Everything on one screen: how often this usually needs to happen, the free way to set it on the iPhone you already own, and what changes if a phone call does it instead.
A few times a day — several prompts across the day. The free built-in option comes first below, because for plenty of people it is genuinely the whole answer.
iOS repeats a reminder daily, not every few hours, so a rhythm this frequent means building two or three separate reminders by hand. The later slots are the ones that get dismissed.
Why this one slips: A long shift has no natural pause to hang it on, and the busiest stretch is exactly when three hours go by without you noticing.
iOS deliberately exempts alarms from the silent switch and from Do Not Disturb, so a Clock alarm makes noise even on a muted phone. It costs nothing. If it works for you, you do not need us — the catch is that an alarm is one tap to stop, and taps are cheap.
A silent banner still loses here: your phone is in a locker or a back pocket on silent, where a banner stays invisible until the shift is over.
With ReminderCall your phone rings like a normal incoming call — a real call over the phone network, not a banner and not an in-app alarm. You answer, and a voice reads the reminder out loud in the words you wrote. Answering is an action, which is harder to do absent-mindedly than clearing a notification.
To be precise about it: a call follows your ring settings rather than your notification settings. On hard mute it vibrates and takes over your screen instead of ringing out loud, unless you save the number as a contact with Emergency Bypass switched on yourself.
A long shift has no natural pause to hang it on, and the busiest stretch is exactly when three hours go by without you noticing.
The things a busy day quietly eats: water, meals, and the break you keep meaning to take. The failure is almost never that you did not know — it is that the prompt arrived at a moment when acknowledging it was easier than acting on it. iOS repeats a reminder daily, not every few hours, so a rhythm this frequent means building two or three separate reminders by hand. The later slots are the ones that get dismissed.
Read next: a reminder app for people who forget everything · an app that calls instead of sending notifications · how recurring calls work
iOS deliberately exempts alarms from the silent switch and from Do Not Disturb, so a Clock alarm makes noise even on a muted phone. It costs nothing. If it works for you, you do not need us — the catch is that an alarm is one tap to stop, and taps are cheap.
The other free move, and often the more effective one: anchor it to something you already do without thinking — after the kettle goes on, before you lock the front door, as you sit down at your desk. A reminder attached to an existing habit needs far less from your phone. Try both for a fortnight before you pay anybody for this.
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