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Ramos alarm clock

109 points by dzlobin 15y ago

xxcode 15y ago
Kickstarter - such a good way to corner all the dumb money.
jcromartie 15y ago
Yeah. My wife will just love listening to my alarm going off for a few minutes as I stumble out into who-knows-where to find the defuse panel and remember the code.
- ebiester 15y ago
  That's what courtesy mode is for. (from reading the article.)
martinkallstrom 15y ago
It is probably a mistake of him to let the beautiful nixie tubes and the elegant wooden finish pull so much weight in the promo video and then reveal that the final product will feature very bland LED numbers and an equally non-attractive plywood finish. He should sell the product, not the one of a kind and too expensive to manufacture prototype.
- dzlobin 15y ago
  If you check the donation levels, there is indeed a nixie tube version.
- paulsammut 15y ago
  Yup, I'm selling the Nixie Ramos also. The thing is I really want to make the Ramos alarm clock available to people, and the nixie clock costs a lot to make. That's why I'm also offering the cheaper LED model, so that more people can benefit from the Ramos alarm clock functionality. EDIT* Oh and by the way, the wood in the prototype is the same as what will be used in $160 LED Ramos, it just has a darker stain. I'm glad you like it :)
  - martinkallstrom 15y ago
    You're responding as if you are performing customer service. I appreciate that. But my point is that your project will not get proper funding on Kickstarter with a video edited so that it is the bait and switch feeling of prototype vs. finished product that stays with the viewer. I'm not your customer here, I'm pointing out that your marketing is broken. Any amount of explanations in the comments on HN is not going to change the fact that your video leaves the viewer with the wrong impression.
    - paulsammut 15y ago
      I'm still actually selling the Nixie Ramos. How am I baiting and switching them, if I'm showing people something I'm selling to them?
      - martinkallstrom 15y ago
        You don't give this info in the video. What you should do is to do the video using mainly the product that you are going to build and tell everyone how awesome it is. And then in the end you flash the nixie tube version and say: "If you commit $XX you'll get this awesome retro version". Please know that I'm not saying you're trying to scam people. I'm saying that they will see the video and then feel scammed. You have perfectly noble intentions but as the video is laid out you fail to communicate them. EDIT, just want this to be perfectly clear: You seem to be an awesome person, you have an awesome product, it is awesome that you use Kickstarter. BUT your video is a turn off. And it is a shame because of all the awesomeness people will miss who only see the video and then hit the back button at the exact moment in the video when you say "Well, I've already started working on a much more affordable production model". You introduce your main product with the absolutely non-sexy word "affordable", after having shown a much more awesome version for a full minute and a half.
        rhizome 15y ago
        I think it's a decent enough pivot. The Nixies are almost sold out and the LEDs are selling, too. The only problem I see is that there's not enough to justify the high end. He's already committing to 500+ Nixie clocks (hopefully there's machinery involved!), in hindsight he probably could have gotten rid of one of the smaller pledges and bumped everything else up a notch or two.
- coldarchon 15y ago
  A Nixie clock starts at 70$ and the bad thing is, if one tube is broken, none of them works. The Eniac had 17500 tubes, if one was broken you never knew and got a wrong result. Instead of tubes it should have a white noise generator.
csomar 15y ago
It's amazing how fast such tiny projects* can raise. I just watched the video, and then refreshed the page and the funding jumped from $1,055 to $1,700. * I mean here the actual size, and the idea (clock, ipad cover, watch...). Execution and build of the product can take a lot of time and experience.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
- aarondf 15y ago
  Hopefully the fact that he/she spent 160 on an alarm clock and would feel like a doofus if they kept the keypad by the bed.
  - heyrhett 15y ago
    But he basically positioned "Clocky" so it couldn't run onto the floor, right? I think that Clocky solves this problem better, as long as you don't sabotage it to begin with. Of course, if you have a messy floor, that could stop clocky, as well.
    - darklajid 15y ago
