For people who are accustomed to going to sleep with some soothing background music playing, YouTube’s new Sleep Timer feature could be the best nighttime companion. The feature is no longer exclusive to YouTube Premium subscribers, and will now help you manage playback when you drift off. YouTube now offers hands-on control to decide just how much YouTube plays of white noise, podcasts, or relaxing ambient videos while you sleep.
What is YouTube’s Sleep Timer?
YouTube’s Sleep Timer feature allows users to set a predetermined length of time for a video to be played when automatic playback pauses will occur. Now you can select from 10 to 60 minutes, or decide it should end naturally. Not only does this save battery, but it also prevents loud interruptions so that you can have a restful night’s sleep.
For the first time, this feature was only available to Premium users on YouTube’s experimental settings page as an extra treat for their subscription. The Sleep Timer is now available to everyone, Premium subscription or not, with today’s rollout. Tap the settings gear of any video and you will see it, enabling you to set the timer easily.
Alternatives to YouTube’s Sleep Timer
YouTube’s new timer is a built-in solution, but some already use their phone’s timer functionality. To illustrate, iPhone users can go to the Clock app and set the Timer to “Stop Playing” once it has reached zero. This works on any media on your iPhone, whether it is YouTube or not.
However, Android users may not have this built-in feature. While Samsung users can set up automated routines via Modes and Routines to stop playback, most everyone else will need a third-party app like “Sleep Timer” by Kuczera, which is capable of similar media playback timer-based controls.
How Does YouTube Compare to Competitors?
After some other streaming platforms like Spotify, recently launched its sleep timer, YouTube did the same and made its sleep timer free. Earlier this year TikTok also experimented with “sleep nudges,” a feature that encouraged users to stop scrolling before bedtime. YouTube is easing the process because it wants to make it feel like something available on all these popular streaming platforms.
YouTube’s Expanding Feature Set
One of the many experimental features YouTube has tested on its Premium users is the Sleep Timer. Among those recent additions are an AI assistant to help answer video-related questions and a lock screen feature meant to stop accidental touches. Before now, YouTube’s experimental feature page announced that the Sleep Timer was going away in September, but the platform has now made the feature one that is available to all.
While simple, YouTube’s new Sleep Timer feature addresses a real need for people who need background audio to fall asleep. This feature makes the users sleep peacefully without any risk of unexpected sounds disturbing from rest.
