Wake up and meditate at first light with Risetime

Why first light is not a clock time

Risetime is a clock app for Android: alarms at a fixed time or following the sun, and timers that repeat and chain. No ads ever and completely offline.

A practice that begins with the light does not begin at a number. First light moves through the year, and across a single time zone too: on 21 June the sun rises at 06:01 in Mumbai and 05:08 in Varanasi: fifty-three minutes apart, on the same clock.

Risetime sets an alarm on a moment of the sun instead of a clock time. That moment is an anchor, the distance you keep from it an offset.

Four ways to name first light

Definitions vary; these are the common ones. The app holds the one you set at every latitude and season, which a fixed “forty-five minutes before sunrise” cannot, the length of twilight changing with both.

How do I set an alarm for sunrise meditation or yoga?

1. On the Alarms tab, press +.
2. In the top menu, choose Sunrise.
3. Leave the dial centred to ring at sunrise, or turn it to the gap you want, up to 11 hr 59 min either way.
4. Press OK, then open the alarm in the list and set Repeat.

And the alarm early risers keep asking for is the other one: an alarm to go to bed, not one to wake up. Put it on the Sunset anchor with an offset, repeating: the same four steps. How to set a sunrise or sunset alarm

How do I wake at dawn, before the sun rises?

1. Open Settings → Anchors and press + (it appears once the section is unfolded).
2. Keep the type on A solar angle. Enter −6° for civil dawn or −12° for nautical dawn, direction morning. It moves a tenth of a degree at a time, between −30° and +30°.
3. Name it, pick a colour (it will not save without one) and save.
4. On the Alarms tab, put an alarm on it.

Far north or south, the sun never gets that low for part of the year. The editor says so as you create the anchor (“The sun does not reach this angle here from X to Y”, with your own dates), and on those days the alarm stays silent rather than ring at a moment the sky never produced. Nothing is invented.

Can I wake at a fraction of the night?

You can time the morning by the night rather than the dawn: a point a given way through the dark.

1. Settings → Anchors → +, and switch the shape to Division.
2. Scope Night, then the Number of parts and the Position: 2 to 48 parts, any boundary inside them.
3. Name it, pick a colour, save. A fresh draft's title reads Night · 1/15; it follows whatever you set.
4. Put an alarm on it.

The night here is exactly one thing: from a sunset to the following sunrise, split evenly. Inside the polar circles such a night may not exist; the anchor then has nothing to divide, and the app says so, without the dated range the angle form gives, which this shape has not. Matching a published timetable? Advanced → Shift by N minutes moves an anchor you made by up to thirty minutes either way.

During the sit: four bells

The alarm wakes you for the practice; the sit itself is timed by a sequence of timers. A sit has a shape: a moment to settle, the practice, a moment to come back, the end. Risetime marks each turn with a bell, and the bells do not take over the screen.

1. First bell: you press play. Sit down, breathe, cough if you need to, set the cushion right.
2. Second bell, one minute later: the meditation begins.
3. Third bell, an hour later: you can start to ease off.
4. Last bell, one minute after that: the session ends.

How do I set up meditation bells?

1. On the Timers tab, tap the plus and type 1:00. Add it without starting.
2. Open the row and add two more timers: 1:00:00, then 1:00.
3. Tick Add a ring at the start: the first bell rings when you press play.
4. Tick Intermediate ring at the end: the last bell is a bell too, not a ringing screen.
5. Pick the sequence’s intermediate ring sound: a bowl, a gong, a file of your own.

Shorter sits, longer ones, more bells: the durations are yours, and a sequence holds as many timers as you like. Twenty minutes in two halves is 1:00 + 10:00 + 10:00.

Quiet by design

Each bell is an intermediate ring: it plays once, as a notification. Nothing asks to be dismissed, and nothing needs a glance. If music is playing, on most phones it steps back for the bell and resumes on its own.

The bell sound belongs to this sequence only: your kitchen timer keeps its own. How long an intermediate ring may last, up to two minutes, and whether timers vibrate, are set once for all timers in Settings › Timers.

The bells stay on time. Each timer counts from when the previous one was due, so the hour is an hour.

Works offline, on your phone

Its own labels stay astronomical (Sunrise, a solar angle, Night · 1/15), while the name you type is yours. Sun times are computed on your phone, and your location never leaves it: Risetime has no account, no cloud, no ads and no internet permission at all. Privacy policy

The bells use the same gestures as every timer: the timers guide has them all.

How anchors and offsets work

What it costs

Risetime is free for up to three alarms and three timers – for good. Need more? Use those three first, and see if it's worth your support: supporters get unlimited alarms and timers, yearly or once. If not, I'll be happy to hear you out.