      Disclaimer: I want a Clocky! Love that thing. What it is missing, though, is the (permanent) decoupling between clock and snooze/defuse button. Clocky needs to be near your bed to be a usable clock and to set it. It tries to run away screaming in the morning. If you are quick, you could do what he did in the video. He tries a different approach: You have the (arguably beautiful) clock near the bed all the time, but there's just no button on that thing to turn it off. You can still cheat (see initial post of this discussion), but you _need to cheat in advance, intentionally, in the evening_. For me at least that wouldn't work. In the evening I _want_ to get up early tomorrow. In the morning though....
    - swombat 15y ago
      Or if you live in one of the numerous cities where space is at a premium and Clocky would have all of about 2 square meters to run around in (not including the bed, which is occupied by boxes, or the wardrobe, which would crush Clocky like an insect if it approached too close!)
- darklajid 15y ago
  If you really want to cheat yourself: Just don't buy that alarm clock or set the alarm for 11 instead of 7:30.. It's meant to defeat your inner demon, not police your life.
codesuela 15y ago
If anyone is looking for a challenge buy one of these things and build a snooze button app for this clock.
deepakprakash 15y ago
Great, now I can put the panel on the night table, key in the code half groggy in the morning and go back to sleep. :) Seriously, $135 for an alarm clock?
- deepakprakash 15y ago
  Why the down votes? Nobody has a sense of humour? :|
todd3834 15y ago
Buy cheap alarm clock from Amazon $5 - $10. Put it far from your bed so you have to walk over to it to turn it off. I love the look of the Ramos, especially the nixie tubes but I just don't see much of an improvement over placing the alarm clock on the other side of the room.
- todd3834 15y ago
  If you really want to get crazy, buy 3 or more cheap alarm clocks. Place each one in a different room and freak yourself out when you wake up each morning as your rush to each room to turn off the alarms. ;-)
  - pavel_lishin 15y ago
    I already have that installed in the form of two roommates who have annoying alarm clocks.
    - freehunter 15y ago
      When I was living in the dorms at school, I had a nasty habit of turning off my roommate's alarm and going back to sleep.
- jasontsui 15y ago
  Full disclosure - I helped with the project but I'm also one of those people who on some days CANT get out of bed. You can put the panel pretty far. If your bathroom is a hallway away, this might make the difference. You cant put a regular alarm that far, you wouldnt hear it. For me, physically getting up isn't enough because you can do that half asleep. Thats where having to punch in the date helps, I think this part fires a few more synapses and gets the engine running. It certainly solved it for me.
- gsa 15y ago
  Or get an alarm clock which has no snooze :) Seriously, it helps. For years now, my alarm has been this simple function in my zshrc: function alarm() { sleep $1 && mplayer /path/to/mp3 -loop 0 } It's much harder to snooze this way (unlock screen, switch to terminal, exit mplayer, enter new duration).
Sakes 15y ago
What is great about this product? If used properly, once you turn it off you have no excuse not to start your day. (brush your teeth or hop in the shower) Very cool. What sucks about it? I don't have any desire to buy it. I just don't need another alarm clock yelling at me in the morning. Plus it will only be a matter of time before I learn how to ignore it, like I have done with every alarm clock before it. What is my pain that I would like a new alarm clock to solve? I want an alarm clock that wakes me up in a natural way. I want it to pull me out of my REM cycles gradually so I am ready to get out of bed, not jarred out of bed. If you told me that you had done research on REM cycles and that it takes x amount of time to move from one level of sleep to the next. And that your product plays music softly, then increases in volume in natural increments for the human mind. If this was the problem you were solving, accompanied with the wireless kill switch, then I would be very excited about this product and would consider shelling out my hard earned money for it. I would even be okay if you couldn't solve this problem, so long as I knew that this is the problem that your alarm clock will eventually solve. I would expect the alarm clock's software to be updatable, so as you get closer and closer to perfecting waking up, my $135 alarm clock will get better at it as well. I hope this feed back is useful to you. Good luck to you. It looks cool, and it is a neat idea.
- mstefanko 15y ago
  Agree with all of this. On top of it, passed the it not really increasing the quality of my waking up..Just increasing the chances I will. Even if it solved a problem that I really needed to solve, which it really doesn't. The price is wayyy too high, just in a whole other league. I could never justify over $100 on just an alarm clock. It doesn't have awesome speakers, or an ipod dock etc. I could buy a dozen alarm clocks for this price, and literally just put them everywhere.
