"Bedside mode" for iPhone

corwin

Diamond Member
Jan 13, 2006
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Hoping somebody here might be able to help me...is there any easy way to set an iPhone in a "bedside mode" that silences all alerts except phone calls and alarms? The little switch on the side to vibrate actually silences the alarm as well as everything else which seems pretty stupid to me, I'm hoping there's some easy way to get the alerts down to what I mentioned above...
 

zerogear

Diamond Member
Jun 4, 2000
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I don't remember the silent switch switching off alarm sound, but if it does, I don't think there is an easy way to do it. Does it work if you turn down the sound?
 

corwin

Diamond Member
Jan 13, 2006
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I don't remember the silent switch switching off alarm sound, but if it does, I don't think there is an easy way to do it. Does it work if you turn down the sound?
It sure does, my wife couldn't figure out why she wasn't waking up to her alarm until we figured it out...but it sure does. From my poking around on it there was no easy way but I was hoping somebody here might know of one.

And for all the hate I <3 my Blackberry for yet another reason;)
 

zerogear

Diamond Member
Jun 4, 2000
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Wouldn't turning on Airplane mode work? -- It basically silences the notifications, while Alarm is still working?
 

corwin

Diamond Member
Jan 13, 2006
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Wouldn't turning on Airplane mode work? -- It basically silences the notifications, while Alarm is still working?
No phone calls either though:( want to retain the ability to get an emergency call if needed at night, just all others gone
 

zerogear

Diamond Member
Jun 4, 2000
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hmmm.. Not a simple solution, but you could turn off connectivity (3G/Wifi) while keeping the cell signal on, this would probably be simpler if you had JB to get the slide down toggle switches.
 

corwin

Diamond Member
Jan 13, 2006
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hmmm.. Not a simple solution, but you could turn off connectivity (3G/Wifi) while keeping the cell signal on, this would probably be simpler if you had JB to get the slide down toggle switches.
Not sure what you mean there, turning off connectivity would keep it from receiving calls too...
 

shocksyde

Diamond Member
Jun 16, 2001
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I always have my switch set to silent and my alarms work just fine. You're doing something else wrong. iPhone 4 on AT&T.
 

pm

Elite Member Mobile Devices
Jan 25, 2000
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I always have my switch set to silent and my alarms work just fine.

This is my experience too. On my ex-iPhone 4, I would set the switch to silent and alarms worked fine, but everything else was silenced.

iPhone 4, iOS 5.0.1 (I never upgraded beyond 5.0.1), using the built-in Apple alarm clock, not a non-Apple app.
 

corwin

Diamond Member
Jan 13, 2006
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This is a Verizon 4s as shipped right after launch, and there's nothing to "do wrong" by flipping a switch...unless there's a setting somewhere that makes it work that way...which is why I'm asking you good people here for assistance:) And yes it's the built in alarm too

I'll double check the iOS version to see if that sheds some light...
 
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MotionMan

Lifer
Jan 11, 2006
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I just tested this on my iPhone 4 with iOS 5.1.

The switch did NOT turn off the alarm sound.

MotionMan
 

corwin

Diamond Member
Jan 13, 2006
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I just tested this on my iPhone 4 with iOS 5.1.

The switch did NOT turn off the alarm sound.
Could be a bug with the 4s? I'll test myself tonight, it's my wife's phone so I'll go out on a limb here and say it's possible she could be mistaken in reciting this to me but she's usually pretty good about these things
 

corwin

Diamond Member
Jan 13, 2006
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iPhone 4S. Worked on 5.0, 5.0.1, 5.1. I'm pretty sure it worked on the iPhone 4 also.
Hmm... took my wife at her word so I guess I should have done testing myself first (though cheezy seemed to agree above as well) so I will do my due diligence tonight and report back if it's actually true or not.
 

MotionMan

Lifer
Jan 11, 2006
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Hmm... took my wife at her word so I guess I should have done testing myself first (though cheezy seemed to agree above as well) so I will do my due diligence tonight and report back if it's actually true or not.

Yeah, check if she has the volume turned down.

MotionMan
 

corwin

Diamond Member
Jan 13, 2006
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Yeah, check if she has the volume turned down.
Well I know it works if she doesn't flip the switch at least...had to listen to all her facebook updates rolling through while trying to sleep last night:\
 

Wonderful Pork

Golden Member
Jul 24, 2005
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The alarm definitely goes off even in silent mode, but it is really simple to snooze/sleep through. I ended up setting 2 alarms 5 minutes apart with snooze enabled and the damn things go off so often that I have choice but to get up.

I keep it in silent mode because I don't want the sound to wake anybody else in the house (4am, yay!) and the vibration is strong enough to wake me.

But, I agree, it would be AWESOME to disable notifications at certain times, which I believe blackberry can do? (I don't have one). Profiles with GPS geofence would be sweet too. Lets hope iOS 6 has something like this.
 

corwin

Diamond Member
Jan 13, 2006
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The alarm definitely goes off even in silent mode, but it is really simple to snooze/sleep through. I ended up setting 2 alarms 5 minutes apart with snooze enabled and the damn things go off so often that I have choice but to get up.

I keep it in silent mode because I don't want the sound to wake anybody else in the house (4am, yay!) and the vibration is strong enough to wake me.

But, I agree, it would be AWESOME to disable notifications at certain times, which I believe blackberry can do? (I don't have one). Profiles with GPS geofence would be sweet too. Lets hope iOS 6 has something like this.
Yeah it turns out she must have been doing something else, tested it and the alarm went off with no issues on vibrate...go figure...

And yes BB's have the best alert options of any phone hands down, aside from the nice bedside mode option I can also set different vibrate patterns with or without audible alerts for every email account individually as well as sms and mms outside of being able to setup special tones for contacts...that and a different profile for whether it's in the holster or not:p Takes a bit of time to setup initially but once done I know by the alert exactly what type of message I received and what account it was sent to without looking:)

Anyway thanks for the assistance guys, turns out I just needed to not take my wife's word this time...don't tell her I said that:eek:
 

MotionMan

Lifer
Jan 11, 2006
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Yeah it turns out she must have been doing something else, tested it and the alarm went off with no issues on vibrate...go figure...

You should have her show you what she did/does.

Now I am curious how she screwed this up!

MotionMan
 

corwin

Diamond Member
Jan 13, 2006
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You should have her show you what she did/does.

Now I am curious how she screwed this up!
Yeah she tried and couldn't get it to not go off again...so basically no clue at all what happened those days, if it ever happens again I'll work on it some more then but for now I'm chalking it up to female error of some sort;)