#243380 - 05/12/2004 16:21
Need a new alarm clock
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/06/1999
Posts: 7868
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Ok, after having several incidents of oversleeping, I think it is time I get a new alarm clock. Anyone know if such a thing exists that:
1. Can set the time by its self. Either via radio, or NTP across a network, or even as simple as a long lasting coin battery and computer clock chip. Doesn't need to be 100% accurate, just survive power outages and such.
2. Allows multiple alarms. I'd like to be able to set one time for work and another for the days I don't work. The one I have would do this, if I had a M-F schedule, since it offers weekend and weekday alarms. However my work schedule includes both weekend and weekdays.
3. Starts off quiet but gets louder the longer it goes off
4. Snooze time can be programmed to be short or long.
5. Alarm clock will keep going off no matter how much snooze is pressed. I've seen some that shut off after 4 snooze uses. Thats bad for me.
6. Actual alarm function is hard to disable. Being easy simply leads me to turning it off, sometimes without even knowing this.
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#243381 - 05/12/2004 17:03
Re: Need a new alarm clock
[Re: drakino]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31600
Loc: Seattle, WA
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I've seen items in Brookstone/SharperImage/Discoverychannel stores that match some of those requirements. The auto-setting-time thing happens using short wave radio if I recall correctly.
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#243382 - 05/12/2004 18:13
Re: Need a new alarm clock - 24hr?
[Re: tfabris]
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addict
Registered: 02/08/2004
Posts: 434
Loc: Helsinki, Finland
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Speaking of alarm clocks, does anyone know of a alarm clock for sale in North America that displays the time in a 24h format? Just can't seem to find one. Not that its that important, but I'd like one anyway...
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#243383 - 05/12/2004 18:36
Re: Need a new alarm clock
[Re: drakino]
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enthusiast
Registered: 06/03/2003
Posts: 269
Loc: Wellingborough, UK
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Quote:
1. Can set the time by its self. Either via radio, or NTP across a network, or even as simple as a long lasting coin battery and computer clock chip. Doesn't need to be 100% accurate, just survive power outages and such.
This is known as a radio controlled clock or radio clock for short. Not to be confused with a clock radio 
As tfabris started to say, the transmission frequency is normally either 60kHz or 77.5kHz in one of three similar formats (MSF, DCF or WWVB - there are others, these are the most common).
If the clock consists of only a radio controlled alarm clock chip and an LCD, a single AA battery or button cell will run the clock for a few years.
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#243384 - 05/12/2004 20:10
Re: Need a new alarm clock - 24hr?
[Re: petteri]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/06/1999
Posts: 7868
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Ahh yes, almost forgot. 24 hour time would be nice. I'd be willing to buy one from the UK or such, as long as it can run on 110-240v.
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#243385 - 05/12/2004 22:29
Re: Need a new alarm clock - 24hr?
[Re: drakino]
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addict
Registered: 25/06/2002
Posts: 456
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Quote:
Ahh yes, almost forgot. 24 hour time would be nice.
Hmmmm, I thought all digital alarm clocks allowed you to switch to 24-hour mode.
At least, a couple different little travel ones I got from Brookstone a couple of years ago, as well as a big bulky clock-radio I bought 15 years ago both do. (The tiny ones also let you change the temperature display from Fahrenheit to Celsius.)
Of course, I may be over-extrapolating from too few datapoints....
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#243386 - 05/12/2004 22:53
Re: Need a new alarm clock
[Re: drakino]
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old hand
Registered: 01/10/2002
Posts: 1039
Loc: Fullerton, Calif.
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Quote:
5. Alarm clock will keep going off no matter how much snooze is pressed. I've seen some that shut off after 4 snooze uses. Thats bad for me.
Alarms clocks don't wake one up, they just destroy the quality of sleep.
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#243387 - 05/12/2004 23:45
Re: Need a new alarm clock
[Re: larry818]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/06/1999
Posts: 7868
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My biggest problem waking up is realising I need to be awake. A quick (1-2 minute) snooze cycle would probably be best, since in a 10 minute time I would finally realise I need to be awake. I currently have my alarm across the room so I have to walk to it, and I still have times where it takes me 3 or 4 trips to finally get up. At the normal 9 minute snooze rate, thats 20-30 minutes trying to get fully awake.
I've been known to disable my alarm without realising it. Using the computer as an alarm either resulted in the power plug or speakers pulled.
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#243388 - 06/12/2004 00:15
Re: Need a new alarm clock
[Re: drakino]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 21/05/1999
Posts: 5335
Loc: Cambridge UK
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My Nokia mobile meets all of those criteria. I've used it (and its predecessors) exclusively on alarm clock duty for the last few years, and it has the advantage that it is always wherever I am.
Rob
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#243389 - 06/12/2004 00:33
Re: Need a new alarm clock
[Re: rob]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/06/1999
Posts: 7868
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Quote:
My Nokia mobile meets all of those criteria.
Unfortunatly my Sony Ericsson doesn't. Whenever the alarm goes off, the main screen shows the alarm time, and two options for the big buttons. Snooze or disable. It's way too easy to just hit disable.
