LFG Alarm is not an emergency service. In an emergency, call your local emergency number.
Why the family chat does not work for this
The family chat is muted by the teenager, archived by the uncle and read in full only by the grandparent who replies to everything. Your message sits between birthday photos and a forwarded video. It is no one's fault: in a 2023 Common Sense Media study of about 200 Android-using 11 to 17 year olds, more than half got 237 or more notifications a day. One more "car leaves in 10" is easy to swipe away.
An alarm is a different kind of thing. It rings, it shows its name and picture on the screen, and the people on it chose to be on it.
Moments it is for
- Leaving the house: "Car leaves in 10" for the school run, a flight or a wedding with three generations.
- Dinner is ready: one ring instead of shouting up the stairs at three closed doors.
- The family call: grandma's Sunday video call, with everyone in the room on time.
- Medicine, chores and pickups: a daily alarm a parent and a teenager both ride, so the parent can see it was answered.
- Something you set off yourself: with an anything alarm, a shortcut on your phone can ring the family when you press it: "we're outside".
Three real scenes
The Sunday call across an ocean. Grandma is in Manila and the family is split between Toronto and Leeds. Every Sunday call starts 20 minutes late while someone hunts for a charger. Ray makes one repeating alarm for 5:55 PM Toronto time on Sundays called "Lola call at 6", shared with his sister and his two kids. Because it uses Same time zone for everyone, his sister in Leeds is rung at 10:55 PM her time, in the same second. The call link goes in the call-to-action link, which opens when they answer.
The airport morning. Five people, one car, a 9:40 flight. Mei makes a one-off alarm for 6:15 called "Car leaves 6:30, bags by the door" and adds everyone. On iPhone it rings through silent mode; the teenager on Android gets the full screen even with the phone locked. At 6:20 the wake board shows who tapped I'm up, and who still needs a knock.
The medicine nobody remembers. Tom's son takes an inhaler at 8:00 every evening. A repeating alarm at 8:00 that both of them ride means Tom sees on the board that his son answered, without asking.
How loud it is
Time alarms are real alarms on both phones: on iPhone they use Apple's own alarm system and ring through silent mode and Focus; on Android they take over the screen even when the phone is locked. An anything alarm (the "we're outside" button) is different: on Android it rings full screen, even on Do Not Disturb, but on iPhone it arrives as a time-sensitive alert with the alarm's own sound, which respects the silent switch, so the iPhones in the family need the ringer on.
How to set it up
- Make the alarm for the time, or as an anything alarm you can set off yourself.
- Share it as a friends alarm. Add family by username, or by email if they are not your friends in the app yet. To do this often, save them once as a group (Settings > Friends > Groups) and tap Create alarm with this group. See Friends and groups.
- Name it with what to do ("Car leaves 6:30"), and put the details (which door, what to bring) in the creator's note. The note shows when someone opens the alarm, not on the ring screen.
Everyone taps I'm up when it rings, so you can see who has seen it.
Have your AI agent make it.
Paste this into ChatGPT, Claude, Grok or any AI agent that can add a connector, not into the LFG Alarm app. The setup steps come with it: get the LFG Alarm app, connect it to your agent once, and your agent makes the alarm in your account.
Use LFG Alarm to make a friends alarm for 5:55pm every Sunday called "Lola call at 6", with "CALL LOLA" drawn on the wallpaper, and add [your family's LFG Alarm usernames or emails].
Already have the LFG Alarm app and connected it to your AI agent?
Why it works. A weekly alarm whose screen says what to do means nobody has to remember, and the AI agent can add family by username or email.
Common mistakes
- Using it for everything. If every chore is an alarm, nobody hears the important one. Keep it for the moments that cost something to miss.
- Ringing at the deadline. Ring at 6:15 for a 6:30 departure.
- Expecting it to ring someone who never joined. Each person joins once; after that it rings them.
