My all time favourite bitch is about the apparently mandatory poorly conceived designs for electronic alarm clocks. I mean how hard can it be to design a decent alarm clock?! These things have been around for decades and the functionality required hasn't changed much but I am yet to find one that satisfies. I am sure the design job for new models must be given to intern electronic engineers - you know the type, like the geniuses that gave us the user interface for the early HP calculators where you had to push the enter key after every key press (i.e. 1,enter,+,enter,1,enter,=,enter -> 2).
Ok, I admit as someone who is definitely NOT a morning person I am a little biased against these little buggers but on the other hand I have a strong interest in getting one that is easier to live with - and would pay good $$ for one that was better.
Following is a list of infractions I have found regarding alarm clock design:
- my favourite -> the snooze key next to the alarm off key (obviously a morning person came up with that one!)
- blindingly bright displays that cannot be dimmed
- an unintuitive series of toggle switches that have to be set in exactly the right combination for the alarm to work (could only figure out through trial and error)
- a CD alarm that goes back to the beginning of the CD every time you press snooze making a chronic multiple snooze pusher like me feel like i'm in the movie Groundhog Day.
- either completely crap sound (i.e. made with $1 speakers) or the rediculously expensive Bose or similar quality but precious little in-between
- there appears to be little research into the physiology of waking up when designing these things - e.g. would it be so hard to have volume that ramps up rather than being blasted (I need a fairly high volume to be woken but being shocked usually results in immediate pushing of the snooze button and lapsing back into sleep)
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