Sleep Focus how it works vs Do not disturb

[Ansath]

As I imagined: I had to move my usual bedtime from 00:00 / 7:30 to 23:45 / 6:45 today and I had DND between 7:30 and 9:00. The result is that between 6:45 and 7:30 I could receive all the notifications and calls. This is a terrible regression!

You could have manually enabled DND when you woke up, as it takes a couple seconds. Also, who on earth is calling someone before 7:30am?! 😮

 

[andreagrandi]

If I understand correctly, what you want is to have DND activate automatically after you the sleep focus turned off and then stay active until 9:00, correct ?

If that's so, you can just add an automation inside the shortcut app:

When => Sleep / At Wake up / Add an action / Activate Focus: "Do not disturb" / toggle Off the "ask before execute" button

Let the DND schedule as it is above (activate between 7 and 9).

If you set these options:
- DND will activate only when you toggle the sleep focus OFF
- DND will turn off at 9

Thanks Nicolas, I'm going to try this today (I never used shortcut automations before)

 

[andreagrandi]

You could have manually enabled DND when you woke up, as it takes a couple seconds. Also, who on earth is calling someone before 7:30am?! 😮

Trust me: idiots are everywhere
Plus, it's not only about calls. It's also the other notifications.

 

[NicoTRZ]

Thanks Nicolas, I'm going to try this today (I never used shortcut automations before)

I suggest you take this opportunity to dive in =) It's extremely powerful!

 

[andreagrandi]

If I understand correctly, what you want is to have DND activate automatically after the sleep focus turned off and then stay active until 9:00, correct ?

If that's so, you can just add an automation inside the shortcut app:

When => Sleep / At Wake up / Add an action / Activate Focus: "Do not disturb" / toggle Off the "ask before execute" button

Let the DND schedule as it is above (activate between 7 and 9).

If you set these options:
- DND will activate only when you toggle the sleep focus OFF
- DND will turn off at 9

important question before I try: are these shortcut synced across devices? Or is it enough that a Focus mode is being set (for example) on iPhone and since I have Focus modes synced they will reflect to iPad and Watch too?

 

[NicoTRZ]

important question before I try: are these shortcut synced across devices? Or is it enough that a Focus mode is being set (for example) on iPhone and since I have Focus modes synced they will reflect to iPad and Watch too?

If the option to sync focus are turned on, it will works across all devices. But shortcuts automation does not sync. So its all thanks to the Focus synchronisation

 

[andreagrandi]

If the option to sync focus are turned on, it will works across all devices. But shortcuts automation does not sync. So its all thanks to the Focus synchronisation

Thank you so much for your help! I will let you know tomorrow if it has worked as expected

 

[MyPhone99]

DND was simple and effective, Focus are just complex versions of DND

 

[baryon]

I think they're overcomplicating it. But I just realized you can still turn on do not disturb by pressing the round moon icon instead of pressing the whole rectangular button so I'm fine with that.

 

[pedzsan]

You can’t have 2 focuses active at the same time. Since both Sleep and DND are focuses, when sleep turns on DND will turn off. Use one or the other or set up 2 additional focuses that run from 22:00 to 0:00 and 7:30 to 9:00 respectively.

They could have had a “stack” of focuses with the top one being active. When it was over, it would pop off the stack and the next lower one would then be active. I would not have thought to implement this either but I can see how what the OP had is useful.

 

[Morac]

They could have had a “stack” of focuses with the top one being active. When it was over, it would pop off the stack and the next lower one would then be active. I would not have thought to implement this either but I can see how what the OP had is useful.

I think you can stack focuses as long as you don’t stack time activation.

For example, if I play a game during my sleep focus period, the focus switches to game focus. When I’m done it switches back to sleep. I didn’t think that would work, but it does.

 

[BobSc]

Also, who on earth is calling someone before 7:30am?!

Ummm. Perhaps the spammers!

All I want is to be able to stop calls coming in when I turn on Do Not Disturb regardless of the time. This worked perfectly in ios 14. But now, with ios 15, turning on DND does NOT stop calls from coming in. Apple does this all the time. They take something that works perfectly, they try to "improve it", and then proceed to destroy it.

