Siri, Shortcuts, Widgets & Alarms
Start, stop, and schedule recordings without touching your phone.
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A snore recording only helps if you remember to start it, and reaching for your phone at bedtime is the easiest step to skip. Snore Timeline plugs into Siri, the Shortcuts app, and your home screen so you can start, stop, and schedule a session by voice or with one tap. This page covers each way in, and the timing controls around a hands-free session.
Siri commands
Snore Timeline has five Siri actions, so you can run a session from your lock screen, CarPlay, a HomePod, or an Apple Watch without unlocking the phone:
- Start Recording. Say "Hey Siri, start recording with Snore Timeline" or "Begin sleep recording in Snore Timeline."
- Stop Recording. Say "Hey Siri, stop recording with Snore Timeline" or "End sleep recording in Snore Timeline."
- Episode Count. Ask "How many snoring episodes in Snore Timeline" or "Get my episode count with Snore Timeline." Siri reads back the number of episodes for a date and defaults to yesterday.
- Open Date. Say "Show today in Snore Timeline" or "Open Snore Timeline to today" to jump the app to a specific day.
- Open Yesterday. Say "Show yesterday in Snore Timeline" or "Open Snore Timeline to yesterday" and the app opens on last night's recording.
Siri understands these phrases in every app language that Siri itself speaks, so if Siri is set to German or Japanese, say them in German or Japanese. Siri doesn't speak Hindi, Polish, Indonesian, or Filipino, so in those languages set Siri to English and use the English phrases.
Recording needs the microphone, so starting a session by voice opens the app to hand it the mic. If a session is already running when you ask Siri to start, it tells you recording is already in progress and asks you to stop the current one first. Use the Stop command to end the night the same hands-free way.
The Episode Count, Open Date, and Open Yesterday commands work in the morning too. Ask for your episode count over coffee and Siri reads back last night's number without you opening the app.
Shortcuts and automations
Those same five Siri actions show up in the Shortcuts app as building blocks. Add the Start Recording action to a shortcut of your own and you can trigger a session from a tap, an automation, or a chain of steps. A few setups work well:
- Start by voice with your own phrase. Build a shortcut around Start Recording and name it whatever comes naturally, so "begin sleep tracking" maps to your own routine.
- Schedule a nightly start. A time-of-day automation in Shortcuts can run Start Recording at, say, 11:00 PM every night. Pair it with the recording delay below if you want a buffer before listening begins.
- Combine it with other actions. Turn on a Sleep Focus, dim the lights, and start the recording in one shortcut, so bedtime is a single trigger.
If you'd rather not build anything, the app has a simpler reminder built in. Turn on the Bedtime reminder in Settings under the Sleep Schedule section and pick a time. The default is 10:00 PM. The app then sends a nightly notification titled "Start Tonight's Recording" with the message "Tap to begin tracking your sleep sounds." Tapping it opens the app ready to record, and the reminder repeats every day at the time you set. Allow notifications for Snore Timeline the first time you turn it on. The notification is time-sensitive, so it reaches your lock screen during Sleep Focus, which makes it the most reliable way to start at the same time each night.
The app can't tell that you've climbed into bed and start by itself. Every hands-free path still comes down to a tap, a spoken phrase, or a schedule you set up ahead of time.
Recording Delay
If you don't want the recording to include the time it takes you to fall asleep, set a Recording Delay. The app starts the session when you trigger it but waits before it begins listening, so the restless minutes at the start never make it into your night.
Set the delay with the slider in Settings under the Recording section, anywhere from 0 to 180 minutes in 5-minute steps. It's off by default, so recording starts right away. Once a delay is set, the app counts down and starts listening on its own when the countdown hits zero. Audio during the delay is never recorded, so nothing from that period is captured or analyzed.
When you start a session through Siri or a widget instead of from inside the app, you can include a delay of up to 120 minutes, and the app shows a notification confirming the delay it applied. The countdown shows in the Live Activity, which is covered next.
The Live Activity
While a session is running, the Live Activity on your iPhone lock screen keeps the recording visible without you opening the app. It shows:
- The app name and a "Sleep Recording" label.
- A running timer of how long you've been recording.
- The number of detected episodes and the number of detected signals.
- A red Stop button so you can end the night straight from the lock screen.
- A Stop Sound button in place of the status line while a Snore Nudge tone is playing, so you can silence it from the lock screen without unlocking.
On iPhones with a Dynamic Island, the recording lives there too. While recording it shows the elapsed time, and a long press opens a Stop button. During a Recording Delay it counts down, with a button to cancel. If another app interrupts the recording and it can't restart on its own, the Lock Screen and the Dynamic Island switch to Recording paused with a Resume Recording button. Troubleshooting covers what happens next.
As sounds come in, the Live Activity shows the current detection with an icon and label, like Snoring, Sleep Talking, Gasp, Cough, Loud Sound, Laughter, Screaming, or Crying. After about 8 seconds with no new sound, the status goes back to "Listening" so the display stays calm. If a recording delay is running, it shows "Recording delayed" with a timer counting down the minutes until listening starts.
Home screen widgets
The Sleep Score widget puts the controls on your iPhone home screen, in small and medium sizes. It shows last night's sleep score and your episode count, and it has Start and Stop recording controls, so you can begin or end a session without opening the app. If a recording gets interrupted and can't restart, the widget shows when it paused and a Resume Recording button.
The widget labels its data to match the time of day. Yesterday's data is "Last night," and before noon the current day's data is labeled "Tonight" so it lines up with when you're looking at it. Starting from the widget uses the same path as Siri, so you can attach a delay of up to 120 minutes here too.
Wear an Apple Watch to bed? The watch has its own complications and controls for starting a session and checking on the night. The Apple Watch page covers what it adds.
The wake-up alarm
Snore Timeline can close out the night for you with the Wake Up feature in Settings under the Sleep Schedule section. Turn it on and set a wake-up time. The default is 7:00 AM. At that time the app stops your recording, so a session you forgot to end doesn't run on into the morning.
You can also switch on "Play alarm sound" to have an alarm go off at the same time. Pick the tone from Radar (the default), Classic, Pulse, Bright, or Alert, or add your own sound. When the alarm sounds, you see an "Alarm Ringing" notification that reads "Tap to dismiss." with a Stop button. Playing the alarm sound needs notifications enabled for Snore Timeline, so allow them if you want an audible wake-up instead of a silent stop.
Pair the bedtime reminder with the wake-up alarm and your nights take care of themselves. One notification to start, one alarm to stop, and the recording handled in between.
The alarm does a lot more than ring these days. The Smart Wake Up Alarm can go off during light sleep inside a window you choose, the sound fades in instead of blasting, and an Apple Watch can wake you silently with wrist taps. Smart Wake Up Alarm covers all of it.
When Siri or a widget will not start
A hands-free start can fail for a handful of reasons, and the app tells you which one in plain words:
- A session is already running. You see "Recording is already in progress. Stop the current recording before starting a new one." Stop the active session first.
- Storage is low. You see "Storage is full. Please free up space in Settings before recording." A recording needs about 500 MB free to start. Free up room by adjusting your storage limit or turning on auto-trim in Settings, both covered on the Storage & Quality page.
- Microphone access is off. You see a prompt to enable it under Settings, Privacy and Security, Microphone for Snore Timeline.
- Nothing is recording when you ask to stop. You see "No recording is currently active."
If a session starts fine but cuts out later in the night, that's a different problem. Troubleshooting walks through why a recording stops on its own.