pay for that, if it was done tastefully (imagine the voice of HAL, or Sigourney Weavers computer voice doing this, or even goofy voices like Charlie Brown waking you up). Get creative!

by Shmalexed

I feel that AlarmClockHD is a good idea for a plain clock. You have color customization and everything but there is only one problem. Most other clock apps when you turn your iPhone/iPad to its side the add at the bottom will disappear and will reappear when turned back upright. But with AlarmClockHD, the ad always stays on the screen no matter what you do. The only way to get rid of it is to buy the subscription which isn’t worth the money. The one improvement that could make AlarmClockHD one of the best clocks on AlarmClockHD Store is to just get rid of the ad at the bottom on the screen when the device is in landscape mode. You will still get you ad money from it because most likely anyone opening AlarmClockHD will have their device upright and will have the ad pop up on the bottom so just get rid of it turned. My final verdict is that AlarmClockHD isn’t worth it and there are other alternatives that don’t clutter the screen with ads when turned. If this was fixed I would say this would be the perfect clock app with its features, even with the ads.

by JRMaino

Although I lived with AlarmClockHD for quite some time, I've tolerated several quirks that I didn't like.
1. The flashlight doesn't work. Although the screen turns white as if it were on, the light on my iPhone doesn't turn on. Other apps using this feature do work, so I know it's not my phone.
2. If I happen to have AlarmClockHD on the background or even closed, the alarm still sounds. Great if I happen to forget to open it, but really annoying if I'm working on something else and it goes off. Even more annoying that it's not consistent.
3. When #2 happens, and I swipe up to turn it off, the alarm sounds again within 30 seconds. You have to click on the pop-up to turn it off. Again, extremely annoying if I'm working on something else.
4. As of this week, none of my music I have on my phone is viewable. All music was removed from AlarmClockHD . It tries to pull music from your iPod, but music on your iPhone isn't labeled as an iPod. Not positive if it's a recent upgrade that did this, but am glad I discovered it before I accidentally overslept! And, please don't point out that you can use the different alarm sounds instead. I know that and specifically wanted AlarmClockHD for the ability to play my music randomly. Disappointing.

Since #4 just recently happened, I'm turning this alarm off - possibly removing it since it won't do what I want it to.

by Planet Lizagna

Uodate: I’m changing my rating from one to four stars due to helpful reply of developer. I did the restore purchase and that worked. Minus one *because it should have worked immediately, and I should not have had to put up with ads for two minutes (they still have not extended my subscription for that time) nor had to take the time to write to customer service. Something I really like about AlarmClockHD is that the alarm will sound through Bluetooth headphones. I get up much earlier Then my husband, who is a very light sleeper. I wear some of the soft Bluetooth headphones (The Headband version) so I can hear the alarm and it doesn’t bother him.

I paid for a full year of the premium version, and nothing has changed. I still get the annoying ads. I updated, and nothing helped. I contacted customer support, and got zero response. I’ll be contacting my credit card company with a dispute.

by Jcfraven

As the title indicates, there is an annoying bug where if there is ever a pop-up full screen advertisement(which, by the way, I would love to see stopped to begin with) with a timer, AlarmClockHD will not be functional until you close out and go back in to clear the ad, as the timer will never go down for you to X out of the ad, and the video ad never plays anyway.

Other than that, AlarmClockHD works fine. It is loud, it is functional(though my paranoia prevents me from locking my phone, so I simply leave AlarmClockHD running), and I never really have an issue with it.

One thing I really want to see however is an option to use my YT Music downloads for the sleep timer. As it stands, you are forced to use Apple Music as far as I know if you want to use that feature. This is not a terrible requirement, but incredibly inconvenient.

by Hunter.Peck

New review: I consider this a great free alarm clock app. Very handy travel clock and alarm. Always easy to use. I like that the developers read and respond to feedback. So, for the dev team, here’s what got stuck.
The issue was a promotion for a game popped up (this is a free version so there are ads and offers) but it did not have an “X” to close the ad.
Close AlarmClockHD , reopen and it went to that ad. Kind of frozen. Ironically the game had snow monsters.
Eventually AlarmClockHD cycled ads and the next ad had an “X” and could be closed out.
Old review: Was great; now unusable. Very handy travel clock and alarm. Always easy to use. Recent update for the free version has automatically opened a game (I do not do cellphone gaming.) and gives me no way to exit the game screen except 1. Play the game for free or 2. Exit AlarmClockHD . Have tried three times to find an exit back to the clock without success. Will watch for an update then try again. It is unusable as is.

by Red Maple

The recent update killed AlarmClockHD! i cannot set the alarm at all. i've been using this to wake up to my favorite music for several years! There is no longer an option to select individual songs; the only thing that comes up to select from is 'playlists'. Even when I tried to select a playlist, it didn't work! Something is terribly wrong. Looking through AlarmClockHD store for alternatives as this just won't do at all as an alarm clock anymore.