  - paulsammut 15y ago
    i know, and it really sucks that I can't make it cheaper. Its literally me and a couple of friends starting a whole manufacturing process. I can't afford to invest 2-3 million on a large production run to get the per/part costs down to regular alarm clock levels. Along with that I have the wireles radio modules to contend with. But, I put alllloottt of effort in the wood housing and the alarm functionality that I really feel sets this apart from just a regular alarm clock. Thanks for your input; the fact that you've taken the time just to talk about it makes me grateful
bitsoda 15y ago
There's no two ways around being able to get up in the morning. Go to bed 7-9 hours before you wish to wake up, that's it. I'm not sure what the obsession is with over engineering alarm clocks, but the problem isn't the little gizmo on your night stand that goes beep and bloop, it's a lack of a solid sleep routine. Sure, every now and then you can will yourself out of bed if you're unrested and need to get up, but you should really be getting good sleep most nights of the week. Go to sleep earlier: the hard way is usually the easier way.
- PotatoEngineer 15y ago
  Not all of us wake up easily. My body loves to get 9+ hours of sleep, and I need something to kick it out of bed in the morning. At the moment, that's whacking the snoozer a lot, but I need a better solution.
- yock 15y ago
  And I think, ideally, most people follow this pattern. Problem is, my 4-month old daughter (and, I suspect, many, many other 4-month old daughters) haven't heard of this.
  - bitsoda 15y ago
    Absolutely. Once you have kids you don't sleep through a whole night for at least 18 months. Sometimes never again if you're the paranoid/caring kind.
    - groby_b 15y ago
      Might be relevant to you and parent: There was something on NPR this morning, about some mom adopting French parenting ideas - and one of the things the French are supposedly good at is getting their kids to sleep through the night at 4 months or so. Might be worth looking at :)
jeromegn 15y ago
Having purpose in life also helps. You'll feel excited to go do your thing when you wake up. At least that's what works for me.
jerfelix 15y ago
With all this power and smarts built into this alarm clock, couldn't they just put in an automatic adjustment for Daylight Savings Time? I would love to have one less clock that I need to adjust two times a year. Edit: It knows the day of week. All it would need is to know what political zone you are in, and be able to predict the whims of the politicians. How hard can that be? :-)
gautaml 15y ago
If you have trouble waking up to an alarm everyday (around the same time) then you need to really re-evaluate your sleeping conditions and habits. After having to wake up everyday around 7am my internal clock has pretty much gotten used to just waking my body up around the time. Even on weekends sometimes (eek). Neat product but it's more of a novelty item than anything for me.
radley 15y ago
Zen clocks are far more easy to wake up to: http://www.now-zen.com/ http://www.now-zen.com/ "the acoustic chime bar is struck just once … 3-1/2 minutes later it strikes again … chime strikes become more frequent over 10 minutes … eventually striking every 5 seconds until shut off"
- brunoqc 15y ago
  Interesting. I don't like the triangle shape and I would prefer digits instead of dials but this alarm clock could be better than waking up to a buzzer. I'm not sure what to think about the fact that it use the same frequencies as "music therapist" do.
  - radley 15y ago
    It just makes it pleasant rather than jarring or off key (which is a HUGE difference). The shape == form follows function. It's a (tuned) metal bar across the bottom that's struck by a hammer. It's supported by an elastic bungie so it's allowed to vibrate/hum after it's hit.
- zargon 15y ago
  I've been using a Now & Zen timepiece for about 5 years now. It is far more pleasant to wake up to a gentle gong than electric buzzers that shock you awake. You can adjust the strike force to control for loudness. I keep it set fairly soft. When I first got it, it would take a several gongs before it gradually woke me. Still no need for snooze though. These days I usually become aware of it on the first or second gong.
  - radley 15y ago
    Yeah, I bought mine 17 years ago and still use it.
- Kylekramer 15y ago
