MacAppZone

Awaken: Let Your Computer Wake You

July 7th, 2009 by Erik Bernskiold

If you have your Mac somewhat close to your bed and own an Apple Remote, you could have Awaken on your computer. Awaken is an alarm-clock for your mac, that sounds an alarm at the time you’ve set, so that you can wake up on time!

 

Alarms, Egg Timer, Sleep Timer

Awaken is not only an alarm-clock, but an egg timer and a sleep timer as well. With the sleep timer, you can have your mac go to sleep after playing say an iTunes playlist for a certain number of minutes. The egg timer is a basic countdown timer that after the countdown, sounds either an iTunes playlist or a built-in sound.

If you want to be woken up by awaken, just set a timer for the time. If you’ve got a laptop, don’t shut the lid. Chose form the menus and let your Mac got to sleep and Awaken can wake it up just a little before your alarm time.

The Built-In Sounds

The sounds that are built into Awaken are all pretty good. I like to wake up to just electronic beeps, but if you prefer a Westminster Chime sound, you can have that as well! If none of these sounds fit you as wake-up sounds, just select the iTunes option and select a playlist of your choice. Waking up to your favorite music is really nice!

Apple Remote Integration

If you have an iMac or a MacPro, or just don’t want your laptop next to your bed, you can use the Apple Remote to Awaken, once the alarm goes off. Changing the volume, the tracks (if you play an iTunes playlist), toggle the full screen mode or snooze (or even stop) the alarm.

Conclusion

I’ve come to rely on Awaken to wake up each morning and so far it has never let me down. I’m a bit paranoid to wake up on time, so I always set a second alarm, whether it is my phone or an old fashioned one, just in case the other one fails. Awaken however, has not failed me once. The ability to add your own sound files into Awaken is a nice touch for sounds that you haven’t got in your iTunes playlist.

I would like to see some more controls over the fullscreen mode and the ability to control the alarm-display a bit more, although I still find the application really good, doing what an alarm-clock needs to do.