

Show HN: Having a hard time waking up? Check out Wake Alarm - robjama
http://blog.tinyhearts.com/post/70487356857/introducing-wake-alarm-2-wake-alarm-for-ipad

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junto
One of the most effective alarm clocks is to have children. You are guaranteed
to be woken up bright and early. Well early, not so sure about the bright
part.

Joking apart, having children does force you into a strict daily rhythm. They
respond so well to doing the same thing, at the same time, and in the same
order.

I always used to have poor sleep habits. Those habits have now been beaten out
of me!

My point is that having a fastidious approach to sleep, and a strict sleep
pattern means that you pretty much don't need an alarm clock. My children
can't tell the time yet, but their internal body clocks are pretty accurate.
Slowly I'm starting to trust my own internal clock as well.

~~~
MatthiasP
A cat that wants to be fed at 6:30 in the morning works wonders as well.

~~~
junto
Indeed, we have two of those as well.

Point of interest: To anyone who thinks that they can distract their wife's
biological clock with a cat or dog, just don't. You end up with a pet and a
child! Or in my case, after the first cat wasn't working, I got a second.
Still didn't bloody work! :-)

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weisser
I think the best alarms are ones that require you to get out of bed to turn
off (meaning an iPhone placed across the room) - essentially it's not a kind
of alarm but the positioning of it in your room. Once you are out of bed I
don't think the UI of how you silence the alarm really matters.

Some of you have probably heard of Tocky and Clocky
([http://www.nandahome.com/products/index.php](http://www.nandahome.com/products/index.php)).
I've never used either but my guess is the concept is better than the
execution. I've never felt a need to do anything but put my phone on the
opposite side of my bedroom. Also, by doing this I have no way of checking my
phone while in bed - either in the morning after waking up or at night before
falling asleep.

~~~
hire_charts
Somehow in college I was able to get up, walk through my apartment, turn off
my alarm, walk all the way back, and crawl back into bed, all without waking
up. (Or, at least, without remembering later.)

The solution, for me, has been getting into a routine where I can consistently
fall asleep earlier. Much easier to do now that I'm not pulling late nights
all the time.

~~~
HCIdivision17
Likewise. My alarm was a playlist that would play through my speakers under
the room's deck. My computer was in top, with the audio and power cables zip
secured to prevent easy power loss.

Dang thing would go off, start getting louder (scripted for "gentle" wake-up),
and I had to crawl out and onto the deck, log into my computer, and shut it
off. ... And it was set to lock itself and start again in 10 minutes.

TL;DR: sleep inertia sucks.

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pkfrank
I like the "Shake Alarm" feature. It's cool to encourage an energetic response
that will ensure you're actually "waking up" to silence it. I've seen more
annoying versions [1], but it seems like you should be able to set the
sensitivity here to strike the right balance which is valuable.

[1] [http://www.trendhunter.com/slideshow/annoying-laborious-
alar...](http://www.trendhunter.com/slideshow/annoying-laborious-alarm-clocks)

~~~
bsirkia
I agree that the "Shake Alarm" is the only feature that I think uniquely helps
with waking up.

Is there any evidence (other than anecdotal) that having a laborious alarm
clock actually helps people get up? I feel like making it harder to hit the
snooze button might only accomplish that, and either way people just go back
to bed.

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vosper
By far the most effective alarm clock I've ever used is Alarm Clock Xtreme for
Android. The killer feature is the math problems functionality, whereby you
cannot disable the alarm, short of removing the battery, until you've solved
math problems at your chosen difficulty.

Solving 5 relatively simple problems like "17 * 12 - 34" gets my brain going
like no other alarm - I am fully alert by the end of it. My mental arithmetic
has gotten better too :)

There are also tons of other configuration options in the app.

~~~
robjama
That was actually the original idea. To use math questions as an alarm style
but we opted to go with the Shake to wake option to get people moving in the
morning. Plus it's more tactile and goes well with the other alarm styles of
slapping the phone to snooze and flipping the phone over to turn off alarms.

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pulmo
For me the best choice is still an analog alarm clock, because it doesn't
tempt me to check my mails or read my feeds in the morning instead of
preparing for truly important work.

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brandonhsiao
This is a great product _as an alarm clock_ , but trying to build better alarm
clocks is fighting the wrong battle. The real solution is just to get enough
sleep so that you wake up automatically.

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Eric_WVGG
Nicely done!

