Wake up quietly with daylight alarm clock and fitness tracker

Many people let themselves be woken up in the morning by their smartphone, an alarm clock or a radio alarm clock.

I used to do that too. However, at some point these alarm clocks annoyed me tremendously, because they all woke me up rather loudly and roughly.

With these alarm clocks I already had horror before the morning alarm signal when I went to bed.

I would rather be woken up quietly and gently and looked around for alternatives.

In search of more pleasant waking methods, I tested a daylight alarm clock and a fitness tracker.

At this point, I can already reveal in advance that both devices are suitable for waking you up quietly and comfortably and thus start the day gently.

In this article, I’ll introduce both wake-up methods.

Daylight alarm clock

A daylight alarm clock is a very interesting way to wake up quietly and gently. Such light alarm clocks are available from different manufacturers and in different price ranges.

I chose the Philips Wake-Up Light, which you can find here on Amazon * .

How does the Philips Wake-Up Light work?

The idea of ​​a daylight alarm clock is actually quite simple. You are woken up by the light of the alarm clock getting brighter and brighter. This is supposed to simulate something similar to a sunrise.

The advantage of this method is obvious, because you are not just woken up suddenly by a loud alarm tone, but wake up much softer.

In addition to the sunrise simulation, you can set that a natural, gradually louder alarm tone sounds at the set alarm time, so that you really wake up, provided that you are not already awake due to the slowly getting brighter light.

If you prefer to be switched to your favorite radio station, you can also set that, as the Philips Wake-Up Light also has an integrated FM radio.

It is very practical that the wake-up light can also be used as a bedside lamp. I actually used this function every evening to read my book in bed.

And this daylight alarm clock can also be used to fall asleep. Because you can set a timer, for example, so that the light slowly but continuously gets darker until it is completely off. I also find it quite pleasant.

Thus the Wake-Up Light is very flexible and can do a lot.

Overall, I like this daylight alarm clock pretty much. I like to be quietly woken up by the Philips Wake-Up Light.

Xiaomi Mi Band 5

The Xiaomi Mi Band 5 is a cheap but very popular fitness tracker. The predecessor, the Mi Band 4, already had a lot of fans.

You can find this fitness tracker here on Amazon * .

I didn’t buy the Mi Band 5 primarily to track my sporting activities, but really for the purpose of waking up in the morning.

And it works like this:

How does the Xiaomi Mi Band 5 alarm clock work?

First you have to define your alarm in the Mi Fit app under the settings for your Mi Band 5.

Practical alarms could be for example:

• 6:00 a.m. Monday through Friday
• 9:00 a.m. Saturday
• 10:00 a.m. Sunday

But of course you can set the alarms however you want.

When you have set your alarms, you can now activate them directly with the small slider next to the respective alarm in the app.

You can now find your alarms defined here on your Mi Band under “More” – “Alarm clock”.

You can see all alarms that you have defined in the app there.

If you activate an alarm on your smartphone, it will also be activated directly on your Mi Band. Of course, this also works the other way round. If you activate an alarm on your Mi Band, it is also active in the app on your smartphone.

The settings are always synchronized directly between the smartphone and the Mi Band (provided you have a Bluetooth connection).

The whole thing works really well and reliably in practice.

Another nice thing about this solution is that you no longer need a smartphone in the bedroom. Because not everyone likes to sleep near their cell phone.

Once the time set in the alarm clock is reached, the Mi Band will start to vibrate comfortably on your wrist.

Now you can turn off the alarm on the tape or press the snooze button. In the second case, your Mi-Band will vibrate again after exactly 10 minutes, reminding you that you should get up slowly.

For me, this alarm clock is actually ideal, as it wakes up really quietly and comfortably without making disgusting sounds.

However, the Mi Band alarm clock is certainly not equally suitable for everyone. Because the vibration of the belt is rather subtle and soft. So it could well be that not everyone wakes up to this vibration.

At the beginning I set myself a second alarm clock to be on the safe side so that I don’t oversleep if I don’t wake up from the vibration of the Mi Band.

In retrospect, however, it turned out that this second alarm clock was unnecessary for me. Because in fact I have always been reliably and extremely pleasantly and, above all, quietly woken up by the Mi Band 5 alarm clock.

But as I said, it doesn’t have to work for everyone. Trying out is the motto here.

By the way: The quiet wake-up with the fitness tracker also works if you wear earplugs to sleep . But of course only if the vibration is enough to wake you up.

Comfort

To be able to use the Mi Band 5 as an alarm clock, you have to wear it on your arm, of course. Even at night and while sleeping.

Therefore it is of course very important that the band is comfortable to wear and does not interfere with sleep.

And that is actually the case with the Mi Band 5. At approx. 23 grams, the tape is really very light and therefore comfortable to wear. Once you get used to the tape, you don’t even notice it.

This is certainly also due to the thin silicone wristband, which feels very soft and pleasant on the skin.

In terms of wearing comfort, I gave this band the highest score.

You should just make sure to wear the band tight enough on your arm so that the green light of the pulse sensor is not visible. Otherwise it could be disturbing in the middle of the night.

Otherwise, the manufacturer Xiaomi has done everything to ensure that the tape does not interfere at night. You can even set in the app that the display of the band does not turn on automatically at night if you unconsciously turn your wrist.

If you consider that the Mi Band 5 is a fairly cheap fitness arm bath, the high level of comfort is actually amazing.

Sleep analysis

The positive side effect of the Mi Band 5 is that in addition to the alarm clock, I now also get a sleep analysis displayed in the Mi Fit app.

I can see there when I fell asleep and when I woke up. I also see my different sleep phases, such as deep sleep, light sleep and REM sleep.

It also shows me when I was awake during this time, for example to go to the toilet at night.

In addition to a few other statistics, the app presents me with a sleep score for each night, based on which I should be able to see how well or poorly I slept that night.

Of course, that’s a gimmick that not everyone needs. I have this sleep analysis on, but to be honest, I rarely look at the respective data in the Mi Fit app. Because actually I can’t do much with it.

More functions

Of course, the Xiaomi Mi Band 5 has a few other functions as a fitness tracker. First of all, the practical step counter, which I also like to use every day, should be mentioned here.

But since this is about the best way to wake up quietly, I will not go into these functions here.

I am now a big fan of this fitness tracker and let it wake me up gently, quietly and very pleasantly every day.

But as I said, it doesn’t have to work for everyone.

Conclusion

With the Philips Wake-Up Light and the Xiaomi Mi Band 5, I discovered two great ways to wake myself up quietly and softly in the morning. This is a better way to start the day.

Both methods are much more pleasant for me than a normal alarm clock.

Of course, you can also combine both methods to be on the safe side.