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#243390 - 06/12/2004 00:54
Re: Need a new alarm clock
[Re: drakino]
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old hand
Registered: 01/10/2002
Posts: 1039
Loc: Fullerton, Calif.
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In high school, I rigged a car horn (from a Cadillac, not one of those overly polite european horns) to my alarm. I got to the point that I would bolt out of bed one minute before the alarm would trigger. Low tech, but functional.
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#243391 - 06/12/2004 01:00
Re: Need a new alarm clock
[Re: drakino]
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addict
Registered: 04/09/2004
Posts: 525
Loc: Oklahoma
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My cell phone has multiple alarms (can set it as nasty sounding as you want!), and can be set to go of once, daily, or weekday only...kind of cool. I set it for 0430 and it works, but when the blessed Sabbath morning hits, it stays silent...very nice.
I also found a cool little alarm clock that is a projection clock, can rotate the projection so it will hit the walls, or celling, any angle, sets itself to GMT time (plus the offset) and can display in 24 hour format (Military time). I got it at a place called Kohl's...
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#243392 - 06/12/2004 01:16
Re: Need a new alarm clock
[Re: larry818]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 23/09/2000
Posts: 3608
Loc: Minnetonka, MN
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I think a good idea for an alarm would be one where you have to solve some kind of puzzle to shut it off. They could have something like simon and you have to get a specified number of sequences right to get the alarm to stop.
For this to work you would have to have some way to prevent it from being unplugged.
_________________________
Matt
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#243393 - 06/12/2004 01:31
Re: Need a new alarm clock
[Re: msaeger]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/06/1999
Posts: 7868
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Quote:
For this to work you would have to have some way to prevent it from being unplugged.
Laptop battery screwed into place with odd heads, like the triangle ones Nintendo uses. Even if you unplugged it, the battery could probably power simething like this for at least a few hours.
Thinking about it more, maybe pca would like a new project :-)
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#243394 - 06/12/2004 03:51
Re: Need a new alarm clock
[Re: msaeger]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
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#243395 - 06/12/2004 03:51
Re: Need a new alarm clock
[Re: larry818]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 17/12/2000
Posts: 2665
Loc: Manteca, California
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IMHO... Forget all the frufra and turn back the clock, literally. Go buy a good windup. Proof against power failures. The nightly winding ritual can include resetting the time. Loud bells. No Snooze! Snooze just invites cancle cancle cancle. A single alarm gets one in the habit of being up at the same time every morning. Besides retro is sooo in style these days.
_________________________
Glenn
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#243396 - 06/12/2004 03:54
Re: Need a new alarm clock
[Re: tman]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 17/12/2000
Posts: 2665
Loc: Manteca, California
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Quote:
You can already get them.
Diabolical! Just finding the pieces, including them that drop behind the bed...
Edited by gbeer (06/12/2004 03:55)
_________________________
Glenn
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#243397 - 06/12/2004 04:23
Re: Need a new alarm clock
[Re: gbeer]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 06/10/1999
Posts: 2591
Loc: Seattle, WA, U.S.A.
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Quote:
IMHO... Forget all the frufra and turn back the clock, literally. Go buy a good windup.
Sigh. I remember the days when I could oversleep. Sigh....longing....Sigh.
Back when this *was* a problem (sigh.) I found a particularly unassuming brass wind-up alarm clock at the PX made by Junghans that had near-mystical properties.
Mystical properties, you ask? Well, you see, it had been built by Doctor Pavlov himself.
I placed it on a bureau across from the foot of my bed. At the appointed time it gently (I could barely hear it) went "ding"....(5 second pause) ...."ding"...(5 second pause).... "ding".... (5 second pause).... ...and it did this for about 15 "dings".
At which point it went:
DING!, BRIIIING! DING! ASSHOLE! YOUR WHOLE FUCKING LIFE IS OVER SO GET THE FUCK OUT OF BED OR YOUR WHOLE LIFE WILL COLLAPSE INTO ONE GIGANTIC PUS-FILLED BUCKET AND YOU WILL BE SODOMIZED BY A VERY SMELLY PLATOON OF CONVICTS SERVING LIFE SENTENCES FOR, WELL, SODOMY (WHAT ELSE?) DIIIIIING! BRRRRRING!!!!! DING!!!!
Suffice it to say that after precisely two mornings' use, my barely-conscious body never once thence failed to literally explode off of the mattress and shut the clock off before the 3rd gentle "ding".
Operant conditioning is your friend (sometimes).
_________________________
Jim
'Tis the exceptional fellow who lies awake at night thinking of his successes.
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#243398 - 06/12/2004 07:51
Re: Need a new alarm clock - 24hr?
[Re: drakino]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 12/01/2002
Posts: 2009
Loc: Brisbane, Australia
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Quote:
Ahh yes, almost forgot. 24 hour time would be nice. I'd be willing to buy one from the UK or such, as long as it can run on 110-240v.
Just be careful there. A lot of (generally cheaper) clock radios use the mains system frequency as the timebase. Any why not - in many countries this system frequency is strictly controlled even to the point where if the system frequency drops early in the day (high load), they will speed it up a little later in the day to make up the "lost time". This sort of timekeeping was often better since temperature and drift effects of crystals/oscillators etc are removed completely.
