How I finally replaced my noise machine and nightstand clock with my iphone.

In my quest for minimalism i’m always looking at how a device can fill multiple rolls so I need less items.

With the new standby mode I can replace my bed side clock. I have also been playing with using my iPhone to replace my noise machine that I did have setup with HomeKit to turn on at 9pm and off at 11pm. Using my phone is a bit more manual but i like that it’s very intentional. It is nice when I travel that I have the same noise machine on the road as I do at home. So I got a mag safe stand and have that and one HomeKit light by my bed. It looks a lot cleaner and it’s simpler.

I bought a Maxonar stand for $26 and it works great.

So far I’m not overly impressed by how standby mode is setup by default. Why an old school analog clock? Why have it so I can only edit the standby widgets when it’s on a charger? Thats kind of a pain. Hopefully Apple will add features to test. Maybe we will also see third party widgets one day? It could also be that I’m learning how to use it.

After doing some playing with it, I can see that if you swipe over you can change what is displayed. I was able to get a tiny clock in the corner and that works well. Is there a way to customize the color? we will see. See what I have so far…

You can also swipe up and down for different clock faces. This is the one I like the best.

This is exactly the functionality I had hoped for with IOS 17. It seems like a tiny feature but it’s a game changer for me. I loved the giant alarm buttons. It will be interesting to see how I can continue to integrate this in to everyday life.

In case you didn’t know. iOS and iPadOS have a sound machine built in. In the past I would use an app to turn my phone in to a white noise machine so I can sleep better at night. It’s a total game changer for me. I think it was added around iOS 14 or 15.

All you need to do is launch the settings app, the search background sounds and turn on the sound you like.

You could even get fancy and create an automation with shortcuts like I did below.