Monday, Sept. 23, 2017
Really...? Do you honestly think I don’t know that I need to download the music I want to my device... ? As I said, I’ve been using AlarmClockHD for years; I am well acquainted with how it’s supposed to work. I’ll just find another alarm clock app, there are plenty to choose from.

by Adamsville3333

I’ve been using this alarm clock app for the past year and in that time I’ve been late at least a dozen times thinking that I was sleeping through the alarm or hitting the snooze one too many times....but, NOPE, it’s AlarmClockHD ! I know this for a fact after just this week because my alarm would normally go off at 5:30 am and after having overslept until 7:00 am, imagine my surprise that my alarm just randomly went off at 7:08 am WHEN IT WAS ONLY SET FOR 5:30 am! No other alarms set except for my 5:30 am alarm!! It also seems as though AlarmClockHD randomly won’t allow my phone to update and all of my notifications texts and alarms are delayed and seem to all come in at once! I just can’t trust this anymore :(

by Starwave Studios [Founder]

I'm just gonna say this, once during an ice storm power outage, the flashlight feature was really helpful (I have an old iPad 4 without a built-in flashlight). I turned it on by accident, but it probably saved me from stepping on a rusty nail in the hallway.

Aside from that, AlarmClockHD works great! Even though there's a chance that the version I use might be a little outdated (I haven't checked the version requirements, but my limit is iOS 10), it still does everything that it's supposed to do. I like the alarms it has, and I personally prefer them over the standard Apple alarms, and being the person who sets nine alarms for the same morning, it does a pretty good job of waking me up before my 9 AM alarm.

by ᎫᎯℤℳℐℕ

This was the hands down perfect app for me I’m a heavy sleeper and I would sleep late and get late to school and I wake up right on time. AlarmClockHD also includes a alarm clock and if you have iTunes music it lets you add your music to your alarm or if you don’t have iTunes music (aka me cus I cant afford that 🤓) it provides you with some free music, it also provides a timer, a flashlight, what percent your phone is on (which blows my mind) and your clock I read some reviews on the update and they were mad but hey I’m perfectly happy. I would totally recommend AlarmClockHD but hey if you don’t know download it to see if you like it and if not delete it but ya thx so much for reading my review it makes me feel special and have an nice day ❤️!

by Arloflores

Update: I'm updating my review because, as much as I have loved AlarmClockHD, recently it has not been performing. I have AlarmClockHD set to play music from my library when the alarm goes off. But the last coupe of weeks it has been hit-and-miss. There have been a few days that I have completely overslept because the music does not play. Strangely enough when I unlock my phone (with AlarmClockHD running as instructed) AlarmClockHD shows that the alarm is going off (it gives me the option to Snooze or Stop the alarm). I'll stick it out a while longer but, for now, I'm having to rely on my phone's own alarm as a back up.

I have absolutely loved using this alarm clock app and I’m even a fan of the new update. My one critique is the volume control. AlarmClockHD ’s default lowest volume setting is louder than I would like it to be. Once the music fades in to it’s highest level I have to reach over and lower the volume while I lay in bed a little while longer and enjoy my music. If you could work in a lower volume setting that would be great. Other than that, fantastic app!

by ZdAUR4r7dwyAKc

I've been using this clock for about 2 years now and I have come to depend on it especially for business trips, as you can't always depend on the hotel wake up call. Only 1 minor thing that prevented me from giving a 5 star was that there is no indication that the alarm is in active mode from the home screen. You have to go into the alarm settings page to check to see if it is active or not. Otherwise one of the better and more useful apps.

Update: the flashlight feature hasn't worked for the last few upgrades and still doesn't. The bright advertising wakes you up. Not good. Lastly, I put my phone in airplane mode when sleeping. A prompt warns that the alarm may not go off. I now revert to the standard clock app that came with my phone for alarms.

AlarmClockHD is no longer useful as it used to be. I don't use it anymore.

by BerylliumOxide

This alarm clock is absolutely wonderful. It has pretty much every feature I've ever needed, and now I use it as a bedside clock. I've never seen it fail to ring. It's absolutely amazing. The only thing I think could be added is the ability to turn off notification alarms; when I'm out of AlarmClockHD , I usually don't want it to ring. I turned off notifications for the entire app from settings, though, and it works just fine. AlarmClockHD is really great.
Update: AlarmClockHD went through a pretty big format change, and it looks freakin' awesome. Thanks.