The HomePod isn’t just a pretty speaker. You can also perform a few tasks with it, like set alarms and timers. Here’s how.
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Before you get started, keep in mind that alarms and timers on the HomePod aren’t nearly as customizable as they are with Alexa and Google Assistant. It’s pretty barebones compared to other smart speakers, but it’ll a good job if all you want is basic functionality.
Set an Alarm
There are two ways you can set alarms on your HomePod: Using “Hey Siri” and setting one up with your voice, or doing it through the Home app on your iPhone.
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When using your voice, all you have to say is “Hey Siri, set an alarm for 7am” or “Hey Siri, wake me up at 7am”. You can also set repeating alarms by saying something like “Hey Siri, set an alarm for 7am every weekday”.
Unfortunately, you can’t set an alarm to play music or anything like that—just the default alarm tone that comes with the HomePod.
When an alarm goes off, you can simply tap the touchpad on the top of the HomePod or say “Hey Siri, stop”.
When you set an alarm, you can manage them from the Home app by first long-pressing or 3D Touching your HomePod under “Favorite Accessories”.
Then tap on “Alarms” in the bottom-left corner.
From there, you’ll see the alarm that you set using Siri and you can make changes to it here just like alarms on your iPhone: by tapping on “Edit” and selecting the alarm. You can also create alarms here by tapping on the “+” button in the top-left corner.
Set a Timer
As for setting timers, you can only do so using your voice, as there’s no interface in the Home app for creating or managing timers on the HomePod.
To set a timer, all you have to say is “Hey Siri, set a 10 minute timer”.
From there, you can check in on how much time is left by saying “Hey Siri, how much time is left on the timer?” or you can cancel the timer at any point by saying “Hey Siri, cancel the timer”.
