This article will show you how to instruct Siri to set, label, reuse and otherwise manage your Apple Watch alarms …
You probably know how to ask Siri to create alarms on your Apple Watch by saying something like “Hey Siri! Set an alarm for 7.30 am”. Viola! She dutifully sets a generic alarm for 7.30 am. Easy, but she can do much more. Read on.
First things first, an important reminder: Alarms you set on your Apple Watch do not push through to your iPhone. I wish that they were bi-directionally synchronized, but as of publication date, they are not*. Alarms you set on your iPhone can ring through to your Apple Watch if you have enabled Push Alerts from iPhone in your My Watch>Clock settings in the Watch app on your iPhone.
Once you’re in the habit of setting alarms on your Apple Watch you’ll soon learn that expired alarms do not go away — they’re simply disabled and accumulate on your Watch. Say “Hey Siri! Show my alarms.” to see a list of all your alarms — enabled and disabled. You’ll likely have more alarms that are disabled than in current use. To tidy up you need to select unwanted alarms, one by one, scroll down to and hit the delete button. Tedious!
The solution is to label frequently used alarms so you change the time associated with those alarms instead of creating new ones.
When you have multiple alarms set on your Apple Watch things get confusing. It would be helpful to add labels to remind you why you set a particular alarm.
Here’s how to label your alarms. Try this on your Apple Watch …
“Hey Siri!† Set an alarm for 7 am and name it breakfast.”
Sure enough, she’ll acknowledge your instruction and display an alarm with your desired label …
Hints: Create simple label names which come to you naturally so you’ll remember what to call them when managing them later. Although labels can be multiple words, single words labels are generally more reliable. However, do not label your alarms with verbs which Siri might try to interpret as part of your instruction e.g. timer, create etc.
To change the time on a named alarm which is already enabled say …
“Hey Siri! Change my breakfast alarm to 10 am.”
Hint: Be careful to leave a definite pause after the word “to” else you might confuse Siri into setting the time to something like 2.10 am!
To reuse a named alarm that’s disabled say …
“Hey Siri! Enable my breakfast alarm to 8 am.”
Note: The verbs enable, and set do different things. Enable will switch the alarm on, set will change the time without toggling the alarm on or off.
To just change the time on an alarm, whether enabled to disabled, say …
“Hey Siri! Set my breakfast alarm to 10 am”
To disable a named alarm say …
“Hey Siri! Disable my breakfast alarm.”
To enable a named alarm say without setting a new time …
“Hey Siri! Enable my breakfast alarm.”
To delete a named alarm say …
“Hey Siri! Delete my breakfast alarm.”
To display all of your alarms say …
“Hey Siri! Show my alarms.”
One final reminder: When you ask Siri on your Apple Watch to manage a named alarm, be aware that she will only work with the alarms set on your Watch, not similarly named alarms on your iPhone*. Capiche?
*Warning: If Listen for “Hey Siri” is enabled on your iPhone or iPad, be aware that, if within earshot, those devices may listen in as you manage named alarms on your Watch — often with confusing results on those other devices e.g. they may set, change or delete random alarms or initiate a web search on the alarm’s name. Having said that, if you have Listen for “Hey Siri” enabled everywhere, you would be a brave soul to have similarly named alarms on iPhone, iPad and Watch — and within earshot of one another — when verbally managing your alarms!
†Note: My post assumes that “Hey Siri!” is enabled on your Apple Watch. If not you’ll need to press and hold down on the crown button to call for Siri’s attention — then issue commands without the “Hey Siri!” prefix. To check your Siri settings, go to Settings>General>Siri on your Watch. Here they are all disabled …
This post answers questions like “How to set Apple Watch alarms with Siri?”, “”How to manage Apple Watch alarms using Siri?”, “How to name or label Apple Watch alarms with Siri?” and “Asking Siri to set Apple Watch alarms”, “Enable or disable Hey Siri! on Apple Watch”.
slappHappe 