Hacker News Reader

Comment by stinos | Hacker News Reader

"bedtime alarm" ... it's what I use to wake up every morning

Non-native English speaker here: doesn't bedtime refer to the time you go to bed, not the time you have to wake up? I mean, I was reading "bedtime alarm" and thought "so people these days use an alarm to tell them when to go to bad? crazy times" but then that shifted in "wait does an application use a rather confusing term for something as common as getting out of bed?"

View on HN

I'm a native English speaker, and that term is definitely wrong for a wake-up alarm. I can't imagine an alarm for when to go to bed, and it definitely doesn't apply to what someone would set on an standard "alarm clock" to wake them up in the morning.

Even when it's a phone call instead of an alarm we say "wake up call". I've never, ever heard the phrase "bedtime alarm" before.

I really hope Apple didn't call it that.

"Bedtime" is an Apple feature that helps you manage sleep time. Basically you tell when you want to go to bed and wake up and it sets a reminder for bedtime and an alarm for wake up time, then it tracks how much time you sleep. I'm guessing people are saying "Bedtime alarm" to indicate it's the alarm that's set as part of the "Bedtime" feature.

There’s two parts to the alarm and it isn’t consistently called “the bedtime alarm” by Apple to my knowledge. The first part is the “bedtime” alarm (it’s time to go to bed!) and the second part is the wake-up, which makes it slightly different in that and other ways from a normal alarm.

Ah, that makes sense, sort of.

Its the alarm set by the Bedtime feature that lets you choose a sleep duration. You can easily rotate the slider to change it, for example if you need to wake up early. It also prompts you to get ready for bed.

As a native English, but non-Apple user, you're right this is confusing nomenclature, but I intuited what it was supposed to mean.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com