Battle of the Alarm Clocks

1) Clocky, the Robotic Alarm Clock

A grad student at MIT has created a robotic alarm clock - called Clocky - that runs away and hides after it goes off, so that one cannot hit the snooze button. Gauri Nanda, the inventor, said: "It is programmed to tell the motors to move randomly, to generate random speeds and directions so that the clock ends up in a new place every day."

I have to say that the most perplexing thing to me is why a graduate student would go to such lengths to get out of bed. Having been there, I would say that being a grad student is a good excuse for sleeping. Anyway, I have this theory that there is little one can do to rouse an oversleeper. So, I imagine that people will keep hard objects near their beds to hurl at the clock, and may even purchase shotguns to hunt it down with.

2) SleepSmart, the Smart Alarm Clock

In other alarm clock news, grad students at Brown University have invented a clock - called SleepSmart - that wakes people during their lightest sleep cycle. This one was invented by Eric Shashoua. One must wear a headband with electrodes that then passes sleep cycle information wirelessly to the clock. They say: "By using SleepSmart, you will never wake up feeling tired again."

I am not sure if this qualifies as an alarm clock. Apparently, you program it to wake you by a certain time, but what happens if you do not enter a light sleep cycle by that time?

My Analysis

I feel we are diverting too much attention to devices that get us out of bed. What we really need to do is figure out how we can do our jobs from our beds or while we are sleeping. I have really good ideas at night, honest.

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