 

[andreagrandi]

If the option to sync focus are turned on, it will works across all devices. But shortcuts automation does not sync. So its all thanks to the Focus synchronisation

Hi Nicolas, as promised I tried your method and the good news is that it worked!

There is only a minor annoyance with automations: how do I avoid they show a notification telling me they ran the automation?

I tried looking into Notifications settings but Commands is not there 🤔

Thanks

 

[NicoTRZ]

Hi Nicolas, as promised I tried your method and the good news is that it worked!

There is only a minor annoyance with automations: how do I avoid they show a notification telling me they ran the automation?

I tried looking into Notifications settings but Commands is not there 🤔

Thanks

Unfortunately you can't. This is one of the downside of shortcut. I use it all the time for all kind of automations like this and I'm invade with notifications..

I hope one day I won't have them anymore. But until then..

There is however one "trick" to disactivate them, but it looks more like a bug from apple than something intended. If you do this, the next time you restart your phone, you will get the notifications back until you do this again:

go to "settings"
then "screen time"
then "see all activity"

then scroll down to "notifications",
then tap on "shortcuts" (note: if there isn't an arrow next to the app who allows you to tap it, tap on "devices" on the top right corner and choose another one if you have something else)
then here toggle the "Allow notifications" button

But as I said, this is not intended and more likely a bug. It will turned on again next time you restart your phone.

 

[matrix07]

DND was simple and effective, Focus are just complex versions of DND

Focus can do much more than DND though.

First, if you already set sleep schedule in Health, Sleep Focus will kick in automatically. You don’t even have to set it up, which is nice.
Second, I have set up Focus for when I’m watching video I don’t want anyone/anything disturbs me. So I set one up that when I use video apps like Disney+, HBO or TV+ this “Entertainment Focus” will kick in automatically. This has never been possible before.
Yes, I can turn DND on manually but it’s a drag to have to do it 4 or 5 times a day everyday.
You can even set it up that this Focus will kick in if you wear AirPods in case you always use AirPods to watch movies. To me this is one of the best feature of iOS 15.

 

[andreagrandi]

Unfortunately you can't. This is one of the downside of shortcut. I use it all the time for all kind of automations like this and I'm invade with notifications..

I hope one day I won't have them anymore. But until then..

There is however one "trick" to disactivate them, but it looks more like a bug from apple than something intended. If you do this, the next time you restart your phone, you will get the notifications back until you do this again:

go to "settings"
then "screen time"
then "see all activity"

then scroll down to "notifications",
then tap on "shortcuts" (note: if there isn't an arrow next to the app who allows you to tap it, tap on "devices" on the top right corner and choose another one if you have something else)
then here toggle the "Allow notifications" button

But as I said, this is not intended and more likely a bug. It will turned on again next time you restart your phone.

I found another problem with the automation, but I guess it depends on my sleep pattern. On Saturday and Sunday I have my alarm at 9:00 instead of 7:30 (yeah, I love to sleep ) and this morning I got two notification from the automation app telling me there has been a problem activating the automation. I guess it tried to set an automation when Sleep went off at 9:00 but could not set the automation between 9:00 and 9:00 of the same day. I will need to make it longer by 1-2 minutes, maybe it will work.

 

[mzanker]

Ummm. Perhaps the spammers!

All I want is to be able to stop calls coming in when I turn on Do Not Disturb regardless of the time. This worked perfectly in ios 14. But now, with ios 15, turning on DND does NOT stop calls from coming in. Apple does this all the time. They take something that works perfectly, they try to "improve it", and then proceed to destroy it.

It stops calls coming in for me - just like it did in iOS 14.

I can't be bothered with Focus - too complicated - but DND works for me just like it did before.

 

[Sarpent]

Prior to OS 15, I would set Do Not Disturb to turn on at 7:59 am and off at 8 am. This was a workaround that allowed me to just turn on Do Not Disturb when I went to bed and have it automatically turn off at 8 in the morning, so I wouldn't forget to turn it off (which has bitten me in the past for work). It worked great.

