How To Set the Amazon Echo Alarm to Wake You with Music

Smart home devices are popular tech gadgets and for a good reason. The Amazon Echo lineup is like a personal assistant ready to help you complete daily tasks, save time, and much more!

You can set reminders, add items to your grocery list, listen to news updates, and, with Alexa’s skills, there is something new to discover every day. At one time, alarm clocks were the necessary gadget to get us out the door on time every morning. These were quickly replaced by smartphones and now Amazon Echo devices.

But can you tell Alexa to wake you up every morning with your favorite song? What about a great sound bite? The answer is, of course! There isn’t much left that Alexa can’t do for you. In this article, we’ll walk you through customizing your Alexa alarm with music. We’ll also show you some other really neat features of this function.

Understanding Alarms on Alexa

There are a few different ways to set alarms on your Echo devices, and thankfully, it’s easy to do with or without your smartphone or tablet. This section will teach you how to set a basic alarm on your Alexa device.

By far, the simplest way to set an alarm is just to ask Alexa to do it for you. Asking Alexa to wake you up at 7 am sets an alarm with your default alarm sound, something that can be changed easily in the settings of your Alexa app (we’ll get to that in a moment).

It’s not just asking Alexa to set an alarm; that’s easy—you can also ask Alexa to set up a recurring alarm on your devices just by asking Alexa to set an alarm for every weekday or making an exemption from alarms on the weekend.

Set Up an Alarm

First, we’ll walk you through setting up your first alarm. There are some music and sounds already available to you, so let’s review this first.

Using the Alexa App on your smartphone, follow these instructions to create your alarm:

  1. Open the Alexa App and tap on ‘More‘ in the lower right-hand corner.
  2. Tap on ‘Alarms & Timers.’
  3. Tap on the ‘+‘ symbol next to ‘Add Alarm.’
  4. Select your device, set the frequency and dates, then tap on ‘Sound.’
  5. Lastly, Tap ‘Save.’

You can also edit existing alarms (and their sounds) by tapping on the alarm rather than the plus symbol.

Add Music to an Alarm

Now that you know how to set an alarm, let’s get your music set up! If you have already linked your music service, you can skip this step. But for those of you who have yet to do this, follow these steps before proceeding:

  1. Tap on the ‘More‘ option in the lower right-hand corner just like we did above.
  2. Tap on ‘Settings.’
  3. Tap on ‘Music & Podcasts.’
  4. Tap on ‘Link New Service‘ or tap on one of the options available.
  5. Follow the onscreen prompts to set up your music service.

After you’ve linked your music to your Alexa, it’s really simple to begin setting alarms.

How to Set Up an Alarm with Music on Alexa

In this section, we won’t need the Alexa application. You’ll only need to be within earshot of your Alexa device.

To set up an alarm with music, simply say, “Alexa, wake me up at 5 am to Bohemian Rhapsody” or whichever song you’d like to be serenaded with upon waking.

Admittedly, setting an alarm this way can be annoying. If Alexa misses the song, you can easily fix it by saying, “Alexa, set my 5 am alarm to play Bohemian Rhapsody.” She’ll confirm your choice, and you can verify it in the app, as shown in the screenshot above.

Of course, you can ask Alexa to set you up with a playlist or a radio station. Simply say, ‘Alexa, set my 5 am alarm to play [My Playlist].” Again, she will confirm, and you’re ready to go!

What Music Services Are Supported Through Alexa?

Most music lovers have left their local libraries behind in exchange for paying a monthly subscription to listen to music streaming.

Not everyone has made the move to these streaming services, but unfortunately, it’s going to be the primary way to set a music alarm on your Alexa device. In this quick guide, we’re going to take a look at how to use the platform.

Using Amazon Music

By default, Amazon’s own music service is the default streaming choice, especially if you’re a Prime member. This means you likely won’t have to do anything to set up Amazon Music on your Echo device—it should be running already. Some basic commands to try using to wake up:

  • Alexa, wake me up to Carly Rae Jepsen at 7 am.
  • Alexa, wake me up at 7 am with my “wake up” playlist.
  • Alexa, wake me up to “Thank U Next” by Ariana Grande every weekday at 7 am.”

Just by asking Alexa to set the alarm for you, commands like these should allow you to wake up to streaming music, either shuffled from an artist, specific songs, or playlists you’ve already created.

If you dive into the alarms section of your Alexa app, you’ll notice that these alarms have been added to your list of set alarms, complete with your choice of music. However, when you click on the alarm, you will not be able to change the music selection.

Once your alarm is playing, you’ll find all your controls still work here, and you can freely skip songs, ask to snooze your alarm (for 9 minutes), stop playback, and more. It’s also important to note that Alexa will remember your alarm preferences, so if you want to wake up to Beyoncé every morning, you can absolutely do that. Canceling your alarms also works with your voice, and you can snooze, stop, and shut down alarms just by verbalizing those commands. It makes waking up in the morning much easier than it otherwise could be.

Using Spotify

There is good news for those who pay for Spotify’s $9.99 premium plan: your Amazon Echo just became your go-to alarm clock for all the music stations, artists, albums, and singles that you love. The app works basically the same as Amazon’s Music service, but it pulls content from your Spotify account instead of pulling media from Amazon. Theoretically, you could even use Spotify to wake up to podcasts supported on the platform.

