DateDots: Calendar Alarm Clock

Most alarm apps think in weekdays. DateDots thinks in dates.

DateDots is an alarm clock built on a calendar. Build a routine — a group of alarms that belong together — and put it on the exact days you need it. One look at the month tells you what is coming: every scheduled day carries a coloured dot, one per routine. It is made for anyone whose weeks are not identical, where this Tuesday looks nothing like last Tuesday.

A CALENDAR, NOT A LIST

Assign routines to real dates instead of "every Tuesday". Each day shows a dot per routine, in that routine's own colour and shape, so a glance across the month tells you which days are full and which are empty. Tap any day to see everything that rings on it — sorted by routine or by time — and to add something right there.

ROUTINES

Bundle a sequence of alarms that go together: wake up, stretch, shower, breakfast, head out. Build it once, then schedule the whole set onto as many days as you like. Turn the entire routine off with one switch, and give it a colour and shape so you can pick it out of a busy month.

TIMELINES

Some things are easier to plan backwards from a moment. A timeline is a reusable pattern of alarms around an event — three hours before, one hour before, right on time, an hour after. Drop it onto a date and a time, and every alarm lands where it should for that day.

IT UNDERSTANDS MIDNIGHT

If a routine starts the night before, that alarm shows up on the night it actually rings, tagged with the day it belongs to. On the calendar, a dot sitting in a day's corner tells you that routine reaches into the day beside it. Nothing hides in the wrong square.

SILENCE ONE DAY, NOT FOREVER

Need one alarm quiet for one day? Swipe it in the day's list and tap Silence. The row says what it silenced and offers Undo, and it rings normally on every other day — there is nothing to remember to switch back on.

ORDINARY ALARMS TOO

One-time, daily, and weekday alarms live in their own tab, with pin, duplicate, and drag-to-reorder. Every alarm keeps its own tone, snooze and vibrate setting.

BRING YOUR SCHEDULE IN

Import dates from a spreadsheet (.xlsx) or from a calendar already on your phone. It is read entirely on your device — the file never leaves it — and you can preview exactly what DateDots found before creating anything.

BUILT TO ACTUALLY RING

A full-screen alarm on the lock screen, and a banner that stays put over whatever you are doing while unlocked. An optional heads-up notification a few minutes early that you can cancel with one tap. Gapless looping tones, a per-alarm vibrate switch, and an Alarm health screen that tells you if your phone's own settings are likely to get in the way — including an alarm volume left too low, which is easy to miss because the volume buttons usually change media instead.

YOURS TO LOOK AT

Light and dark themes, three accent colours, 12- or 24-hour time.

PRIVATE BY DESIGN

No ads. No third-party tracking or analytics. Your alarms stay on your device unless you choose to sign in.

DATEDOTS PRO

A one-time purchase — not a subscription — unlocks:

• Cloud backup and sync across your devices

• Creating alarms from spreadsheet and calendar imports

Everything else is free, and any import can be previewed for free before you decide.

LOOKING FOR ONE OF THESE?

An alarm for a specific date, not another weekly repeat. Several alarms scheduled at once instead of one at a time. A month view showing which days already have alarms on them. A set of alarms you build once and reuse, instead of rebuilding the same schedule every week. An alarm clock for a week that never looks the same twice.

Questions or feedback? bigmountainoutpost@gmail.com

Note: like every alarm app, DateDots depends on your phone's own settings to ring on time. Please do not rely on it as your only alarm for anything where missing it could cause harm — keep a second, independent alarm for those.