  I've had a low rent, versatile version of this for my alarm for nearly a decade now. The Beastie Boys' album Paul's Boutique has a very light and soothing intro song that is about 1:30. Slowly gets louder and louder. It is a very pleasing way to get up, when it works. And if it doesn't, track 2 has a loud drum intro that is guaranteed to wake you up. Over the years, I've trained myself to get up in time to stop the alarm before the annoying drums. Much better than any loud buzzing or doing math problems to make sure you are aware. Took 5 minutes in Audacity to stitch the tracks and works with any alarm that lets you pick an .mp3.
brunoqc 15y ago
There's no way I'll spend 160$ on an alarm clock with a remote control.
tejaswiy 15y ago
A much more elegant way (I believe) is to have it in software as an Android / iOS app. There are quite a few apps that force you to solve a simple math question / puzzle. You could always put your phone somewhere away from your bed. At one point, I was working on an alarm app that had some game mechanics built into it (points for waking up on time, waking up on time for 5 days in a row, waking up before 6am etc.) and had various types of puzzles to turn off the alarm. I gave up on it because I decided it was more of a sleeping habit issue than an inability to wake up. You can't consistently sleep at 2 in the night and expect to wake up by 6 in the morning ..
- javert 15y ago
  At one point, as an alarm clock, I had a headless box under my bed that would play loud music. To turn it off, I had to ssh into it from my laptop - and the password was extremely long. Ultimately, the long password wasn't enough to "wake me up," and by then I had a smartphone, so I got an Android app that made me solve math puzzles to turn off the alarm. Ultimately ultimately, I realized that it was really a behavioral problem. Now I just get up when my alarm goes off. :) (That makes it sound like the "behavioral" solution was simple, but believe me, it was extremely far from simple. And I still think the product being advertised here is an extremely cool idea and potentially very useful.)
- hk_kh 15y ago
  In Sleep (for Android), I have set it to turn off by scanning the barcode of the shampoo bottle in my bathroom. However, if I am too sleepy, I just open the phone and throw the battery to the other side of the room.
jmonegro 15y ago
It looks very nice in theory, but for me, this is a terrible idea. It looks like a great way to wake up stressed and upset. Adjusting your sleep schedule is better for your body and sanity than any complicated alarm clock systems.
lukifer 15y ago
This looks very cool. However, I'm looking to go a different direction: an alarm that automatically opens the room-darkening drapes and lets in sunlight, for a natural and gradual waking process. Imagine my surprise that no such product exists outside the expensive and complex home automation market. I have no experience in hardware hacking, but I might have to see what I can do with an Arduino. Still, this looks like a very cool alarm clock, especially the top-of-the-line nixie model. Good luck!
- nitrogen 15y ago
  Indeed, I wish I had the spare cash to drop on the custom model, just because those nixie tubes and wood choices are so awesome. One of the reasons I started my home automation startup was to make myself a decent alarm clock. The first thing I did with my automation controller was program my lights to ramp up smoothly in the morning. Blinds and ramping audio cues are perpetually on the TODO list, but motorized blinds are expensive and aren't all that useful during the winter, when the cloud-obscured sun doesn't come up until late and the extra light is needed most. Of course, leaving the blinds open all night isn't an option for most of us because of light pollution and possible loss of privacy. Anyway, good luck with your Arduino blinds project, and good luck to the creators of the Ramos!
swah 15y ago
Nice idea, if a little unpractical. I thought (or read somewhere) about doing something similar using a bathroom scale (you have to put your weight on it for some seconds for it to turn off.
dan_orange 15y ago
WakeMate done right!
blhack 15y ago
Holy shit $75,000? Are you kidding me? That is an astronomical amount of money.
- DanBC 15y ago
  What? Why? Hardware production has a much higher capital outlay than software production. You'd be surprised at how much tools and equipment costs.
vishaldpatel 15y ago
I have this habit of walking all the way up to both of my alarm clocks, resetting the alarm to 20 minutes later, and then walking back to bed for a bit more sleep.
edwardy20 15y ago
I'm sure this will appeal to some people, but for the practical ones, Gentle Alarm for Android has all of these features. And it's only $2.86 :) https://market.android.com/details?id=com.mobitobi.android.gentlealarm https://market.android.com/details?id=com.mobitobi.android.g...
vladsanchez 15y ago
This not a stupid idea! It's the STUPIDEST!
joelbm24 15y ago
if you really want to get people up have them enter a code to defuse an actual explosive

