I’m not a morning person, and I’m also a light sleeper. Even the best wake-up lights tend to startle me awake when they start to brighten, and don’t even get me started on those irritating snippets of synthetic bird song that gradually increase in volume until sheer annoyance motivates you to get out of bed.
It doesn’t have to be that way, though – if only my Garmin watch had a smart alarm.
The premise of a smart alarm is simple. Each night, we go through sleep cycles comprising periods of light, deep, and REM sleep. During light sleep we’re easily woken and generally feel okay, but if something (like fake birdsong or a bright light) wrenches us out of deep sleep then we end up feeling groggy, confused, and disoriented.
A smart alarm is designed to wake you during a period of light sleep at roughly the time your alarm would normally go off, with a backup alarm in case you’re firmly stuck in the land of nod and at risk of oversleeping.
It’s a feature offered by many of the best fitness trackers, including those from Fitbit, and there are third-party smart alarm apps available for most of the best smartwatches, but so far there’s nothing for Garmin owners like me.
Wakey wakey
Each night my trusty Garmin Fenix 7 tracks my sleep stages based on my heart rate and movement, and it can be set to wake me with an audible or vibrating alarm, so far the two have never been combined. It seems like a no-brainer, but it’s something that’s still missing from even the best Garmin watches.
I’m not the only Garmin user who’d love to be woken more naturally during a period of light sleep. It’s a subject that comes up regularly on Garmin’s support forums, and the Garmin Subreddit.
I could just break away from Garmin entirely, but it would be a wrench. There’s years of health and fitness data attached to my Garmin profile – not to mention all those hard-earned virtual badges. I’m halfway up Mt Everest and only 3% off completing the Appalachian Trail badge.
I’d hoped that smart alarms might be introduced along with the three sleep badges last year (Sleep Savant, Sleep Sleep, and Mythical Sleep – none of which I’ve managed to earn) but sadly not.
For now, I can only wait and hope that smart alarms are one of the features that comes to the latest batch of watches over the coming months. Who knows, if it’s limited to the latest devices like the Garmin Fenix 8 and Garmin Instinct 3, it might even be enough to convince me to upgrade.