Obviously getting a 50Hz clock and running it on 60Hz (assuming voltage requirements are fine) will result in a clock that reliably runs 20% fast.
_________________________
Christian
#40104192 120Gb (no longer in my E36 M3, won't fit the E46 M3)
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#243399 - 06/12/2004 10:19
Re: Need a new alarm clock
[Re: jimhogan]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 14/01/2002
Posts: 2858
Loc: Atlanta, GA
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Why does that clock make me think of Douglas Adams?
_________________________
-Jeff
Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings; they did it by killing all those who opposed them.
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#243400 - 06/12/2004 11:00
Re: Need a new alarm clock
[Re: larry818]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4180
Loc: Cambridge, England
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Quote:
Alarms clocks don't wake one up, they just destroy the quality of sleep.
I've got to agree. Alarm clocks are an attempt at a technological solution to a sociological problem. If you're using one other than to get up extra-early on special occasions (catching flights etc), and in particular if you're using one every workday, then you are probably chronically sleep-deprived, and getting you a bigger alarm clock is like getting a drunkard a bigger gin-bottle. Go to bed earlier!
Peter
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#243401 - 06/12/2004 11:06
Re: Need a new alarm clock - 24hr?
[Re: petteri]
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addict
Registered: 10/01/2001
Posts: 630
Loc: Windsor, Ontario Canada
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I have this one here, and it quite happily displays time in 24 hr format....
_________________________
01001010 01101111 01101000 01101110
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#243403 - 06/12/2004 12:06
Re: Need a new alarm clock
[Re: jimhogan]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12341
Loc: Sterling, VA
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Fortunately, I've never had a problem getting up when my alarm went off. I don't think I've ever even used a snooze button.
For a few years, I had a TV with an alarm feature. I liked it because it's nice not having a standard obnoxious buzzer for an alarm, and I don't like the radio. But most days, I'd never even hear the TV. It got to the point where the sound of the TV turning on was enough to wake me up (and I'm a very heavy sleeper). So I'd hear the TV turn on, and be awake enough to get out of bed and turn it off before the audio started.
_________________________
Matt
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#243404 - 06/12/2004 12:18
Re: Need a new alarm clock
[Re: msaeger]
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old hand
Registered: 01/10/2002
Posts: 1039
Loc: Fullerton, Calif.
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Quote:
I think a good idea for an alarm would be one where you have to solve some kind of puzzle to shut it off. They could have something like simon and you have to get a specified number of sequences right to get the alarm to stop.
For the first year I lived in Taiwan, I stayed at a "business hotel" that had a wakeup call service. This was an automated part of the phone system that would ring you up, but you couldn't just hang up or it would call back in 15 minutes. You had to talk to it and that would cancel the callback. So, naturally, I took to cursing it when it would call.  One morning the phone rang, so I cursed it as usual, hung up, and 2 minutes later got the wakeup call.
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#243405 - 06/12/2004 12:59
Re: Need a new alarm clock
[Re: larry818]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
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Heh. Whoops. Did the person call back or ever speak to you again?
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#243406 - 06/12/2004 21:30
Re: Need a new alarm clock
[Re: peter]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/06/1999
Posts: 7868
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Quote:
Go to bed earlier!
I wish it was that easy. I find that really it doesn't matter what time I go to bed, I tend to start waking up at about 10 or 11 am. I generally get at least 8 hours of sleep every night including work nights, and often on my days off this goes up to an average of 10. If I want to wake up at 8am or so, I'd have to be in bed by 8pm the night before, and this isn't possible with my 12 hour work schedule. The other problem is I work less then half the days of the week. So for 3 days, I absolutly need to be awake by 8:30 am, other days it really doesn't matter, though I tend to keep the alarm set at 10am.
I have never been able to wake up to a schedule in my life, even back in high school when I did have the same wakeup time 5 days of the week.
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#243407 - 06/12/2004 21:35
Re: Need a new alarm clock
[Re: drakino]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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Yeah, you and me both. I'm convinced that my body is convinced that there are about 28 hours in the day, so the fact that I can only get 8 hours of sleep is about an hour and a half too short and then I can't go to sleep at night because my body wants there to be another two and a half hours of awake time.
I want the same alarm clock you want. I found one once that was close (and included aromatherapy in the alarm -- weird), but it seemed too expensive at the time. Now I've changed my mind and can't find it again.
_________________________
Bitt Faulk
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#243408 - 06/12/2004 21:46
Re: Need a new alarm clock
[Re: drakino]
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veteran
Registered: 19/06/2000
Posts: 1495
Loc: US: CA
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Same here. I even had my work schedule changed from 0900 -> 1700 to 1100 -> 1900, and I STILL end up being late a lot. Even if I go to bed early enough to get more than 8-10 hours of sleep, I end up getting up late. I've come to the conclusion that I'm broken.
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Donato MkII/080000565 MkIIa/010101253 ricin.us
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#243409 - 06/12/2004 21:49
Re: Need a new alarm clock
[Re: ricin]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31600
Loc: Seattle, WA
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Or that traditional work schedules are broken.
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