How to use the online alarm clock
You need to break away from whatever you are doing to close the curtains before darkness settles in. An alarm for 8:51 pm gives that interruption a precise place in the evening, rather than leaving you to notice the fading light too late. Once the curtains are drawn, you still have nine minutes before 9:00 pm to return to the task you paused.
The curtains provide a useful cue for choosing how this browser alarm should behave: use a sound you will notice from elsewhere in the room and set the volume before carrying on. If you close the alarm tab or browser, or let the phone or computer go to sleep, no alert will play and the curtains may remain open. Leave the alarm running on an awake device until 8:51 pm has passed.
Once the curtains are closed on a warm British evening, check whether the room is still holding the day’s heat. If the air conditioning is running, keeping the window shut helps it cool the room without pulling in warmer air. Positioning yourself away from the direct draught can also make the remaining evening more comfortable while the temperature settles.
Common questions
Can I change the sound?
Yes, there is a short list of tones to pick from before you press Start. Softer sounds are easy to sleep through, so a firmer bell tends to be the safer choice for anything early in the morning.
Will it still be right when the clocks change?
Yes. It reads your device's local clock, so the move between GMT and BST at the end of March and October is picked up automatically, as long as the computer's date, time and time zone are set correctly.
Can I use this on a phone?
It works in a mobile browser, but phones lock the screen and suspend background tabs far more readily than a laptop does, which can stop the alarm sounding. For anything important, a desktop or a plugged-in laptop is the steadier option.
Does the alarm still work if I close the tab?
No. Everything runs inside this page, so closing the tab — or quitting the browser altogether — ends the countdown there and then. Leaving it open in the background is all it asks, and switching to another tab makes no difference.
Cookie policy