Old phone, new bedside clock
Luna turns a smartphone you already own into a bedside sleep clock for your child, and puts you in control of it from your own phone.
Free. No ads, no subscription required, nothing behind a paywall.
Tired of being woken at 5am by a child who thinks the night is over?
Luna answers that question before your child comes and asks you. A sleeping moon means it is still night, and a progress bar shows how much of the night is left. When the sun comes up on the screen, so can your child.
A child who cannot read a clock has no way to tell four in the morning from seven. So the safest guess is to come and find out, every single time.
Another gadget for the bedroom, at a price that does not match what arrives: a dim screen, a plastic shell and a battery to keep charged.
It is the phone in your drawer. Better screen than any of them, already paid for, and it was going to sit there doing nothing anyway.
Everything below is in the app today.
Alarm Clock on the old phone, Parental Device on yours. Pair them with a 4-digit code.
An animated moon means it is still night. A progress bar shows how much of it is left.
The screen edge glows in one of 12 colours. Set the brightness, and dim the clock itself.
Repeating weekly schedules: bedtime, how long the night lasts, which days. Weeknights and weekends can differ.
Start one from your phone or from the clock itself. 1 to 180 minutes, with an optional alarm.
Seven alarm tones and eight music tracks. The volume ramps up from silence over about six seconds.
On Android, set Luna as the launcher. The phone boots straight into the clock and stays there.
Your phone talks to the clock over your own Wi-Fi, encrypted. Schedules, naps and your child's name stay on your two devices.
Four steps, one evening, no new hardware.
01
Android 7.0 or later, or iOS 15 or later. It needs Wi-Fi and somewhere to plug in, and that is all.
02
One app, two modes. Pick Alarm Clock on the old phone and Parental Device on your own.
03
Print one, or build one out of cardboard with your child. Either way it covers the side buttons, so the phone stops being something your child can switch off.
04
Enter the 4-digit code the clock shows you. Set bedtime once, and it repeats every week.
The case is not decoration
Every phone has a power button and a volume rocker, and a child will find both. A case covers them. What is left is a screen in a box, and a screen in a box is an appliance, not a phone your child is borrowing.
On Android, setting Luna as the launcher shuts the software door: no home screen, no other apps. The case shuts the hardware one. On an iPhone, where nothing can replace the home screen, the case is doing most of the work on its own.
Option one
Type in your phone's dimensions. The configurator builds three printable parts around them and gives you the files: a shell that grips the phone at its corners, a front plate with a thin ring for the nightlight, and a stand.
Open the case configuratorFree. No account, no email address.
Option two
No 3D printer, and honestly no need for one. A cereal box, a craft knife for the grown-up and an afternoon will get you there. Cut a window for the screen, a notch for the cable, and make sure the sides sit over the buttons.
This is your child's clock. Letting your child pick the colour, glue the stars on and decide where the name goes does more for bedtime than any feature we could ship. The printed version will still be there next month.
Ideas and templates in the communityRoadmap
Here are some of the ideas we are working on. We cannot wait to hear yours. Follow how it goes by joining the community.
Wind-down playlists that play on the clock itself, chosen from your phone.
A bedtime story your child can start alone, with nothing to look at.
How the nights actually went, so a schedule can be based on something other than a guess.
Hearing the room from the parent app, over the same encrypted local connection.
Discord
The community is where the case designs live, and where the roadmap order actually gets decided.
Join the DiscordCardboard templates, printed designs and photos of what other parents have actually built.
Post your case, your print profile or your measured phone dimensions, and have someone who already printed for that device check them.
Feature requests, bug reports, and a vote on which of the four above we build first.
Pairing trouble and Wi-Fi that will not cooperate are most of what goes wrong. Someone there has usually hit it already.
No. Luna is free, with no ads, and every feature in the app today is available to everyone. There are optional support purchases that fund development and add your first name to a supporters list inside the app. They are contributions, not upgrades.
Two devices on the same Wi-Fi network: one to be the clock, one to control it. The clock device needs Android 7.0 or later, or iOS 15 or later. The two do not have to run the same operating system.
No. Luna is a two device system by design. The clock needs to be a dedicated screen that stays by the bed all night, and you configure it from your own phone.
Your phone and the clock talk directly over your own Wi-Fi, so day to day control works without internet. Luna downloads the wake-up sounds once, and one alarm tone is built into the app and works offline.
Both devices announce themselves on your local network and connect directly. Every message is encrypted, and the first pairing is confirmed with a code shown on the clock screen. Nothing is relayed through a server.
Nowhere. Your child's schedule, naps, nightlight and name stay on your two devices. Luna does send anonymous crash and usage reports so bugs can be found and fixed, and none of that carries sleep data or your child's name.
Yes. The configurator generates a model sized to your phone and you download it straight away. No account, no charge, no email address.
Not at all. A cereal box and an afternoon with your child gets you a case that does the same job, and your child will like it more for having made it. The only thing to get right is covering the side buttons.
Luna works without one. But a bare phone still has a power button and a volume rocker, and a child will find both. A case covers those, holds the phone at a readable angle and keeps the charging cable in place. On Android you can also set Luna as the launcher, which closes the software side; the case closes the physical one.
On Android, yes. During onboarding you can set Luna as the phone's launcher, so it starts on boot and there is no route out to other apps. iOS does not allow an app to become the home screen, so on an iPhone use Apple's Guided Access instead.
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