I’ve always had a rocky relationship with my alarm clock, specifically the snooze button. In my current clock it’s built into the base (not the display, where all the cool buttons hang out), and it’s angled, narrow and difficult to locate in a semi-conscious state. I pretty much have to wake up completely, steady the clock with one hand, wait for my eyes to focus, locate the snooze button with the other hand, and press very precisely at just the right angle in order to access 10 more blissful minutes of uninterrupted rest. It was probably designed like this on purpose to force people to wake up (as alarm clocks are intended after all), which would have been very clever if the off switch weren’t so ridiculously easy to find and flip in one smooth motion without missing a beat of REM sleep.

Now I enjoy sleeping in as much as the next girl, but the moments of unadulterated panic upon waking up right when I was supposed to be somewhere (because I’d gotten used to turning the alarm off in my sleep) were starting to cramp my style. So I decided to set not one, but two, alarms on my phone in addition to the alarm clock to lessen the chance of missing something important. And it worked! At first, anyway… my spiffy smartphone with its integrated gyroscopic sensor moved both the snooze AND off icons around on the touchscreen taunting my sleep-addled brain as it tried to direct one hand to hold the phone still while maintaining hand-eye coordination long enough to get another finger to touch AND swipe the right icon in the right direction, which pretty consistently left me no choice but to wake up. Until one particularly uncoordinated morning when I just couldn’t seem to get it right and the alarm stopped on its own! This seemed like a blessing from above, since I thought my ears would bleed if I heard the annoying ringtone I’d picked one more time, but I could have easily gone back to sleep.

Maybe I’ll put the alarm clock on the other side of the room so that I have to get up to turn it off, or maybe I’ll buy a new one with less readily apparent usability issues. Going to bed before midnight wouldn’t kill me either. But the question remains – alarm clocks have been around for a long time, so why haven’t we perfected them yet? For those lucky ones who have found the perfect alarm clock, what makes it more effective than others you’ve tried? I’d like to hear what your experience has been. See you in the comments!

-KB

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