How the push-up alarm works
- Set your alarm and rep target. Five push-ups or fifty: you choose the number when you create the alarm.
- The alarm goes off. There's no snooze. Tapping dismiss opens the push-up mission.
- Prop your phone up and start. The front camera tracks your body's pose and counts each full down-and-up rep on screen.
- Hit your number. The alarm ends when the last rep is counted. Walk away early and it rings again.
It counts real reps
PushClock uses on-device pose tracking to follow your shoulders, elbows and hips. A rep only counts when you go all the way down and come all the way back up. Half reps, head bobs and waving the phone around don't register, so the only way to stop the alarm is to actually do the work.
Your camera stays private
Rep counting runs entirely on your phone. Camera frames are analyzed in the moment and discarded immediately; no video of your workout is recorded, uploaded or stored. The full detail is in our Privacy Policy.
Why exercise is such an effective alarm
The groggy window right after waking is called sleep inertia, and the quickest ways out of it are movement and a raised heart rate. A set of push-ups gives you both before you've had time to argue with yourself. By the time the alarm stops you're on the floor, breathing harder, and very much not in bed.
There's a bonus: the reps add up. Ten push-ups every morning is 3,650 a year, from a habit you never had to schedule. PushClock keeps your streak and history so you can watch it build.
Not just push-ups
If push-ups aren't your thing, or your wrists need a day off, the same camera counting works for other exercise missions:
- Squats and squat holds
- Sit-ups
- Jumping jacks and high knees
- Plank
- Dance
Prefer no camera at all? Steps and shake missions use motion sensors instead. And on days you can't exercise, switch the alarm to a math or photo mission.
Start small
The goal is getting up, not setting a personal record at 6am. Start with a number you could do half asleep (five is fine) and raise it once the streak is rolling. Every mission's target and difficulty can be changed per alarm.