How To Use Alarms In Surface Pro 4: Add Alarm Clock And World Clock

It’s been a while since Microsoft introduced us to its plans of developing universal apps. With every new tweak, upgrade, or app release, the telltales are there. Take, for instance, this new app in Surface Pro 4 called “Alarms and Clocks”. The same app we already found on the Windows Mobile 10 version, it was meant to bring new functionalities to the standard system clock that features both Windows alarm clock and world clock on Microsoft Surface Pro 4.

Even so, there are plenty of users out there who still wonder how you can upgrade an… upgrade. As strange as it might sound, it is possible. Again, the alarm clock for Windows app called “Alarms and Clocks” is the living proof, since you can always add new clocks to it.

You might have seen this opportunity in Windows 7 or Windows 8. But if you’re running this OS and want to play with your alarms and time display options, you will appreciate the possibility to:

Create additional clocks that will let you know what time is it in different parts of the world;
Pin whatever clock you like more right on your Start Menu – say goodbye to the default date and time menu hidden at the bottom corner of your right-hand menu;
Juggle with the Stopwatch and Timer, two extremely useful built-in features.

How to use Alarms and Clocks app on Surface Pro 4

Finding the desktop world clock and alarm clock is quite simple. You just need to access the “Start” menu and look for the “All Apps” option. Click on it and you should see a list with all the apps installed on your device. At its top, under the “A” letter, this app will be listed. Another click on it and you just started the Alarms and Clocks. This should allow you to know how to use alarms in Surface Pro 4.

The first thing you will notice is how simple and intuitive the app looks. It has four main tabs labeled as:

Alarm
World Clock
Time
Stopwatch

The 4 main functions and the 4 main options:

Setting up an alarm

It’s easy, you’ll see. Similar to everything else you’re doing on your Windows Mobile 10. But even if you haven’t used a Microsoft mobile device before, you’ll still find it pretty straightforward to use Windows alarm clock on Surface Pro 4.

Access the Alarm tab
Click on the “+” symbol from the bottom of the page
Identify the option that will let you set a new alarm
Look up for the additional features and personalize it however you please in terms of
- Frequency
- Snooze time
- Alarm name
Click on the “Save” button from the bottom of the app to activate it

Feel free to set as many alarms as you want and to personalize every single one.

Adding a new clock

We said it’s going to be intuitive, right? So if you want to add a different clock, you will have to go to the “World Clock” tab on Microsoft Surface Pro 4. Just like with setting an alarm, look for the “+” symbol or for the “New” link, somewhere towards the right-side corner, at the bottom of the app.

The newly opened window will let you type in the name of the city or of the country whose clock you want to add. Select the desired location and you should be able to see its time zone on the map. Say you have selected Sacramento, California, in USA, the time will hover above that area on the map. This should allow you to know how to use alarms on Microsoft Surface Pro 4.

Here’s a cool feature you can use when adding new clocks in Surface Pro 4:

Want to be able to visualize any new time zone outside of the app?

Enter the app, right-click on a desired time zone and…
Click on “Pin to Start”, which will pin the newly selected time zones right on your Start Menu, for easy access.

Setting a timer

Whether you’re working on a laptop, a desktop, or a small tablet, you might need to set a timer at some point.

Again, everything is quite similar to setting a new alarm in Surface Pro 4. Go to the “Timer” tab, click on the “+” symbol” from the bottom of the app, and you will see how a new timer was created.

Just like with the alarm, you can personalize your timer by adding a name and a duration and, in the end, you press the “Save” button. Now you’d better start working – the timer is ticking.

Setting a stopwatch

Last but not least, you can set up a stopwatch. As opposed to option number 3, this is a flexible timer. It doesn’t stop after an initially set timeframe, but rather when you decide to stop it.

To activate the stopwatch function of your Alarms and Clocks app just go to the “Stopwatch” tab and simply click the “Start” or “Play” icon displayed on the screen. Pause when you’re ready and go ahead to brag with your new record.

If you want to spread the word online, just use the “Share” icon from the bottom of the app.

After you follow the steps above, you should know how to use alarms in Microsoft Surface Pro 4. Other features you’ll learn how to use are the stopwatch, world clock and timer feature.