Now, in OS 15, this doesn't work. It seems easy to have it automatically turn on and off, but that's it. Even manually turning it on and off is now a bunch of clicks instead of one. This is a major regression in usability.

Does anyone know how to get iOS 15 to support something like my original setup where I can turn it on, knowing that it will automatically turn off in the morning?

 

[Jay-Jacob]

Prior to OS 15, I would set Do Not Disturb to turn on at 7:59 am and off at 8 am. This was a workaround that allowed me to just turn on Do Not Disturb when I went to bed and have it automatically turn off at 8 in the morning, so I wouldn't forget to turn it off (which has bitten me in the past for work). It worked great.

Now, in OS 15, this doesn't work. It seems easy to have it automatically turn on and off, but that's it. Even manually turning it on and off is now a bunch of clicks instead of one. This is a major regression in usability.

Does anyone know how to get iOS 15 to support something like my original setup where I can turn it on, knowing that it will automatically turn off in the morning?

So you switch it on manually but it switch off automatically at 8am right?

Couldn't you just swipe down bring control centre and switch it on manually there?

 

[Sarpent]

Yes, thanks. I'm seeing that if you tap carefully on the circled moon icon (and avoid the word, Focus) DND will toggle, saving me a bunch of clicks, and I did find that the turn on and turn off DND at a particular time is actually working. It wasn't when I tried it earlier. Thanks!

 

[FrancisBryan]

I think they completely broke "Do not disturb" in iOS 15.

Until iOS 14.8 I've always had Bedtime between 00:00 and 7:30 in the morning and DND between 22:00 and 9:00 in the morning. They always worked perfectly.

After upgrading to iOS 15 first of all I had to re-create my DND configuration: I set it between 22:00 and 9:00.

But... it didn't work at all! This morning, after waking up, I realised that around 8:00 in the morning, DND was already OFF.... why?! Well... I put it ON manually and I expect it to go OFF again at 9:00, but..... it doesn't work either!

Essentially I created a schedule for DND but it's being completely ignored.

See the screenshots:

In the left one you can see it's 8:12 and DND is already OFF. In the right one you can see it's 9:01 and it's still ON.

View attachment 1839991 View attachment 1839992

 

[FrancisBryan]

I agree - 'Do not disturb' was better in iOS 14. Yesterday morning, after I activated Do not disturb, via Focus, but my iPhone still rang, when someone called me. Surely this should not have happened!?

 

[Ansath]

I agree - 'Do not disturb' was better in iOS 14. Yesterday morning, after I activated Do not disturb, via Focus, but my iPhone still rang, when someone called me. Surely this should not have happened!?

Check your settings for the DND focus. If you have anyone set as a favourite, they can bypass still, I believe.

 

[verdi1987]

Thanks for your help, but let me say that this is ridiculous (nothing against your advice but I can’t accept this from Apple).

With iOS 14 I simply could have this.

If now I set a DND between 7:30 and 9:00 and some day I need to anticipate my alarm to 7:00 or 6:30, this means I will have to manually set the DND to start from 6:30 instead of 7:30.

Before I had to do nothing at all apart from moving the gear on Bedtime.

This is a huge regression for me.

For the last few days I've been awoken by notifications on my Apple Watch. I was puzzled, as I had always set DND to end relatively late in the morning.

Only now have I realized that Sleep is turning off DND when triggered. I had always used these functions simultaneously, with DND starting earlier and ending later than Bedtime. I can go longer do that.

I guess I'll just use Sleep. Apple has made this unnecessarily complicated. It doesn't make sense that Sleep and DND cannot both be active, nor was there an instruction that these functions don't work like they did before.

 

[zexpe]

Also it tracks when you stopped playing with your phone in bed to track how much sleep you're getting more accurately.

I really like that, but what I don't like is that it automatically assumes that when my sleep schedule has ended that I'm automatically awake, even though I don't have an alarm set, so will often sleep past the end of my sleep schedule and then my Sleep times in Health are all too short. Why can't it also track when I first use my phone in the morning to determine when I actually woke up?