Kiwake: smart alarm clock

𝖢𝗈𝗈𝗅 𝖺𝗉𝗉 𝖻𝗎𝗍 𝖽𝖾𝖿 𝗇𝗈𝗍 𝖿𝗋𝖾𝖾. 𝖭𝗈𝗍 𝗈𝗇𝖾 𝗌𝗂𝗇𝗀𝗅𝖾 𝗋𝖾𝗏𝗂𝖾𝗐 𝗍𝖺𝗅𝗄𝗌 𝖺𝖻𝗍 𝖺 𝗉𝗋𝗂𝖼𝖾, 𝖾𝗑𝖼𝖾𝗉𝗍 𝗆𝗂𝗇𝖾. 𝖴𝗌𝗎𝖺𝗅𝗅𝗒 𝖨 𝗐𝗈𝗎𝗅𝖽 𝗉𝖺𝗒 𝖿𝗈𝗋 𝗍𝗁𝗂𝗇𝗀𝗌 𝗅𝗂𝗄𝖾 𝗍𝗁𝗂𝗌 𝖻𝗎𝗍 𝗂𝗍 𝗂𝗌 𝗃𝗎𝗌𝗍 𝗇𝗈𝗍 𝗐𝗈𝗋𝗍𝗁 𝗂𝗍. 𝖨'𝖽 𝗋𝖺𝗍𝗁𝖾𝗋 𝗃𝗎𝗌𝗍 𝖺𝗅𝗆𝗈𝗌𝗍 𝖻𝖾 𝗅𝖺𝗍𝖾 𝗍𝗈 𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝖻𝗎𝗌 𝗍𝗁𝖺𝗇 𝖻𝖾 𝖻𝗋𝗈𝗄𝖾. 𝖠𝗅 𝗂𝗇 𝖺𝗅𝗅, 𝗂𝗍 𝗂𝗌 $𝟣.𝟫𝟫 𝖺 𝗆𝗈𝗇𝗍𝗁 𝗂𝖿 𝗎 𝗐𝖺𝗇𝗍𝖾𝖽 𝗍𝗈 𝗄𝗇𝗈𝗐.

If you’re someone who struggles with oversleeping, Kiwake could be a literal life changer. I’m such a heavy sleeper and non-morning person that I used to wake up, turn off my alarm, and go back to sleep without even being fully conscious, waking up hours later perplexed what the heck happened. Even setting a physical alarm clock on the other side of the room was only half effective — it forced me out of bed, but I’d often just stumble back into bed immediately and pass out again within seconds, sometimes with no memory afterwards that I’d even done so. It was bad enough that it threatened my ability to hold a job, since extreme lateness of several hours was a semi-frequent occurrence due to my chronic oversleeping. It tarnished my reputation, as I became known as someone who was completely unreliable before around 11am. One time in film school I showed up 2 hours late to MY OWN FILM SHOOT, keeping over a dozen cast & crew that had been generous enough to offer me their Saturday waiting while I slept through texts and phone calls concerned that maybe I’d gotten in some terrible accident. I found this app 9 years ago, in 2017, and it has more or less eliminated this problem from my life entirely. The 2 step system it employs is brilliant in its simplicity: not only does it force you to physically get out of bed (by taking a photo of something across the room), but the puzzle feature then makes extra sure you don’t go back to sleep immediately after, and continually pesters you until you’re conscious enough that your basic reasoning and motor skills have sufficiently booted up. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve struggled to keep my eyes open while solving these puzzles, or found my brain refusing to cooperate to remember simple shapes or colors, or my fingers not yet agile enough to tap some boxes at a moderate speed. With the old “physical alarm clock on the other side of the room” trick, in these instances I’d have fallen back asleep immediately. The app’s persistence doesn’t allow me to. It patiently nudges me over and over until I’m actually AWAKE. No other app or life hack I’ve tried has managed to be this effective at actually getting me up at the time I need to be every day. So, why not give 5 stars? Well, because in addition to completely changing my life, Kiwake is also the buggiest app I have ever used. A frequent problem is that the alarm sound will not play and the phone will only vibrate, leading me to wake up late when my phone finally vibrates itself off my nightstand and crashes onto the floor, picking it up to find dozens of Kiwake notifications and an obnoxious message once I open the app that “It looks like you didn’t wake up on time.” Sometimes the alarm will play just fine, but the app will crash the moment I open it. Often the alarm will even keep playing after this, but the app will continually crash every time I try to open it, leaving me with no way to turn it off. (On a few occasions I’ve had to restart my phone to get it to stop.) There are also times where I’ve toggled for the alarm to be turned OFF that morning, and the alarm goes off anyway at whatever time I’d previously set it to, forcing me to go through the motions of getting up and solving a puzzle when I’ve decided to sleep in, or when I’m already awake and possibly not even in my bedroom. Ironically, I’ve been meaning to write this review for years, every time I’m hit with the “Are you enjoying Kiwake?” pop-up. But this is the first time ever the app hasn’t immediately crashed as soon as I’ve clicked the button to take me to the App Store 😂 Problems like this have plagued the app for as long as I’ve been using it. I’m always hopeful every time there’s an update that it will finally fix all these issues, but somehow the same bugs continue to be a persistent annoyance for nearly a decade now. For something so essential to daily functioning, it’s aggravating how unreliable it is. Since Kiwake semi-frequently fails at doing the one thing it’s designed to do, I’m forced to use a backup alarm on the Clock app every day, as well as continuing to rely on the old “physical alarm across the room” trick. I’ve contacted their customer support a few times over the years, with zero success. The first time, years ago, I got an initial response but was soon ghosted. My last two emails just went unanswered. I am someone that hates paying subscription fees for apps. But I would gladly pay a small annual fee for Kiwake if it meant it worked reliably and wasn’t plagued by bugs. My hope is that the devs will see this review and finally do something about the app’s basic functioning. I would be very happy to be able to change this to a 5 star review.

I was excited for this app and really wanted it to work but it became clear the app has been abandoned by its creator and the bugs are no longer being fixed. The alarm app sends you notifications to open the app when your alarm time goes off…rather than the actual alarm. If you do open the app after a few notifications the “body wake up” doesn’t initiate half the time.