App Review: Night Stand for iPad

Until recently I had a iHome clock radio with an iPad dock on the night stand next to my bed. About a month ago the iPod dock in the radio died. It wouldn’t charge the iPod or play anything through it. I was in the habit of going to sleep listening to music or podcasts from my iPad, using the radio’s sleep timer.

I already had an Apple iPad Dock so putting the iPad on the night stand was a low cost option with the added benefit of charging the iPad every night. The iPad speaker was also good enough to play podcasts without additional speakers. Music is also an option but the mono speaker is less suitable for music.

But then I ran into a problem – the iPad doesn’t have a sleep timer. So the search was on for a solution. After some searching and reading reviews I purchased Night Stand HD for $2.99. It’s now $4.99 but there’s currently a free “lite” version. This is a review of the paid version.) I can’t say it’s the best iPad clock/alarm/sleep timer out there, because I’ve only tried two of them, but it seems perfect to me and I can’t imagine there’s one out there that’s better suited for me.

What I like:

• I can be playing something through the iPod app on the iPad (playlist, album, podcast, etc…) before I activate Night Stand HD as a sleep timer and whatever is playing will keep on playing until the timer runs out. The one other app I tried required me to select what to play from within the app itself. With Night Stand HD I can check email or use the iPad without having to reselect what’s playing.
• The alarm on my clock radio continued to work so I didn’t consider the alarm in my search, but I’ve been using Night Stand HD as my alarm clock. Multiple an recurring alarms can be set. There are various built in sounds or the alarm can be music from your collection. The alarm volume can also be set independently of the iPad volume. There’s also a sleep function. I don’t use it but the sleep function can be set to require a simply math problem to be answered in order to sleep the alarm. My iHome clock radio has sent to the scrap heap.
• While the app has to be running for the sleep timer & alarm to work, once the app is started I can hit the sleep/wake button the turn the screen off completely. I also have the app set to allow the iPad to sleep after non-use. Any audio keeps playing and the alarm still goes off in the morning.

What I Dislike:

• This is a problem with any of these alarm/timer apps on the iPad since it can’t multi-task. I figure this will be resolved when iOS 4 arrives on the iPad and the apps are updated. But the app needs to be actively running for the sleep timer and alarms to work.

What I’m Ambivalent About:

• Version 1.5 added the ability to display the weather on the screen (temp and current conditions). Meh. Not sure if it would hurt the battery life,  but I don’t need a constant temperature display.
• The sleep timer only works with audio, not video. I suspect this would be a problem across all apps of this type since video runs as a foreground app. It would be nice to be able to watch a video and not worry about the alarm not going off if I fell asleep during the video. This ability would be a nice to have, although probably rarely used. Maybe it will arrive with iOS 4 on the iPad.

There are nine different clock faces. I like the retro looking Nixie which is shown in the picture at the top of this article. Others among the nine include a stopwatch and a world clock. The world clock can show the time in six cities at once. You can switch between the clocks without having to configure them each time.

Tapping the screen will dim the display, although this may still be too bright for people who want to sleep in a completely dark room. But for those people (myself included) the sleep button can be used to blank the screen.

The reviews online do indicate people had a lot of problems with the app. I haven’t had any problems and the alarm has never failed to fire off during it’s month of use. (I admit I use the alarm function on my cell phone as a backup.) Some of the complaints are about the app needing to be active to alarm/sleep, but that’s a limitation of a pre-iOS4 device. I haven’t run the app on my iPod Touch, just on my iPad. Prior to using the Nixie clock I used the “Analog” clock face so those are the only two I have experience with.

I recently did some vacation travel and Night Stand HD was a reliable alarm clock in the hotel room. It was nice not having to figure out the hotel alarm clock and end up screwing it up. It’s not exactly a life changing app, but it’s one of the few apps I use daily (every night and every morning).

I’m glad I wasn’t turned off by the relatively low rating in the app store and decided to give Night Stand HD a try. It’s be reliable and well worth the three bucks I paid for it. I’d also consider it worth the current $5 price. After all, I use the app to begin and end every day.