Should You Put Your Phone in Airplane Mode at Night?

By the Somnia team · October 30, 2026 · 4 min read

"Put your phone in airplane mode before bed" is advice you will hear for very different reasons. Some of them hold up and some don't. Here is what airplane mode actually changes overnight, what health agencies say about phone radiation, and when it is worth using.

What does airplane mode actually do?

Airplane mode switches off your phone's wireless radios: the mobile network, and on most phones Wi-Fi and Bluetooth too, though you can turn those two back on while staying in airplane mode. With the mobile network off, you can't receive calls or texts, and apps can't fetch new messages, so the overnight buzzes and lit-up screens stop. Everything that runs on the phone itself, such as alarms, keeps working.

Is phone radiation harmful while you sleep?

Phones communicate with radiofrequency (RF) waves. This is the part of the advice where the evidence is often overstated, so it helps to look at what health bodies actually say.

• The US Food and Drug Administration states that "the weight of scientific evidence has not linked cell phone radio frequency radiation with any health problems".
• The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), part of the World Health Organization, classified RF fields as "possibly carcinogenic to humans" (Group 2B) in 2011. IARC explains that this rests on "limited" evidence, meaning chance, bias and confounding could not be ruled out, and that the category makes no assumption about how large any risk might be.
• A systematic review commissioned and partly funded by the WHO (Karipidis and colleagues, 2024) pooled 63 studies and found no significant increase in brain tumours, or in the other head tumours it studied, linked to mobile phone use. The authors rated their confidence in these findings mostly moderate or low.

So there is no good evidence that keeping your phone's radios on at night harms your health, and research continues. We don't recommend airplane mode for health reasons.

What are the real benefits of airplane mode at night?

• Fewer interruptions. No calls, messages or notification sounds to wake you or tempt you into checking the screen.
• Less temptation to scroll. In a 2016 survey of 844 adults in Belgium, texting or calling after lights out went with worse self-reported sleep. That study shows an association, not cause and effect, but cutting the pull of new messages is an easy step.
• Less battery drain overnight. With the radios off, the phone does less work, so the battery lasts longer. How much depends on your phone and signal strength.

Will your alarm still go off in airplane mode?

Yes. Alarms are scheduled on the phone itself and do not need a network connection. What they do need is for the phone to stay on: Android clears alarms when the phone shuts down until the alarm app sets them again, so keep it switched on and, ideally, charging.

In our testing, Somnia's alarm rings and stops normally in airplane mode, and sleep tracking works offline.

What are the downsides of airplane mode at night?

The main one is that nobody can reach you, including in an emergency. If family members might need you at night, or you are on call, airplane mode is the wrong tool. Do Not Disturb is often a better fit: on Android it can let calls from chosen people through, and allow repeat callers, while silencing everything else. Many phones also have a Bedtime mode that silences the phone on a schedule.

Frequently asked questions

Does airplane mode stop alarms on Android?

No. Alarms run on the phone and do not need a network, so they ring in airplane mode. The phone has to stay switched on.

Is it bad to sleep next to your phone?

Health agencies have not found that phone radio waves cause health problems. The practical issues are light, sound and the urge to check it, so silence notifications or use airplane mode, and keep the screen face down or out of reach.

Should I use airplane mode or Do Not Disturb at night?

Use Do Not Disturb if someone may need to reach you, because it can let chosen callers through. Use airplane mode if you want no calls, messages or data at all until morning.

This article is for general information and is not medical advice. If you have ongoing sleep problems, talk with a qualified clinician.