At 10 a.m. on Thursday morning, a phone call woke me up. I answered, and on the other end, a stranger yelled out a loud and long “good morning” in what I think was an English accent. The stranger then asked me if I was awake, which I replied to with muffled words and groans. Thanks, Wakie.
Wakie, the social alarm clock, is an app designed to replace your normal alarm clock and let strangers wake you up through a phone call. Designed like a normal alarm, each user sets a time to be woken up. But instead of being woken up by an audio file from your phone, you’ll receive a phone call from someone around the world within five minutes of the desired time. Each phone call lasts a maximum of one minute, and your cell phone number is anonymous.
Wakie also keeps a record of the amount of times you’ve been woken up, woken someone else up and your total call time, in minutes. It also features a message board for users, which seems to have a good deal of traffic throughout the day.
The app, available for free on Android, Windows Phone and iOS, has had 1.5 million users, who have had a total of over 30 million wake-up calls made.
To get the full Wakie experience, I had to try it for myself. Here’s my day-to-day experience.
Friday — My second morning using the app, I was woken up women’s voice saying “good morning” in a soft tone. She took the time to ask me if I was waking up, and hung up soon after. It was the calmest wake-up throughout my trial of the app.
Saturday — While setting up my alarm the night before, I had forgotten to turn my ringtone on which made me miss my wake-up call. One problem with the app is that the alarm is through a phone call, so you must have your volume on and cannot have your phone on “do not disturb.”
Sunday — I was surprised to have my second wake-up from a female voice this morning saying, “good morning, have a good day.” To be honest, I was disappointed that the call wasn’t someone playing Maroon 5’s “Sunday Morning.”
Monday — My last morning using the app, I answered the phone to someone speaking in loud, broken English. “Hello, are you awake?” he asked several times, but didn’t bother to wait for me to reply.
My experience using Wakie was surprisingly a positive one. Despite missing one of the alarms, the app makes waking up a new experience every day. Since the app is free, and available for most platforms, there are not many reasons why you shouldn’t give it a try.
While you can set an alarm to be woken up, you can also choose to be the person waking someone up. I tried this for myself. When the stranger answered with a half-groan, half-hello, I said “good morning.” He replied with the same. I then asked him what he planned for the day, and he said, “I don’t know, but I need some cereal.”