I have a google and an alexa. I want a grandfather/cuckoo clock

June 23, 2024 8:09 AM

This should not be that hard. I want my google or Alexa (either/both) to play a simple sound on the hour. The same sound (a single chime) or a different sound (e.g. bells per o'clock) each hour fine. I do not have garage band or google music. I don't even know what garage band is. This should not be that hard. Oh, and if you are a techy person who can make this happen, I strongly suspect this would be a decent seller on the Google Play store.

I have a google nest mini I think? And the alexa's are similarly little round flying saucers. Thank you.

posted by If only I had a penguin... to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

Response by poster: oh and I just want it to play a sound then shut up. I don't want to have to turn it on or turn it off or anything else. Like I don't want it to say "You have a reminder do you want to hear it?" and then I say "yes" and it says "it's 9am" . And I tried setting it up to play a song at 9am, which was annoying because A) I don't want a song and B) It then just keeps playing music so I have to stop it and if I'm not home at 9am and come home hours later there's still music playing. No. Just set volume to 5. Chime. Set volume to previous level. End. That's it.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 8:13 AM on June 23

Does it have to be via the Google home or Alexa devices? An old phone with app could do it, and maybe you could connect it by aux cord to a speaker if it isn't loud enough?
posted by lookoutbelow at 8:34 AM on June 23

I'm not sure if there's an easier way to do it, but you can make Alexa play a sound (or say words without any interaction from you) at the same time every day through routines. It would be a bit tedious since you'd need to make ~16 reminders, one for each hour, assuming you don't want them overnight. You can set it up to repeat every day but not every hour unfortunately.
posted by randomnity at 8:42 AM on June 23

There are also various talking clocks designed specifically for these purposes.
posted by lookoutbelow at 8:45 AM on June 23

Alexa things are called "skills" and apparently Audible Clock will do this. Whether it's what you want is something you'll have to experiment with.
posted by fiercekitten at 9:04 AM on June 23

I did this for years and years on Echo with Audible Clock but it really needed a far amount of baby sitting. Now I do it with my old, spare, phone (also would work on a tablet) with an app called Big Ben Bonger
posted by susandennis at 4:23 PM on June 23 [1 favorite]