Unfortunately, one of the biggest selling points for Spotify is the free tier on both desktop and mobile, and you cannot access this account level on the Echo. If you try to plug in your free account information, you’ll be alerted that your account doesn’t support the device and that switching to Spotify is a no-go.

Others

Amazon added support for Apple Music at the tail end of 2018, making it easier than ever to listen to your favorite songs through Apple’s music service. If you’re an Apple Music subscriber, this is a great addition to your Alexa device.

Based on our tests, most other music options worked well for setting alarms as well. Amazon supports more music services than any other smart device out there today, with iHeartRadio, TuneIn, Deezer, Gimme, Pandora, Sirius XM, Tidal, and Vevo all supported on your Alexa device, in addition to Amazon, Apple, and Spotify.

This helps to make your Alexa speaker one of the best ways to wake up in the morning, from the personal collections of Spotify and Apple Music to the free streaming library collected through Prime, to the internet radio stations of Pandora, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn. Not all of these need specific logins either; some, like iHeartRadio, can work even without an account, making it easy to get up in the morning.

Frequently Asked Questions

If you’re just getting to know Alexa or want to learn more, we’ve included this section to answer some of your more frequently asked questions.

Can I add custom sounds to my Alarm?

Unfortunately, this doesn’t appear to be a feature just yet. For example, if you have an MP3 file you’d like to set up, Alexa doesn’t give users the option.

Can I change the timer sounds on my Alexa?

Yes. If you’ve chosen to set a timer rather than an alarm, you can change the timer tone. Here’s what you need to do:

1. Open the Alexa app on your smartphone and tap on the More icon in the lower left corner.

2. Tap on Alarms & Timers.

3. Tap on Timers. Then, select Settings.

4. Select the Alexa device you’re working with from the list.

5. To the right of Default Timer Tone tap Simple Timer (or whichever sound is listed).

6. Select your new sound.

Unfortunately, anyone looking to wake up to their local music will likely be disappointed to learn that it simply doesn’t work on their Alexa devices, thanks to the requirement to have streaming music platforms as opposed to anything playing back locally.

Thankfully, there are some streaming options to help. Prime users can still rely on the basic Amazon Prime Music plan to play most popular songs from a limited collection while playing on an Alexa every morning to wake up.

Whether you’re looking to find a specific song or artist or just need a genre, there are enough options on Prime Music to set an alarm each morning to wake you up. With support for free options like Pandora and iHeartRadio, your Alexa can become a pretty decent replacement for the clock radio you used to have by your bedside.

What’s your favorite song to wake up to with Alexa in the morning? Let us know in the comments below!

11 thoughts on “How To Set the Amazon Echo Alarm to Wake You with Music”

Ben says:
By Voice Command:
Just say “Alexa, set alarm for 6am and wake to The Bridge (or whatever Station you want) on Sirius XM”
Not sure how to set this up as a Routine though, so that all you would have to do is say “Alexa, set alarm for 6am” and it would automatically play whatever Station you specify on Sirius XM as the wake up Music.
Rich says:
If you wanted to, theoretically you could use your smartphone alarm to trigger a skill. For Robert’s Sirius XM example, you could say “Alexa, play Channel 51 on Sirius XM.” The best way I can think to do that is to record your voice saying the command and add a minute or three of silence at the end. This way, your Alexa device, through this workaround, could wake you to music on a daily basis.
You would have to set up a particular skill. In the Sirius XM example, you would have to enter your streaming credentials into the Alexa app. I would recommend putting your phone somewhat close to the Alexa device and maybe even plugging in the charger.
Of course, if you lose electric or Wi-Fi overnight, it won’t work, so I would recommend a backup method all the same.
Ryan says:
Configure a routine in the Alexa app, you can specify weekdays and choose Spotify (or whatever provider you have set up) to be played at a certain time of day. I even have mine open a specific playlist.
Marcel says:
Cool, came up with the same idea. I use the plex media server to store my local files and created wake up media files that are stored on there. On Android there are multiple timers available for free. I use Alarm Clock Xtreme which has the ability to set an auto-dismiss time. My voice commands are just under 10 seconds and the timer is set to dismiss after 10 seconds, so the wake up message is not repeated and Alexa not confused. With Plex one can define playlists and a vocal wake up command is for example: Alexa, Volume 5 – 2 seconds silence – Alexa, tell Plex playlist good morning.
That gets the job done and the files listed in the playlist are then streamed to the echo device.
Thus the phone doesn’t need to be paired in Bluetooth mode either.
M says:
iPhones can’t use voice memos as alarms. The only way to do so is to send your voice memo to a computer, convert it, and send it back to your iPhone. Super tedious
Jeff says:
Hopefully, they figure this out for the Amazon Spot. A smart alarm clock is useless if it can’t use music for an alarm.
LLoyd says:
So I could use an old smart phone to give Alexa voice commands set by verbal alarms at different times. Interesting.
Max says:
Where on the iPhone alarm can I access a voice memo to use to trigger Echo? do not see that option
If that is not an option, what alarm apps will let me access a radio or TV station ?
Rickwith2tees says:
The file will play over and over, and so will Alexa listen and get the instruction command multiple times
David Toone says:
You should be able to set the alarm on your phone to play once instead of repeating.
Robert says:
Can Alexa wake me up to a radio station on Sirius XM? If so how does that work?

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