Whomst among us still relies on a traditional alarm clock to wake up? It’s one more task smartphones have come to dominate in their brief tenure. But both options have their pros and cons: A (charged) smartphone will never fail on your because your power went out overnight. (The McCallister family would’ve enjoyed a nice Christmas in Paris had they a Pixel.) But your smartphone’s smarts can also get in the way, and even stop your alarm before you have a chance to wake up.
Recently, Redditor asevarte could not understand why their Pixel wasn’t waking them up. Some days the alarm would go off as expected, but, others, it wouldn’t, and they’d wake up to a backup alarm set 30 minutes later. It didn’t make sense. The phone was set to play a Spotify playlist at a specific time. Barring a glaring Android bug, there was no reason it shouldn’t have literally sounded the alarm.
And then, asevarte figured it out. One morning, they happened to wake before the alarm went off. At the appointed time, the Pixel started playing a random song from the Spotify playlist—The Pixies’ Where Is My Mind? Almost immediately, it shut off. But why?
The song, for those who don’t know, starts with a high note, followed by a loud “STOP.” And that’s when the alarm turned off.
Oh my god.
Google Assistant, in its quest to be as convenient as possible, will cancel a recent request if you simply ask it to “stop.” You don’t need an “OK Google” or a “Hey Google”—only a “stop.” Of course, the intention is for the user to say “stop,” but Android might not be able to differentiate between your voice and a clear, loud “stop” at the start of a song.
While Where Is My Mind? works a little too well here, I imagine any song that begins similarly will have the same effect. Ice Ice Baby could potentially do the same, as could Can’t Touch This, although hopefully the beat would wake you before “Stop! Hammer Time” rolled around.
In any case, it’s a silly quirk of Android and Google Pixel, and while the risk is low it will affect you, it’s a good PSA to vet the songs on your wakeup playlist.
