How many alarms do you set to make sure you get up in the morning? I always set two for normal work days. If I have an important client meeting or other mission-critical appointment, I’ve been known to set as many as five alarms.
I’m a night person who gets up at 5:30 a.m. every morning. When I lived in Florida and worked with ZDNET’s mostly East Coast editorial team, getting up at 8:30 a.m. wasn’t ideal for a night person, but it was doable.
Also: The best Alexa devices: Expert tested and recommended
The one thing I didn’t consider until I arrived in Oregon — after permanently evacuating for Hurricane Irma back in 2017 — was the time difference. The Pacific Coast time zone is three hours later, which meant I had to start getting up three hours earlier.
Before I move on with the main topic of this article, I’d like to give a shoutout of support and best wishes to those (including some of our own team) dealing with the aftermath of hurricanes Helene and Milton. Hang in there, folks.
Anyhow, now I get up at 5:30 a.m. Fortunately, I work from home, so my commute is pretty short. But that wake-up time? I need all the help I can get.
Setting Alexa’s alarms
I use Alexa for my alarms. She’s programmed to go off at 5:30 a.m. and then again at 6:00 a.m. I have her volume set to 8, so she’s quite loud when it’s time to get up.
You can set your Alexa’s volume simply by saying “Alexa, set volume to 8.” Her volume control setting responds to any number on the scale of 1 to 10, as well as “Alexa, louder” and “Alexa, softer.”
Setting alarms is quite simple, as well. “Alexa, set alarm for 5:30 a.m.” and “Alexa, set alarm for 6 a.m.” work just fine. You can have her go off at the same time every day by adding “every day, ” as in “Alexa, set alarm for 5:30 a.m. every day.”
Sleeping through, but why?
This morning, I slept right through the 5:30 a.m. alarm. I have absolutely no memory of it going off. When I woke up to the 6 a.m. alarm, I was confused. I thought it was 5:30 a.m., but when I asked Alexa, she told me it was in fact 6 a.m.
Also: Oura surpasses Apple Watch and Fitbit in sleep tracking accuracy
This doesn’t happen often, but it has been known to happen. That’s why I have multiple alarms set. What I didn’t know was the cause of the missed alarm: Did Alexa simply fail to go off? Did I sleep right through the alarm? Or did I somehow tell her to shut up while I was still asleep enough to forget the whole thing ever happened?
As it turns out, the Alexa app keeps track of this information. Here’s how you find it.
On the Home page of the Alexa app, look down to the bottom of the screen and tap the More button.
On the More page, tap Activity History.
Next, on the Activity History page, press Voice.
Here’s where things get interesting. We can look at the forensic evidence of what happened this morning.
At 5:30 a.m., I told Alexa to stop — as shown at (1) above. There are two key things to notice. To the right of the (1) is a drop-down indicator. You can toggle this to unfurl details of each activity entry, as I did here. To the left of the (1) is a play button. You can tap that to hear what Alexa heard.
In my case, it was me — a very lucid-sounding me — telling Alexa to stop. I have no memory of giving that command, but at least my vocal intonation was strong.
Also: The best Alexa devices: Expert tested and recommended
The story doesn’t end there. At 6:00 a.m., I again told Alexa to stop — shown at (2). What tells me that I really had no idea I skipped the 5:30 a.m. alarm is the item shown at (3). That’s where I asked Alexa for the time.
So, by going back through the voice activity history of the Alexa app, I reconstructed exactly how I interacted with the machine. I also confirmed the general wisdom of my two-alarm practice.
Oh, and for the record, this article was brought to you by my third cup of Peet’s Major Dickason’s Blend — because the second thing I do right after getting up from my alarm is brew a cup of Joe.
But wait. Alexa keeps recordings?
Yes, the Alexa app does store recordings of your interactions with your Amazon Echo device. Fortunately, you have some degree of control over how long Amazon stores your Alexa interactions. I detailed all of that in this article.
Also: 5 Amazon Alexa privacy settings you should change right away
Unfortunately, Alexa doesn’t let you completely dispose of recordings right away. But read through the article and you’ll learn how you can limit — somewhat — the amount of data Amazon keeps in your profile.
How many alarms do you set? Do you talk to Alexa in your sleep? Do you sleep through your alarms? Did you know about the voice activity history feature? Have you set any of the security controls I recommended? Let us know in the comments below.
