How to use the online alarm clock
Preparing early for a lecture at the Royal Society leaves time to check your route, ticket details and anything you want to take. An alarm set for 9:58 pm can mark the point when those preparations should be wrapped up, just before 10:00 pm, so the evening does not drift past the moment you meant to act.
Because the reminder depends on sound, check whether your phone or computer is in silent mode and choose a volume that you can hear. A quick test beforehand can prevent a quiet setting from making the 9:58 pm alert easy to miss. Keep the browser alarm running and the screen awake: if the browser is closed or the equipment goes to sleep, the lecture reminder will not sound.
Late-evening preparation may affect other people in the house, especially if walls are thin or someone has already gone to bed. Place the alarm close enough to hear at a moderate level instead of turning it up across the room. At 9:58 pm, a short, distinct tone should be enough to prompt you without disturbing the rest of the household as 10:00 pm approaches.
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.
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