I saw that CrunchGear, via Gizmodo, via coolest-gadgets (heh) was today touting the Progressive Wake Alarm Clock from Hammacher Schlemmer. As these sites generally feature cool looking items rather than hard reviews, I thought I’d write about my disappointing experience with this Progressive Wake-up clock.

As my girlfriend will confirm, I’m generally terrible at waking up. Most mornings when my alarm sounds I’ll reach over and turn it off before falling back asleep without even realising it. I’d love to be the type of person who wakes gracefully, but unless I sleep till mid-morning it’s usually a jarring experience, so when I first heard about this alarm clock I was quite excited.

The Progressive Wake Alarm Clock purports to progressively wake sleepers through a combination of light, ambient sounds and scents, before ending with a regular alarm. This progression occurs over a 30 period prior to the time you’ve set the alarm for. 30 minutes before your alarm time the light will gradually ramp up, at 15 minutes ambient sounds (water flowing, birds chirping, etc) will kick in, and finally the alarm itself will sound. You can optionally even place scented stuff in the top to be included in the process.

Sounds great doesn’t it? Unfortunately design flaws reduce the clock to significantly less than the sum of its parts.

The first problem? The alarm. It sounds H-O-R-R-I-B-L-E! After being gradually awakened by light and ambient sounds over 30 minutes, you’re greeted by possibly the worst alarm noise I’ve ever heard. In a distinctly non-progressive way, the sound doesn’t ramp up over time but instead starts at a full, and loud, volume. While it’s possible to decrease the volume, this also reduces the volume of ambient effects. At a level where the alarm is tolerable the effects are inaudible.

Secondly; Snooze. After waking up I generally hit snooze at least once or twice. I’d assumed in the spirit of progressive wake up that snooze would silence the alarm while leaving the light and ambient sounds turned on. Not so. Hitting snooze turns everything off, allowing you to drift back to sleep only to again be awakened (after an unchangable delay) by the terrifying noise of the main alarm.

After I discovered these problems I decided to turn the alarm off altogether and instead use only the light and ambient sounds. Unfortunately, this isn’t possible as the clock offers three combinations of wake up effects;

• Sounds, Light, Scents, Alarm,
• Sounds only,
• Sounds + Alarm

This means the two most unique features of this alarm clock, increasing light and ambient sounds, can’t be used in tandem without including the main alarm.

Aside from these issues there are other minor problems. The clock display is VERY bright, to the point where my girlfriend is unable to fall asleep due to the glow it casts. When she stays over she insists on propping a book infront of the display, which I can understand but is less than ideal. The alarm clock emits a quiet-but-audible buzz that sounds like a transformer, and a few of the ambient effects sound distinctly fake. None of these especially bother me, but they do further detract from the experience of using this clock.

Overall the most irritating thing is that this alarm could be great, but due to problems that should have been spotted at the prototype stage it becomes an expensive gimmick. At $50 this alarm isn’t cheap so think carefully before purchasing. I’m still on the hunt for my ideal alarm clock, but whatever I look at next must have an alarm that gradually increases in volume, and a variable or dimmed clock display.

(This post was written using Windows Live Writer)