109 points by dzlobin 15y ago

Kickstarter - such a good way to corner all the dumb money.

Yeah. My wife will just love listening to my alarm going off for a few minutes as I stumble out into who-knows-where to find the defuse panel and remember the code.

ebiester 15y ago
That's what courtesy mode is for. (from reading the article.)

martinkallstrom 15y ago

It is probably a mistake of him to let the beautiful nixie tubes and the elegant wooden finish pull so much weight in the promo video and then reveal that the final product will feature very bland LED numbers and an equally non-attractive plywood finish. He should sell the product, not the one of a kind and too expensive to manufacture prototype.

dzlobin 15y ago
If you check the donation levels, there is indeed a nixie tube version.
paulsammut 15y ago
Yup, I'm selling the Nixie Ramos also. The thing is I really want to make the Ramos alarm clock available to people, and the nixie clock costs a lot to make. That's why I'm also offering the cheaper LED model, so that more people can benefit from the Ramos alarm clock functionality. EDIT* Oh and by the way, the wood in the prototype is the same as what will be used in $160 LED Ramos, it just has a darker stain. I'm glad you like it :)
- martinkallstrom 15y ago
  You're responding as if you are performing customer service. I appreciate that. But my point is that your project will not get proper funding on Kickstarter with a video edited so that it is the bait and switch feeling of prototype vs. finished product that stays with the viewer. I'm not your customer here, I'm pointing out that your marketing is broken. Any amount of explanations in the comments on HN is not going to change the fact that your video leaves the viewer with the wrong impression.
  - paulsammut 15y ago
    I'm still actually selling the Nixie Ramos. How am I baiting and switching them, if I'm showing people something I'm selling to them?
    - martinkallstrom 15y ago
      You don't give this info in the video. What you should do is to do the video using mainly the product that you are going to build and tell everyone how awesome it is. And then in the end you flash the nixie tube version and say: "If you commit $XX you'll get this awesome retro version". Please know that I'm not saying you're trying to scam people. I'm saying that they will see the video and then feel scammed. You have perfectly noble intentions but as the video is laid out you fail to communicate them. EDIT, just want this to be perfectly clear: You seem to be an awesome person, you have an awesome product, it is awesome that you use Kickstarter. BUT your video is a turn off. And it is a shame because of all the awesomeness people will miss who only see the video and then hit the back button at the exact moment in the video when you say "Well, I've already started working on a much more affordable production model". You introduce your main product with the absolutely non-sexy word "affordable", after having shown a much more awesome version for a full minute and a half.
      - rhizome 15y ago
        I think it's a decent enough pivot. The Nixies are almost sold out and the LEDs are selling, too. The only problem I see is that there's not enough to justify the high end. He's already committing to 500+ Nixie clocks (hopefully there's machinery involved!), in hindsight he probably could have gotten rid of one of the smaller pledges and bumped everything else up a notch or two.
coldarchon 15y ago
A Nixie clock starts at 70$ and the bad thing is, if one tube is broken, none of them works. The Eniac had 17500 tubes, if one was broken you never knew and got a wrong result. Instead of tubes it should have a white noise generator.

csomar 15y ago

It's amazing how fast such tiny projects* can raise. I just watched the video, and then refreshed the page and the funding jumped from $1,055 to $1,700. * I mean here the actual size, and the idea (clock, ipad cover, watch...). Execution and build of the product can take a lot of time and experience.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

