How do I use the TV as an alarm clock?

[esmerel1]

Our condo building was "upgraded" to Ignite and we've lost several things we had before. We have a TV that turns on every morning as an alarm clock. But with the Ignite box going to sleep, there's no TV signal for it to present so it can't wake us up. Is there a way of setting an on-timer on the Ignite box or preventing it from going to sleep after 4 hours?

Other annoyances include:

- no silence when you're on the menus!

- recorded series sort in the wrong order - we want to play the oldest first, not the newest!

But if someone can just answer the on-timer question, that would at least make us feel better about Ignite.

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[Biollw]

Recorded shows can only be sorted by newest first or alphabetically.

You could try setting power saver to disabled but I think it still goes into sleep mode when not in use.

Get an alarm clock.

It is assuming you are still watching TV when browsing the menu, use your mute button.

[esmerel1]

Assuming your suggestion of getting an alarm clock was trying to be helpful, rather than just dismissive, please help us find one. We've used our TV for this for more than 20 years.
In order to work, the alarm clock must provide both audio and video stimulation at the alarm time. That is, it must provide a non-static video image, and a sound track. The sound track may be music or talking, but must not be alarm sounds (anxiety issues). The alarm clock must be controllable via a reasonable size remote (not too small), for at least the 'snooze' feature, which must support at least 1-hour and half-hour snooze (selectable from the remote).
As the TV has worked so well as an alarm clock for so many years, I have no idea where to look for such a device, so if you were trying to be helpful by suggesting the alarm clock, please tell me where to look for a device meeting these specifications.

[Biollw]

Itg is very simple anwser. The Xi6/XiONE goes into sleep mode after 4 hours when not used. So unless your TV alarm is before that then it won't be used as an alarm clock.

[-G-]

@esmerel1  Do you have HDMI Device Control (HDMI-CEC) enabled on both your TV and your set-top box?  (Does the status LED on the Ignite STB power off immediately after you turn off the TV?). If so, then the Ignite STB should turn on when the TV turns on at your pre-set wakeup time.  Also keep in mind that if you leave your TV on all night, then the box will probably go into standby while you are sleeping so you will also need to program your TV turn off after your usual bedtime.

[esmerel1]

Thanks for trying to help. We see that will work on one of our TVs, but unfortunately the TV in the bedroom doesn't have HDMI control.

[Pauly]

I have seen TV's with an alarm clock or On Timer function in my time and yes I think they are a great feature.  Those features were created at the time because Cable TV or Antenna was "always on" and always transmitting a signal even when you turn off your TV, the TV transmitter would not shut off and the airwaves would still beam a signal, same with analog and digital cable TV, the cable wires still was receiving a signal when your TV was turned off.  IPTV changed everything, and goes to standby after 4 hours of inactivity, and yes its not just rogers but the competition like Bell and  even Telus do the same on their TV they stop streaming the signal after 4 hours.

So unless you have some kind of Logitech Harmony remote to keep sending a signal to keep the box active, the unfortunately this feature of your TV will not be compatible with the next generation TV services offered by any company not just Roger's 

[57 · Accepted solution]

@esmerel1 : I don't know where you live, but if live in an area where you can receive a channel OTA (Over The Air) with an antenna, then you could switch the TV to that input before bed and use it as before.  Sometimes even a paper clip in the TV antenna input will receive channels if you're close to the broadcaster.  A small antenna can also usually be picked up for nothing or next to nothing at flea markets, or elsewhere.

Your case is certainly unique in your needs.

[esmerel]

Thank you! That's an actual solution. We're close enough to the CN Tower. We will move Rogers to a second input and use OTA as our wakeup input. Thanks very much!

[Pauly]

I agree with this suggestion,  Since Antenna signals are always on, just buy a simple antenna and connect it to the RF Coaxial connector on the back of your  TV, and change your TV input to the internal tuner and choose any Antenna channel that comes in nice and clear over the air.   You can leave the TV on that input at night time so when the TV alarm clock activates and turns on your TV, you will have a channel being broadcast.

[Datalink]

In order to choose any antenna channel, you will most likely have to run the tv's autotune function.  That will be somewhere in the tv's setup functions.  When you drill down to that function, select "Air" instead of "Cable" and run the autotune function.  You might also have to select "digital" as all of the Over the Air channels these days have switched over to digital format instead of the previous analogue format.  The autotune function might be called something else, but, what it will do is scan thru all of the Over the Air channels and store the active channels that it detects.  The tv will also have to have an ATSC (Advanced Television Systems Committee) tuner onboard which is typical of reasonably modern tv's these days.  

When the autotune function is complete you should then be able to use the change channel on the tv's remote to skip thru all of the available channels to find an appropriate channel. 

Note that OTA channels are usually not compressed, so you might or should find that the OTA channel has a better appearance than any "cable" channel.  That will depend on the tv of course and its resolution.   

[esmerel1]

Thanks! I appreciate all the help and I think we can get it working now.