A mission alarm does not stop when you tap it. It stops when you finish a task — scanning a code across the room, solving a problem, or standing up and moving.
AlarmK is a mission alarm app for iPhone. It can require a QR scan, a math problem, a memory sequence, typing, a shake, squats, a walk or a photo before an alarm will stop.
Free on the App Store. No in-app purchases, no ads, no account. Requires iOS 26 or later.
Free on the App Store · Requires iOS 26 or later
A mission alarm requires you to complete a task before the alarm can be dismissed. The goal is simple: make waking up an action, not just a tap.
In AlarmK, a mission is what you have to do before the alarm will stop. It blocks the eyes-closed dismiss and asks for something you can only do awake. Every alarm can have its own.
Even an alarm with no mission keeps repeating until you turn it off — it is not a notification that chimes once. Repeats run for the re-ring duration set in Settings › Behavior, which is 15 minutes by default.
Each mission has an Easy · Normal · Hard difficulty, so you can match it to how hard you are to wake.
Scan a code you have put somewhere far from the bed. The most reliable of the eight.
Solve the problem you are given.
Repeat the sequence of lit tiles. Get it wrong and it simply shows a new sequence; there is no penalty.
Type the sentence shown. Case and repeated spaces are ignored.
Shake the phone a set number of times.
Do a set number of squats. It detects the pause at the bottom, so half-sitting does not count.
Take a set number of steps. Only steps after the mission starts are counted.
Take one photo and you are done. The image is never stored.
You can chain up to five missions on one alarm. You do them in the numbered order, and the alarm keeps ringing until the last one is done.
Every mission has a Try it out button. Nothing rings and nothing is recorded in your wake history. It is the way to confirm a printed QR code actually scans before you rely on it.
If the camera is broken or you cannot get to where the code is, Emergency stop first offers a backup mission in a different sense — that one sits outside the chain, so finishing it ends the alarm no matter how many missions were left. If that is out of reach too, a deliberate multi-tap confirmation turns the alarm off. The morning is recorded as a failure, but the app will not scold you for it.
An alarm is an aid, not a certainty. AlarmK is built to reduce the situations where an alarm cannot ring, but it cannot prevent physical failures: a powered-off phone, a drained battery, a denied permission. No alarm app can. For anything that really matters, set a backup alarm in the system Clock app too.
A mission alarm requires you to complete a task before the alarm can be dismissed. Instead of a single tap, it asks for something you can only do awake — scanning a code, solving a problem, or moving your body.
Yes. AlarmK has eight missions — QR/barcode scan, math problem, memory, typing, shake, squat, walk and photo verification — and every alarm can have its own. Each mission has an Easy, Normal or Hard difficulty.
Yes. You can chain up to five missions on one alarm. You do them in the numbered order, and the alarm keeps ringing until the last one is done.
Yes. You can use the code AlarmK generates, or register a barcode you already own such as a milk carton, a book's ISBN or a delivery box. Scanning is verified entirely on your device. See how the QR alarm works.
Use Emergency stop. It first offers a backup mission in a different sense, which sits outside the chain, so finishing it ends the alarm. If that is out of reach too, a deliberate multi-tap confirmation turns the alarm off. The morning is recorded as a failure, but the app won't scold you for it.
Yes. AlarmK is free on the App Store with no in-app purchases and no account to create. It requires iOS 26 or later.
No. There is no advertising SDK in the app, and while an alarm is ringing there are no ads, no subscription prompts and no rating requests.
Written for AlarmK 1.3.0. Last updated 1 September 2026.