aarondf 15y ago
Hopefully the fact that he/she spent 160 on an alarm clock and would feel like a doofus if they kept the keypad by the bed.
- heyrhett 15y ago
  But he basically positioned "Clocky" so it couldn't run onto the floor, right? I think that Clocky solves this problem better, as long as you don't sabotage it to begin with. Of course, if you have a messy floor, that could stop clocky, as well.
  - darklajid 15y ago
    Disclaimer: I want a Clocky! Love that thing. What it is missing, though, is the (permanent) decoupling between clock and snooze/defuse button. Clocky needs to be near your bed to be a usable clock and to set it. It tries to run away screaming in the morning. If you are quick, you could do what he did in the video. He tries a different approach: You have the (arguably beautiful) clock near the bed all the time, but there's just no button on that thing to turn it off. You can still cheat (see initial post of this discussion), but you _need to cheat in advance, intentionally, in the evening_. For me at least that wouldn't work. In the evening I _want_ to get up early tomorrow. In the morning though....
  - swombat 15y ago
    Or if you live in one of the numerous cities where space is at a premium and Clocky would have all of about 2 square meters to run around in (not including the bed, which is occupied by boxes, or the wardrobe, which would crush Clocky like an insect if it approached too close!)
darklajid 15y ago
If you really want to cheat yourself: Just don't buy that alarm clock or set the alarm for 11 instead of 7:30.. It's meant to defeat your inner demon, not police your life.

codesuela 15y ago

If anyone is looking for a challenge buy one of these things and build a snooze button app for this clock.

deepakprakash 15y ago

Great, now I can put the panel on the night table, key in the code half groggy in the morning and go back to sleep. :) Seriously, $135 for an alarm clock?

deepakprakash 15y ago
Why the down votes? Nobody has a sense of humour? :|

todd3834 15y ago

Buy cheap alarm clock from Amazon $5 - $10. Put it far from your bed so you have to walk over to it to turn it off. I love the look of the Ramos, especially the nixie tubes but I just don't see much of an improvement over placing the alarm clock on the other side of the room.

todd3834 15y ago
If you really want to get crazy, buy 3 or more cheap alarm clocks. Place each one in a different room and freak yourself out when you wake up each morning as your rush to each room to turn off the alarms. ;-)
- pavel_lishin 15y ago
  I already have that installed in the form of two roommates who have annoying alarm clocks.
  - freehunter 15y ago
    When I was living in the dorms at school, I had a nasty habit of turning off my roommate's alarm and going back to sleep.
jasontsui 15y ago
Full disclosure - I helped with the project but I'm also one of those people who on some days CANT get out of bed. You can put the panel pretty far. If your bathroom is a hallway away, this might make the difference. You cant put a regular alarm that far, you wouldnt hear it. For me, physically getting up isn't enough because you can do that half asleep. Thats where having to punch in the date helps, I think this part fires a few more synapses and gets the engine running. It certainly solved it for me.
gsa 15y ago
Or get an alarm clock which has no snooze :) Seriously, it helps. For years now, my alarm has been this simple function in my zshrc: function alarm() { sleep $1 && mplayer /path/to/mp3 -loop 0 } It's much harder to snooze this way (unlock screen, switch to terminal, exit mplayer, enter new duration).

Sakes 15y ago

What is great about this product? If used properly, once you turn it off you have no excuse not to start your day. (brush your teeth or hop in the shower) Very cool. What sucks about it? I don't have any desire to buy it. I just don't need another alarm clock yelling at me in the morning. Plus it will only be a matter of time before I learn how to ignore it, like I have done with every alarm clock before it. What is my pain that I would like a new alarm clock to solve? I want an alarm clock that wakes me up in a natural way. I want it to pull me out of my REM cycles gradually so I am ready to get out of bed, not jarred out of bed. If you told me that you had done research on REM cycles and that it takes x amount of time to move from one level of sleep to the next. And that your product plays music softly, then increases in volume in natural increments for the human mind. If this was the problem you were solving, accompanied with the wireless kill switch, then I would be very excited about this product and would consider shelling out my hard earned money for it. I would even be okay if you couldn't solve this problem, so long as I knew that this is the problem that your alarm clock will eventually solve. I would expect the alarm clock's software to be updatable, so as you get closer and closer to perfecting waking up, my $135 alarm clock will get better at it as well. I hope this feed back is useful to you. Good luck to you. It looks cool, and it is a neat idea.

