Do you hate the sound of the alarm clock in the morning and more than once have you had to fight the temptation to hurl your trusted smartphone against the wall? Understandable: no matter how the producers strive to provide pleasant, gentle and harmonious ringtones, our brains will identify them as the “enemy” who pulls us from Orpheus’ arms, to bring us back to the harsh reality. Solutions? The “cure of the hammer” is perhaps a bit extreme, and even the idea of an alarm clock strike, however tempting, could be disliked by our boss; it would take a sound that we know and appreciate, something whose listening puts us in a good mood.
Why, in other words, do not use our favorite songs?
Frankly, we cannot find a negative side, a reason why manufacturers do not implement it in their integrated offers; fortunately the third-party developers have seized the opportunity and created several applications, available on the Play Store, which have this interesting feature. We offer you our favorites; good awakening!
Alarm Clock Xtreme
Alarm Clock Xtreme supports music playback in a particularly advanced way. What sets it apart from other alarm clocks is the ability to randomly reproduce traces of a playlist, or even of a specific artist: in this way, we guarantee a continuous change of songs. An equally interesting alternative is the possibility of opening an external application, such as FM radio or a streaming music service.
AlarmDroid
Compared to Alarm Clock Xtreme, AlarmDroid loses the possibility to choose music based on the artist but supports the reproduction of webradio. Unfortunately, a native browser is missing, and we are forced to enter the URL of our favorite station manually. The graphics are always very simple, but a bit ‘more accurate.
Alarm Clock Plus
Regarding the music, ACP is substantially identical to Alarm Clock Xtreme; the only important addition is the possibility of building a playlist for this purpose, using the integrated editor.
DoubleTwist Alarm
DoubleTwist offers a high quality design and a very thick graphic care, even if it loses a lot of the typical flexibility of an app like ACP or AlarmDroid. Bad news regarding music as a ringtone: we must necessarily lean on the music player developed by the software house, DoubleTwist Player.
I cannot wake up!
Although less rich in options and details to configure, I Cannot Wake Up! Offers rejecting / extinguishing methods that are much more fun and interesting than those of the competition. Little flexibility even with regard to music as a ringtone: single track or shuffle songs from a playlist. Alternatively, there is support for SHOUTcast webradio, but the use is decidedly cumbersome.
Sleep As Android
In Sleep As Android the music support is basic: you choose one or more songs, and the alarm will play them in random order. But it’s the best biometric alarm clock on Google Play and, as you know, we have a weakness for biometric alarms.
The offer of “musical” alarm clocks is wide enough to satisfy the needs of a multitude of users. Alarm Clock Plus, Alarm Clock Xtreme and AlarmDroid differ only marginally: some interesting secondary features (in particular, we mention the talking clock of AlarmDroid), some more or less options regarding random playback of tracks (with ACP which is distinguished by completeness, allowing the creation of playlists for this purpose), but in fact the formula is always that: tons of customizable details, maximum flexibility, thin graphics. For our purposes, they are the best apps, and we recommend trying all three to figure out which is the best combination of features that meets your specific requirements. DoubleTwist Alarm and I Cannot Wake Up, however, are radically different: the first is graphically edited, shows a high quality design and some innovative and interesting features, but it is paid, and allows the reproduction of music only if combined with DoubleTwist Player. The second is distinguished by fun and stimulating rejection / extinguishing methods, although it is less flexible than ACP and company.
Advice and suggestions
Remember that when you specify music on the memory card, it must be installed and working when the alarm should sound; otherwise, you may even crash the program, resulting in head wash for the delay.
We also recommend that you prefer shuffle from full-bodied playlists rather than a fixed song: if you repeat a song too often, you’ll end up hating it like standard ringtones.