Wake up Alarm Clocks

Alarm clocks that will get you up in the morning.

The "Morning Shooter" basketball alarm clock is one for the annoying category.

The alarm is turned off by throwing a ball to the basket. Or by dunking it, although it might break the basket. Missing a shot will mean waking up unless you have a stash of balls by your bed.

Chances are good that this clock will wake you up. First, you need to open your eyes to aim, and second, you need to move your arms to throw the ball. And third, go fetch the ball and turn the alarm off.

Buy it from UXSight.com for $16.70.

Pick the brain -blog has a nice list of "nine ways to wake up ready to rock". The tips include exercising during the day, avoiding caffeine in the evening and the one very obvious technique: getting to bed on time. (Seriously, leave a comment if you know how to achieve the last one.)

Snoozing in the morning is a bad habit that will delay you waking up, and usually make you feel bad afterwards. Self development guru Steve Pavlina has an answer even for this problem: In his writing "How to get up right away when your alarm goes off" he shows a technique that will do just that when applied correctly. The key into understanding his technique is to realize that the morning-you doesn't want to wake up, and cannot be reasoned into doing so. The trick is to automate the process of waking up right away by practicing. An interesting read!

Last some tips from the past: "7 ways people woke up, pre-alarm clock" from mental floss blog. These are not that practical ways to wake up in the modern age, but might give you some inspiration. The knocker-upper, a person responsible for waking you up is great!

Looking for something a bit more luxurious?

Luis Vuitton's Tambour is a travel alarm clock like no other. The clock is steel with a back that opens out to support the clock. It has two time zones so you'll know what time to call home.

Forget the plastic clock radio and go for some timeless design. The alarm clock is based on Luis Vuitton's classic Tambour series of watches.

It's a great gift, although a bit expensive at $2,750.00.

The Neverlate Executive Alarm Clock is a fully customizable alarm clock / clock radio based on American Innovative's previous Neverlate 7-Day Alarm Clock.

It features two 7-day schedules so you can setup two different alarm times for each day. In addition it has seven everyday alarms that sound at the same time everyday. Wake up at a different time every morning? This is the clock for you.

Not only can you customize the alarm time but also the radio channel for each morning. Or you could use one of the four buzzer sounds. Other customizable settings include the snooze time, nap timers, alarm duration and backlight brightness.

Even though the snooze time can be adjusted, the clock's mission is to wake you up. Each press of snooze will cut the snooze time to half, eventually forcing you up.

See all features on American Innovative or buy from Amazon:

Axbo sleep phase alarm clock is similar to the iPhone sleep cycle alarm clock. Axbo measures your movement during the night and tries to wake you up during light sleep in the morning.

The sleep phase can be identified by the amount of movement. In deep sleep the body is almost still but it becomes more active when moving to lighter sleep phase.

The iPhone app requires you to keep the phone in your bed for its movement sensors to work, but the aXbo clock comes with a wristband that registers your movement and transmits the information to the clock. In fact, the aXbo includes two wristbands and is able to wake up two people independently.

Each person can set their own wake-up time and alarm sound from six options. The alarm will go off at the ideal time within 30 minutes before the set time. The clock has no snooze button which could be a great feature for the hard core snoozers.

In addition to the basic sleep phase alarm, the aXbo has other interesting features. It has a PowerNap function for taking a midday nap without entering deep sleep. The aXbo also includes three nature chillout sounds that help you to fall asleep.

Your sleep patterns can be downloaded to your computer with the included USB cable and analyzed in aXbo research software. This can be a great help for analyzing how sports or different meal times affect your sleep.

Buy it from Amazon:

A typical night's sleep consists of different sleep phases. Sleep cycles from light to deep sleep several times in a night. Deep sleep is essential for feeling refreshed in the morning, but waking up in the middle of a deep sleep phase feels horrible. It can also leave you tired for the morning.

Sleep cycle alarm clocks try to sense when you are sleeping lightly for a easier wake up. This is usually done by motion sensors. When sleeping lightly your body will move around. This can be detected by the sensors and the alarm clock will go off if it's nearly your waking up time.

Sleep Cycle alarm clock for the iPhone will do exactly this by utilizing the iPhone's accelerometer. The alarm has a 30 minute alarm window during which it will try to wake you up from light sleep.

For $0,99 the Sleep Cycle alarm clock is a bargain. What's sad is that it cannot be used with an iPod Touch. Also, the iPhone should be connected to a charger during the night.

Wake-up lights are based on a clever idea. They simulate a natural sunrise by gradually increasing the light in the morning. The light will increase for 30 minutes before you wake up. In theory, your body will react to the light and make you less sleepy.

This is an advantage especially in winter when there's not enough natural light. I also think you can sense the light through your sleep and mentally prepare for waking up.

Philips has a couple of really cool wake-up lights. Philips HF3480 is the basic model which has FM radio and 4 nature sounds. It looks sleek and it can also be used as light. Philips HF3490 is an advanced model with iPod dock so you can play your favourite music at morning.

According to Amazon's reviews some find the light very helpful in the morning, while others don't feel any more energetic. It depends on the person and the conditions the light is used in. Both wake-up lights are still good alarm clocks.

This alarm clock tries to force you into thinking a bit before turning off the alarm. When the alarm goes off the clock will shoot three pieces of different shapes and colours into the air. Your job is to assemble them back to the clock to turn the alarm off. This supposedly reduces the risk of going back to bed.

Available from Amazon for about $20.

These are some interesting concepts for alarm clocks. They are not available for purchase, although I'm sure each of them would have a market.

Carpet Alarm Clock

Carpet Alarm Clock designed by Sofie Collin & Gustav Lanberg is a small mat with some clever electronics. The design is simple: to turn the alarm off you need to step on to the carpet. ...Which requires you to get up from bed.

The carpet has a lcd clock. I guess it could easily have a scale too.

Source: GeekSugar.

The Glo Pillow

The Glo Pillow concept from 2007 resembles those gradually brightening wake-up lights. In this concept the light comes from the pillow. The pillow uses a LED fabric under the pillow cover, even capable of showing the time.

The light starts to brighten 40 minutes before the alarm, gently stimulating your brain to start up.

Source: talk2myShirt

Silence

Silence is a concept of Johan Brengesjö's. It's basically a rubber ring you wear at night. At morning, the ring will vibrate and gently wake you up.

A shake of hand will activate snoozing. However, each snooze requires a larger movement of your hand, eventually forcing you to wake up.

This design is very handy because the alarm won't wake up your spouse or the neighbors. Some of us require a 100dB alarm to come back from the feather islands, but a vibrating ring might also work.

The Silence Alarm Clock won a silver medal at IDEA '08 awards.

Photo by mahalie.

Simply put: Clocky is an alarm clock with wheels. Wheels for what? For running away from in the morning!

Clocky will let you snooze one time, and one time only. After that it hops to the floor, starts rolling around and makes a very annoying sound. You are forced to get up from bed, find the clock and push a button to make it stop.


Buy Clocky from Amazon

Do you have this? Tell your experiences in the comments!