mstefanko 15y ago
Agree with all of this. On top of it, passed the it not really increasing the quality of my waking up..Just increasing the chances I will. Even if it solved a problem that I really needed to solve, which it really doesn't. The price is wayyy too high, just in a whole other league. I could never justify over $100 on just an alarm clock. It doesn't have awesome speakers, or an ipod dock etc. I could buy a dozen alarm clocks for this price, and literally just put them everywhere.
- paulsammut 15y ago
  i know, and it really sucks that I can't make it cheaper. Its literally me and a couple of friends starting a whole manufacturing process. I can't afford to invest 2-3 million on a large production run to get the per/part costs down to regular alarm clock levels. Along with that I have the wireles radio modules to contend with. But, I put alllloottt of effort in the wood housing and the alarm functionality that I really feel sets this apart from just a regular alarm clock. Thanks for your input; the fact that you've taken the time just to talk about it makes me grateful

bitsoda 15y ago

There's no two ways around being able to get up in the morning. Go to bed 7-9 hours before you wish to wake up, that's it. I'm not sure what the obsession is with over engineering alarm clocks, but the problem isn't the little gizmo on your night stand that goes beep and bloop, it's a lack of a solid sleep routine. Sure, every now and then you can will yourself out of bed if you're unrested and need to get up, but you should really be getting good sleep most nights of the week. Go to sleep earlier: the hard way is usually the easier way.

PotatoEngineer 15y ago
Not all of us wake up easily. My body loves to get 9+ hours of sleep, and I need something to kick it out of bed in the morning. At the moment, that's whacking the snoozer a lot, but I need a better solution.
yock 15y ago
And I think, ideally, most people follow this pattern. Problem is, my 4-month old daughter (and, I suspect, many, many other 4-month old daughters) haven't heard of this.
- bitsoda 15y ago
  Absolutely. Once you have kids you don't sleep through a whole night for at least 18 months. Sometimes never again if you're the paranoid/caring kind.
  - groby_b 15y ago
    Might be relevant to you and parent: There was something on NPR this morning, about some mom adopting French parenting ideas - and one of the things the French are supposedly good at is getting their kids to sleep through the night at 4 months or so. Might be worth looking at :)

jeromegn 15y ago

Having purpose in life also helps. You'll feel excited to go do your thing when you wake up. At least that's what works for me.

jerfelix 15y ago

With all this power and smarts built into this alarm clock, couldn't they just put in an automatic adjustment for Daylight Savings Time? I would love to have one less clock that I need to adjust two times a year. Edit: It knows the day of week. All it would need is to know what political zone you are in, and be able to predict the whims of the politicians. How hard can that be? :-)

gautaml 15y ago

If you have trouble waking up to an alarm everyday (around the same time) then you need to really re-evaluate your sleeping conditions and habits. After having to wake up everyday around 7am my internal clock has pretty much gotten used to just waking my body up around the time. Even on weekends sometimes (eek). Neat product but it's more of a novelty item than anything for me.

radley 15y ago

Zen clocks are far more easy to wake up to: http://www.now-zen.com/ http://www.now-zen.com/ "the acoustic chime bar is struck just once … 3-1/2 minutes later it strikes again … chime strikes become more frequent over 10 minutes … eventually striking every 5 seconds until shut off"

brunoqc 15y ago
Interesting. I don't like the triangle shape and I would prefer digits instead of dials but this alarm clock could be better than waking up to a buzzer. I'm not sure what to think about the fact that it use the same frequencies as "music therapist" do.
- radley 15y ago
  It just makes it pleasant rather than jarring or off key (which is a HUGE difference). The shape == form follows function. It's a (tuned) metal bar across the bottom that's struck by a hammer. It's supported by an elastic bungie so it's allowed to vibrate/hum after it's hit.
zargon 15y ago
I've been using a Now & Zen timepiece for about 5 years now. It is far more pleasant to wake up to a gentle gong than electric buzzers that shock you awake. You can adjust the strike force to control for loudness. I keep it set fairly soft. When I first got it, it would take a several gongs before it gradually woke me. Still no need for snooze though. These days I usually become aware of it on the first or second gong.
- radley 15y ago
  Yeah, I bought mine 17 years ago and still use it.
Kylekramer 15y ago
I've had a low rent, versatile version of this for my alarm for nearly a decade now. The Beastie Boys' album Paul's Boutique has a very light and soothing intro song that is about 1:30. Slowly gets louder and louder. It is a very pleasing way to get up, when it works. And if it doesn't, track 2 has a loud drum intro that is guaranteed to wake you up. Over the years, I've trained myself to get up in time to stop the alarm before the annoying drums. Much better than any loud buzzing or doing math problems to make sure you are aware. Took 5 minutes in Audacity to stitch the tracks and works with any alarm that lets you pick an .mp3.

