Have you ever wanted to turn your computer into an alarm clock that let you wake up to your favorite music, movie, or podcast? It’s easy to set up on Windows using Task Scheduler.
Make Your Computer Wake You Up to Any Media
Launch Task Scheduler in Windows and create a new Basic Task. If you’ve never used Task Scheduler before, check out my article on how to make Windows run Disk Cleanup automatically.
Here I’m using our favorite free and light-weight media player VLC. You can use whatever program you want, but I wouldn’t expect consistent results from the bloated and problematic iTunes.
In the Start a Program section of the Wizard, put in the path to VLC, then the path to the music, video, or podcast you want to play. One thing to note is that in the Add Arguments path to the media file has no spaces in it.
After setting up the task, check the “Open the Properties Dialog for This Task When I Click Finish.” This will allow you to configure other settings for how the task runs.
If you’re using a laptop or computer that goes into Sleep Mode during the night, go to the Conditions tab and check “Wake the Computer to Run This Task.”
That’s all there is to it. You can add whatever media you want – podcasts, music, TV, or movies. It’s fun to change it up depending on the mood you want to wake up to.
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Dante
Love this. Set this up to play deadmau5’s strobe. Alhough is a little difficult that your specifications can’t have any spaces. I just put my song on the desktop to eliminate that factor. Anyways, love this. i have a big problem waking up in the morning :)
Brian Burgess
Yup. It’s like having the ultimate alarm clock.
Peter Bealand
is there anyway to make the audio repeate
chagrined
you failed to mention how to get it to play specific music, or even any music. pretty key.
Skywalker8921
If your path contains space, simply wrap it with quotes (“)!
SURESH NAIR
How and where to add the song path?
ian townsend
can i get spotify playlists to start up ? if so how ?
Teddy
Hi, it seems you glossed over the part I am really struggling with. I can’t figure out how to find “path” to the program I want to run. I have windows 10, is this why I am having trouble? Any help will be appreciated.
rtcj96
I had to send my phone in for repairs, and I usually rely on that for my alarm clock so this is really useful! Thanks.