The Philips Wake-Up Light: because dawn just isn’t programmable.
Just thirty minutes before the alarm clock goes off, it begins to glow, cutting through the bedroom dark like some bioluminescent jelly fish. You wake up from your slumber just enough to be dreamily pleased by it: how nice it will be not to be awoken by a shrill cacophony of bells, but by a simulacrum of the rising dawn?
After five minutes, the insides of your lids have purpled from black; after ten, they are peachish with the artificial glow of dawn-like light. Delightful. When the alarm clock actually goes off, the room is fully lit. How wonderful. You hit snooze.
The alarm continues to brighten. Snooze for five minutes and it is as bright as a miniature sun. Snooze for ten, an its already too late: the Philips Wake-Up Light is too hot to touch. By fifteen minutes, it has undergone its first thermonuclear reaction.
Twenty minutes later, a mushroom cloud radioactively rises over Tuscaloosa. Twenty one minutes later, the President is awakened… not by the dawn, but by a phone call.
Philips Wake-Up Light [Philips]
@ Narual:
What I’m really looking for is something in a Tony Orlando and Dawn simulator…
#18, I’m just waiting for the inverse of this product–a slowly dimming light that indicates the end of siesta so I can crawl out from under my urban sombrero.
Also, I’m not sure I would dream of comparing Brownlee’s “a simulacrum of rising dawn” with “the spirit of Old Mexico with a little big-city panache.” Though if ol’ John tried his hand at something like, say, Bengalese Galoshes, maybe the comparison would be more readily acceptable to me.
@David: The point of these is the gradual increase in light to simulate the effect of sunrise. Having a light flip on isn’t exactly the same thing.
Not terribly useful for me… I tend to sleep with my eyes covered.
@Strider: Sorry, fresh out.
Takuan,
You bought an M113 too?!? I’m pretty sure filling them with water voids the Army’s warranty though. :p
Poor Tuscaloosa, my hometown, often picked on; this time, slagged. Sigh. At least in print it’s not mispronounced.
Twenty one minutes later, the President is awakened… not by the dawn, but by a phone call.
What poor bstrd* sets their alarm for 3am?
*self-imposed
In the winter I hook a 200 watt metal halide exterior light fixture up to a beefy timer in my bedroom. Since the light takes a good 10 minutes to come up to full brightness, it’s a fairly gradual wake up.
It’s REALLY bright and sun-like and only cost ~$30 to do.
you can always pick up a kitty from the shelter, and you’ll have a fun and programmable alarm clock
Does this really help that much? I mean, I hate the buzzing of my alarm clock but it takes me all of three minutes, a cup of coffee and the newspaper to forget about it.
Westclox Moonbeam, 1950
I’m not sure it’d work for me. I sleep with the curtains open in summer, and the alarm goes off after sunrise, and I still have just as much trouble getting out of bed.
Anything’s better than a buzzer though. If I get woken by an alarm buzzer, I wake up homicidal.
My subconscious has informed me that it has already prepared a counterdefense for this menace. It’s called “turning over.”
In Alaska, it only works 6 months out of the year…
This is cool, but I think the Bacon Alarm Clock would be more effective. I don’t guess those guys have made any for sale yet…
“What poor bstrd* sets their alarm for 3am? *self-imposed”
We don’t dsmvwl here, we just censor your ass.
I have my tank gradually flooded with warm surface water, simulating the drift upwards.
Didn’t some company say they were close to releasing this same concept but in a pillow? That way you could wake happily to increasing light while your light-hating, blackout-shades-installing spouse can continue to snore loudly in his self-imposed darkness?
Now THAT’S something that would be worth buying. Sure, waking up to natural/unnatural dawn does wonders for my mood … but it’ll be moot if it means having to sleep in a separate bedroom from the hubby ^_^
Soon to be a major motion picture starring Will Smith.
Thanks for nothing, JOHN.
Philips’ shitty flash website is broken. Buy it here
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Philips-HF3461-Wake-Up-Light-Alarm/dp/B000VI7K2C
Whoa, almost $200!
not really a new product… dawn simulators have been around for quite a while, and you can get them a good bit cheaper than $200.
http://www.lighttherapyproducts.com/dawn_simulator.aspx
I’m always astonished by how much these “artificial dawn” alarm clocks are. I love the idea but have never seen one that costs less than £50. That’s way more than I’m willing to spend on an alarm clock.
I can’t believe that they cost much to make – a timer circuit and a small bank of LEDs? I suspect that the idea is patented and the license is expensive. Does anyone know whether this is true?
I’m sure it’d be very simple to build one, but my electronics knowledge is embaressingly poor. I wonder if it’s possible to commission an instructable?
Now I know where former J. Peterman catalog writers go to die…
#4 (Bugs):
Why not go to any hardware store and buy a 24 hr lamp timer? Hook it up to a cheap lamp and set it to turn on when you want to wake up.
David (@5)
Yep, that’s what I have
. I set my lamp to switch on about 20 min before my alarm clock. It’s definately more pleasant than not using the lamp, but still not as easy as actually being woken by dawn in the summer.
Also, it blows bulbs distressingly often. I suspect this is because I bought a cheap timer, rather than any inherent problem wth the idea. Still, the flash and “fzzt!” of a dying bulb wake me up pretty effectively too
.
I got the Hammacher Schlemmer Peaceful Progression Wake-Up Clock on Ebay for $12. It is normally like $50. It was the cheapest sunrise alarm I could find at the time. It isn’t perfect, but it works pretty well. It doesn’t get super bright but it sure helps in the winter to not wake suddenly in pitch darkness. I thought about a lamp timer, but it would just flip the light on suddenly, whereas these alarms gradually lighten the room in a more natural way. Like the sunrise as opposed to mother coming in to the room and flipping on the light to get you out of bed. I do have to use a second radio alarm, as the light isn’t enough to wake me up and this one doesn’t have a radio alarm, just a buzzer which I have the volume turned down on because I hate buzzers. This philips one looks pretty cool, brighter light and a built in radio, but also pretty expensive.