Launched this week
Alora Wake
Wakes you gently and always wakes you
38 followers
Wakes you gently and always wakes you
38 followers
Smart Wake times your alarm to your lightest sleep. Night Mode simulates sunrise. A spoken briefing starts your morning. Underneath: an engineering guarantee that no alarm can end in silence — layered fallbacks through audio, haptics, and Apple Watch.
This is brilliant. I, too, am a veteran (30 years in the Marines) and never had the option of oversleeping. I used to place various electric and manual clocks hidden around my bedroom in order to sleep “at peace” in case power went out, etc. I really love the concept here of the gentle wake and using creative alternatives for pulling me out of my heavy slumbers. Very excited to explore this app even more! Thank you!
@peterwilsonmusician Peter, thank you for this — and for 30 years of service. [Optional, if it applies: It means a lot coming from a fellow veteran.] The image of clocks hidden around the bedroom "just in case" is exactly the problem I set out to solve: you shouldn't have to engineer your own redundancy to trust your morning. That's why Alora has layered fallbacks for audio and haptics — the reliability is built in, so the wake-up itself can afford to be gentle. Genuinely honored to have you exploring the app; if anything about the alarm behavior ever feels less than bulletproof to you, I want to hear about it first.
Alora Wake has been great for me. As a person who travels quite a bit, I can get thrown off by time zone changes and long schedules. Alora Wake helps me pull out of my deep sleep and keeps my attention so I don’t lay my head back on the pillow. My mornings have gotten much better with the ready for bed prep that lets me know when to shut down for the night and get some rest. I turn my phone to night mode and use the ocean sound to mimic my kids sound machines when I’m on the road. My sleep has been excellent during travel now. The health tracker capability shows my sleep trends are similar to what I get at home even when on the road.
The text a friend to let them know you’ve over slept is a great buddy system function. You can share a teammates number and have them get a text if you’ve over slept the alarm. Keeps people honest for each other!
The daily briefing keeps me on track to start my meetings and calls on time and gets me out the door ready to go after my day.
The tone options and the availability to use a specific song on Apple Music is also a great function. No longer do I hear what would sound like a nuclear reactor warning.
I definitely recommend this app, even if you aren’t a heavy sleeper. There’s so much value in one spot!
@john_windstein John, I'm genuinely floored — you just described the entire vision of the app better than my own App Store listing does. The travel use case especially: consistent sleep trends on the road versus home is exactly what the whole system (wind-down, Night Mode, ambience, gentle wake) is trying to protect. And I'm so glad someone mentioned the backup text — it's the feature I obsessed over most and talk about least. "Keeps people honest for each other" is precisely the spirit. Also, "what would sound like a nuclear reactor warning" is the best description of a default alarm I've ever read; I may have to steal it. Thank you for such a thorough writeup — comments like this are why makers launch here.
I am not a deep sleeper, by any means. I'm the opposite. However, I do know that after a long night of tossing and turning and I finally crash. Waking can be an issue. I've slept thru some raucous surroundings.
I thought I would give this a try for Mark, but alas. I am an android user. So I can't get it. Seems that only means that the product is literally missing half the market. Sounds great though.
@bruce_parry Bruce, thank you for the kind words — and for the honest jab, which is fair! iOS-first was a deliberate solo-dev tradeoff rather than an oversight: an alarm app lives or dies on reliability, and getting that right meant going deep on Apple's alarm, sleep, and health frameworks rather than shallow on two platforms. I'd rather be trustworthy on one platform than flaky on two. Android is absolutely on my radar, and comments like yours are exactly how I gauge the demand. And for what it's worth — the "finally crashed after a rough night" wake-up is precisely the scenario Gentle Wake was built for, so I hope I get to put it on your phone someday.
I am a problem sleeper, not able to keep a regular schedule for sleep duration or wake up. I think this will be a solution for me.
@paul_kawecki Thank you, Paul — I hope it helps. I'll be honest about what Alora can and can't do: it won't impose a schedule on you, but it's designed to make whatever wake-up you need feel less brutal — easing you up gently instead of yanking you awake, and adapting to the day ahead rather than fighting you. For irregular schedules especially, a lot of people find that a consistently gentle morning is what makes consistency itself feel possible. Give it a couple of weeks and tell me what's working and what isn't — feedback from exactly your situation is what makes the app better.
The sunrise simulation actually got me out of bed calmer than I expected, and having the spoken briefing kick in right after felt like a small luxury. The fallbacks for audio and haptics are a smart touch for deep sleepers.
@mcahitbh9l Thank you, Mücahit — this made my morning. "Calmer than I expected" is exactly the reaction I was building toward; waking up shouldn't feel like an emergency. And I'm glad the fallbacks registered. As a solo dev, alarm reliability was the thing I obsessed over most — a beautiful wake-up experience means nothing if it doesn't actually wake you. Curious: did you try the sunrise with one of the gentler tones, or on its own? Always looking at how people pair them.
I found Alora very intuitive to use and setup. While I’ve no challenges to wake up when desired (growing up in the pre-digital world taught skills later generations needn’t worry about), I did find the the display of my day’s scheduled events at the ready very handy. I can see the value of the app to those who regularly change time zones either physically or working corporate jobs with associates / customers in different time zones.
@michael_cloonan Draft: