Does your phone keep you awake at night or disturb your sleep? Set up Bedtime mode to stop it waking you by muting unnecessary sounds, dimming the screen and setting reminders and alarms.
We carry our phone everywhere during the day and we put it next to our bed at night. We cannot bear to be without it or of missing out on something important. Unfortunately, putting your phone on the table next to your bed is likely to disturb your sleep as notifications about social media updates, emails, games alerts and other sources constantly demand your attention.
Beeps and chimes from your phone can wake up up in the middle of the night and disturb your sleep. Looking at your phone, even if just to see the time, can make your eyes sting if the screen is too bright. It is a problem and it could make you more tired during the day.
What can we do to minimize disturbances during the night and sleep more soundly? One solution of course, is not to sleep with your phone next to the bed. Leave it in another room. That is not a perfect solution because you might rely on the phone’s alarm to wake you in a morning. You might also want to be contactable during the night if there is an emergency with a friend or relative.
We need our phones, we just need them to be a bit less disturbing and distracting at night.
The Clock app on Samsung phones does more than you might think and it has a bedtime mode that can help you to get a good night’s sleep. It does this by changing the screen display so it is more comfortable to use at night, preventing some notifications from waking you, setting a reminder to go to bed and an alarm to wake you in a morning.
Let’s see how to set up bedtime mode on a Samsung phone. (Other phones, like the iPhone, have bedtime modes that work in a similar way.) Before starting, make sure all your Samsung apps are up to date by opening the Galaxy Store app and checking for updates.
1 View Clock alarms
Open the Clock app on your Samsung phone and tap Alarm at the bottom of the screen to show the Alarms tab if it is not currently showing. All you need to do is to tap the three dots button on the right to access the Alarms menu.
2 Set bedtime
If you have never set up bedtime before, there is a Set bedtime menu option. This disappears once bedtime has been set up. Tap it to continue.
3 Bedtime introduction
This information screen is displayed the first time that bedtime mode is set up. There is nothing to do except to tap the Next button and continue with setup.
4 Set sleep and wake times
Use this graphic to set the time you go to bed and the time you get up by dragging the icons around the clock face. The times in the center are updated to show the exact time you will go to bed and wake. You may get up at different times at the weekend, but don’t worry about that right now. Just set it for a normal work day.
5 Bedtime mode options
On the next screen you can set a reminder notification, in case you are doing something, like watching TV, and forget the time. By default, it is set to 15 minutes before bedtime mode is activated, but tapping the link enables you to choose from no alert, at bedtime, 5 or 15 minutes before.
It can be useful to set a reminder so that you get into a habit of getting ready for bed and going to sleep at the same time each evening.
Turn on the Bedtime mode switch. Notice that it says “Change the screen to greyscale and mute called, alerts and other sounds during bedtime.”
6 Set a wake-up alarm
Now you can select the days you want the wake-up alarm, such as Monday to Friday, and it can be turned off at the weekend for example. Choose the alarm sound, vibration and snooze options by clicking each of the links. This is just like a regular repeating alarm. Press Done when you have set everything.
7 View alarms
You are returned to the Alarms screen and the next alarm is shown at the top. In my case it is not for three days because I set up bedtime mode on a Friday and alarms are off at the weekend. My next alarm is to wake for work on Monday. Your alarm might be sooner.
You can see that the bedtime mode alarm has a different look to regular alarms. It has a start and end time, days of the week and an on/off switch. You might want to switch it off if you are out having fun on a Saturday night and need calls, notifications and so on enabled, for example. Don’t forget to switch it back on on Sunday so you are woken for work on a Monday.
8 View and edit bedtime mode
Once bedtime mode has been set up, tap it on the Alarms screen to see the settings or change them. Everything is now on one screen rather than the step-by-step guide that appears when first setting it up. Swipe up to see more settings
That’s it. Everything is set up to improve your sleep. If you do wake up in the night and look at your phone, don’t panic when you see a greyscale screen display. It’s just bedtime mode toning down the colors and making them less eye-watering.
