How to get an hourly chime on iPhone and Apple Watch

Old digital watches beeped on the hour. A lot of people want that back, and Apple gives it to you only on the watch.

On Apple Watch

Open Settings on the watch, go to Clock, and turn on Chimes. You can pick between two sounds (Bells or Birds at the time of writing). The watch then plays a short sound every hour.

While you’re there, look at Speak Time. With it on, holding two fingers on the watch face makes it say the time. That’s on demand only.

On iPhone

There’s no setting. The two routes are:

• Shortcuts. An automation with a Time of Day trigger can play a sound or speak the time, but each automation fires at one time. For every hour from 7:00 to 22:00 you need sixteen of them. People on r/shortcuts do it this way, and it works.
• An app. In Voice Clock, set the interval to 1 hour, choose Clock Aligned, and press Start. It speaks the hour (and you can add a chime before it).

A sound or a voice?

A chime tells you an hour went by. It doesn’t say which hour, and if you weren’t paying attention you’re not sure whether you heard one chime or missed two. A voice saying “two o’clock” removes the guessing. That’s why some people who start with Apple Watch chimes switch to a spoken hour. You can also do both: chime on the watch, voice on the phone.

Great App for time keeping

More useful than a basic alarm clock to keep me from forgetting important stuff

★★★★★ App Store review, United States, 26 May 2026, Wcdsavc · App Store

Hourly for days at a time

If you want it to run every day without pressing Start, Voice Clock can schedule announcements. Those go through iOS notifications, and iOS lets one app schedule only 64 of them. Hourly from 7:00 to 22:00 uses 16 a day, so a schedule like that runs for four days before it needs topping up. Pressing Start avoids the limit. Details in the iPhone announcement guide.

Also see Voice Clock compared with Siri, Shortcuts and watch chimes.