Short Explanation
Rise and Shine is an alarm clock that wakes you with the sun. Choose how close to sunrise you want to get up, say 20 minutes before, and the alarm moves with the sun every day: earlier in summer, later in winter.
Features
- A real alarm: rings through Silent mode and Focus, with a full-screen Lock Screen alert, Snooze and Stop, the Dynamic Island and Apple Watch. It keeps working when the app is closed or the phone restarts.
- On your terms: anchor to sunrise, dawn or first light, any offset before or after, and a wake window so winter and midsummer mornings stay sensible. A separate rule for weekends.
- Sleep: a target number of hours becomes a bedtime and a wind-down reminder each night.
- Trends: your alarm against the sun across the week, month and year.
- Private: sunrise is computed on the phone. No network, no account, no analytics.
Tech Stack Used
Built with Swift, iOS
- SwiftUI: the app, widgets and Apple Watch app.
- AlarmKit (iOS 26): system alarms that iOS owns once scheduled, planned 14 days ahead.
- WidgetKit and Live Activities: the next alarm on the Home and Lock Screen, and the snooze countdown in the Dynamic Island.
- RiseCore: a Swift package with the NOAA solar calculator and the alarm planner, unit-tested against reference values.
Motivations
I wanted more morning light to sleep better, and found that waking with the sunrise left me more alert all day. Rise and Shine makes that automatic, and it was my way into native iOS development.