How Ahem works
Install it, connect your calendars, done. When a meeting is near, a real alarm takes the screen.
Install & allow
The permission checklist walks you through it once.
Connect calendars
Pick which calendars Ahem tracks. Work, personal, all of them.
One tap arms it
Ahem spots every meeting and asks — one tap sets the alarm. Or let your rules do it.
Ahem takes the screen
A silent nudge first, then a real alarm — over the lock screen, through Do Not Disturb.
That's the whole product. Everything below is Ahem being careful about the details.
The details that make it smart
Ahem makes quiet decisions on its own. Each one can look like a bug the first time you meet it — here's what's actually happening.
When it rings
The pre-alarm screen
Every alarm opens in silence: the screen takes over, the edges glow, and the nudge grows more insistent. Sound starts only after the quiet window ends — 30 seconds on the Default preset, 15 on Urgent, 45 on Gentle, adjustable on any of them.
If you always catch the pre-alarm, you'll never hear the alarm ring — that's the app working, not failing.
The early reminder
A heads-up notification lands well before the alarm itself — 30 minutes ahead on Default, 15 on Urgent, none on Gentle — with a live countdown and three choices: Dismiss, Snooze, or Let it ring.
Dismissing the early reminder is you telling Ahem the meeting is handled — the alarm won't ring because you said so.
Camera flash
Ahem can strobe the camera LED while an alarm rings — during the quiet phase, the sound, or both. It's part of each preset.
Only the Urgent preset flashes out of the box — if you never see it, that's your preset, not your camera.
Sounds & presets
Three presets — Default, Urgent, Gentle — each bundling a tone, quiet-phase length, vibration pattern, flash, and early reminder. Pick from 20 built-in sounds or any ringtone on your phone.
There's no single global alarm sound. Each alarm follows its preset — that's what makes Urgent urgent and Gentle gentle.
Ringing while you're on the phone
If you're actively using your phone, the alarm pins a compact banner over what you're doing — Snooze, Dismiss, tap to expand — and gives you 3 quiet seconds before the tone. Music pauses, then resumes.
The banner is the alarm. Not taking over your screen mid-use is deliberate.
Muted alarms come back
Tapping the screen mutes the alarm but keeps it alive. Forget it, and the sound returns after 60 seconds; after 3 minutes with no action it snoozes itself to the next sensible reminder.
It rang again after you muted it — mute is not dismiss. Only Dismiss ends an alarm.
What gets an alarm
Nothing arms itself
A new meeting produces a prompt — one tap arms it. Only the auto-alarm rules you create can set alarms without asking.
Ahem never silently decides a meeting deserves an alarm. No alarm means it asked, and nobody tapped.
Ignoring calendars
Every calendar is Tracked, Silent, or Ignored. Ignoring removes its upcoming alarms — with Undo — and calendars holding no real events are ignored automatically on first install.
A calendar that never produces alarms is probably ignored — check "Show ignored" under Settings → Calendars. Nothing is deleted.
Ignore keywords
Events titled with "placeholder", "optional", "tentative", or "hold" are skipped by default. The list is yours to edit — plain words match whole words only, and /regex/ works too.
If "Hold: budget review" never got an alarm, that's the default keyword list doing its job — edit it in Settings.
Too late still rings
Arm an event after its lead time has already passed and the alarm rings a minute from now, instead of setting nothing.
Set an alarm two minutes before a meeting and it rings in one — never silently nothing.
When life happens
Survives reboots
If your phone restarts overnight — an update, a crash, a scheduled reboot — your alarms still ring, even before your first unlock.
An alarm right after a reboot uses the default sound, not your preset: your settings stay encrypted until you unlock. On time beats customized.
Time off
Vacations on your calendars are detected and merged into one period, and Ahem asks once. "Suppress" opens a menu where you choose what stays quiet — per calendar or event, with keep-ringing exceptions. On the last evening, detection resumes.
Silence during your vacation is the feature — and Monday's alarms are set the night before you're back.
We're just getting started.
- Home screen widgetcoming soon
- Voice dismisscoming soon
- Desktop companion appscoming soon
- Smartwatch supportcoming soon
Want to know when these ship?
Join the waitlist and be the first to know.