brunoqc 15y ago

There's no way I'll spend 160$ on an alarm clock with a remote control.

tejaswiy 15y ago

A much more elegant way (I believe) is to have it in software as an Android / iOS app. There are quite a few apps that force you to solve a simple math question / puzzle. You could always put your phone somewhere away from your bed. At one point, I was working on an alarm app that had some game mechanics built into it (points for waking up on time, waking up on time for 5 days in a row, waking up before 6am etc.) and had various types of puzzles to turn off the alarm. I gave up on it because I decided it was more of a sleeping habit issue than an inability to wake up. You can't consistently sleep at 2 in the night and expect to wake up by 6 in the morning ..

javert 15y ago
At one point, as an alarm clock, I had a headless box under my bed that would play loud music. To turn it off, I had to ssh into it from my laptop - and the password was extremely long. Ultimately, the long password wasn't enough to "wake me up," and by then I had a smartphone, so I got an Android app that made me solve math puzzles to turn off the alarm. Ultimately ultimately, I realized that it was really a behavioral problem. Now I just get up when my alarm goes off. :) (That makes it sound like the "behavioral" solution was simple, but believe me, it was extremely far from simple. And I still think the product being advertised here is an extremely cool idea and potentially very useful.)
hk_kh 15y ago
In Sleep (for Android), I have set it to turn off by scanning the barcode of the shampoo bottle in my bathroom. However, if I am too sleepy, I just open the phone and throw the battery to the other side of the room.

jmonegro 15y ago

It looks very nice in theory, but for me, this is a terrible idea. It looks like a great way to wake up stressed and upset. Adjusting your sleep schedule is better for your body and sanity than any complicated alarm clock systems.

lukifer 15y ago

This looks very cool. However, I'm looking to go a different direction: an alarm that automatically opens the room-darkening drapes and lets in sunlight, for a natural and gradual waking process. Imagine my surprise that no such product exists outside the expensive and complex home automation market. I have no experience in hardware hacking, but I might have to see what I can do with an Arduino. Still, this looks like a very cool alarm clock, especially the top-of-the-line nixie model. Good luck!

nitrogen 15y ago
Indeed, I wish I had the spare cash to drop on the custom model, just because those nixie tubes and wood choices are so awesome. One of the reasons I started my home automation startup was to make myself a decent alarm clock. The first thing I did with my automation controller was program my lights to ramp up smoothly in the morning. Blinds and ramping audio cues are perpetually on the TODO list, but motorized blinds are expensive and aren't all that useful during the winter, when the cloud-obscured sun doesn't come up until late and the extra light is needed most. Of course, leaving the blinds open all night isn't an option for most of us because of light pollution and possible loss of privacy. Anyway, good luck with your Arduino blinds project, and good luck to the creators of the Ramos!

swah 15y ago

Nice idea, if a little unpractical. I thought (or read somewhere) about doing something similar using a bathroom scale (you have to put your weight on it for some seconds for it to turn off.

dan_orange 15y ago

WakeMate done right!

blhack 15y ago

Holy shit $75,000? Are you kidding me? That is an astronomical amount of money.

DanBC 15y ago
What? Why? Hardware production has a much higher capital outlay than software production. You'd be surprised at how much tools and equipment costs.

vishaldpatel 15y ago

I have this habit of walking all the way up to both of my alarm clocks, resetting the alarm to 20 minutes later, and then walking back to bed for a bit more sleep.

edwardy20 15y ago

I'm sure this will appeal to some people, but for the practical ones, Gentle Alarm for Android has all of these features. And it's only $2.86 :) https://market.android.com/details?id=com.mobitobi.android.gentlealarm https://market.android.com/details?id=com.mobitobi.android.g...

vladsanchez 15y ago

This not a stupid idea! It's the STUPIDEST!

joelbm24 15y ago

if you really want to get people up have them enter a code to defuse an actual explosive