Sweet. I might do one…

I’d make that mute button timed, so that you have to solve it within 10 seconds or so and if you don’t, it un-mutes permanently (or gives you a second chance and then un-mutes permanently)

Posted at 11:23 pm on Feb 18th, 2008 by dioxide

hahaha now that’s clever!

Posted at 11:24 pm on Feb 18th, 2008 by andrew

Another idea I have is to make it binary, for the true geek/l33t h4xx0r, it would be a combination of binary display and lcd, so that you have to make the indicated operation with the binary numbers and get it right or suffer the consequences

Posted at 11:29 pm on Feb 18th, 2008 by dioxide

Most of the time, I wake up in such a sleepy haze, that I think the mysterious sliding switch on my alarm clock actually has to be reprogrammed to shut it off. I guess that’s how I justify to myself that I sleep through it all the time and let it buzz for ages.

I love the idea of this clock, but my wife would either shoot me or the clock… Since I sleep between her and the clock, my odds aren’t good.

Posted at 11:35 pm on Feb 18th, 2008 by scooter

I used to accomplish the same thing by putting my alarm clock across the room, but this is way cooler! Maybe I should make one that forces me to do floating point. If I can do that in my sleep, I arguably no longer need to be awake.

Posted at 12:18 am on Feb 19th, 2008 by Sean

I will definitely agree that this idea is pretty genius. : ) I know that I’ve gotten to the point where I can disable alarm clocks just as easily as I can hit the snooze button; but, I’m in too much of a daze to realize that hitting the off button causes me to fall asleep. Great ability to analyze… huge lack of forethought. XD Forcing me to do math? I’ll be sure to be awake after that…

Posted at 3:40 am on Feb 19th, 2008 by Zencyde

You don’t want to do binary arithmetic. At least I don’t. It’s way too easy, but for most of us mortals, other mathematical operations in binary are not quite second nature.

Converting a decimal number into binary seems to be an easy compromise. Easy to implement, just have a pair of seven segment displays and a row of momentary switches with corresponding LED’s. The SSD’s display a number, and when you switch on the correct LED’s, the alarm stops. You could add a pressure switch that you have to hold (to keep you from dozing off) that mutes it.

I could do this whole thing with a decimal counter and some basic logic. No PIC needed. I consider that a perk.

Posted at 4:01 am on Feb 19th, 2008 by ben airy

I’m with ben airy/dioxide, the mute button would have to be recessed into the side of the clock to stop you resting something on it. for me though, nothing beats the s.a.d. light on a timeswitch (80 watt daylight spectrum fluorescent light that kicks out about as much light as an open window). light > sound for making you actually wakeful rather than just not asleep.

still, I love the idea- it’s like a little tiny bit of dr whatshisname’s brain training in the morning, and that’s probably a good thing.

Posted at 5:28 am on Feb 19th, 2008 by PKM

I remember this one site (the link is new dead, sadly) which sold an alarmclock somewhat like this. Instead of making you do math, it launched a little spinning helicopter thing, and wouldn’t turn off the alarm until you got out of bed, found the thing, and attached it to the clock again.

Posted at 9:22 am on Feb 19th, 2008 by Taehl

I’ve thought of _exactly_ this before…good to see someone’s actually done it. :-)

Posted at 10:30 am on Feb 19th, 2008 by Dro Kulix

taehl, those clocks are available in drug stores now.

Posted at 10:35 am on Feb 19th, 2008 by Captainmogan

I’d be so tired from doing math I would need a nap. Hahaa…

Posted at 12:15 pm on Feb 19th, 2008 by Fl3tch3r

that same as my project in university

Posted at 12:39 pm on Feb 19th, 2008 by KillerNay

Posted at 12:40 pm on Feb 19th, 2008 by KillerNay

Wouldnt it be much easier just getting an alarm with a higher volume?

;]

Posted at 1:39 pm on Feb 19th, 2008 by Gstreng

Your work is to be commended, seriously.

However, _large hammer_!!!!

Posted at 2:00 pm on Feb 19th, 2008 by strider_mt2k

man, I’ve been thinking about that! No matter what I do, it seems as if I can figure out how to turn off an alarm clock when I’m half asleep and always end up being late to everything. Gotta try this design. I’d probably need to find some way to mount it so that I can’t actually destroy it, design it to be vibration resistant, and protect the power cord.

Posted at 2:02 pm on Feb 19th, 2008 by threepointone

Wonderful! Really great.. we all have trouble gettting up and this would be awesome.. course if you integrated it into clocky you might never want to sleep again

http://www.clocky.net/

Hmm.. perhaps a more popular alternative would be to write a flash program for your chumby?

http://www.chumby.com/

Posted at 4:18 pm on Feb 19th, 2008 by techninja

Jesus, I have enough trouble doing math AFTER my first cup of coffee!

At least this isn’t as tough as the average CAPTCHA code these days. :D

Posted at 5:58 pm on Feb 19th, 2008 by Jack Dalton

Why not make change the bed with 2 foldaway legs that “disassemble” and drop you on the floor at the right time ? I constantly run into the problem of sleeping through the alarm sound, so I guess I need a little more feedback from my alarm than just sound ?

Posted at 6:42 am on Feb 20th, 2008 by Diogo

:) would be great to have a switch on the bottom to change the difficulty… spectrum from simple arithmetic to advanced trig…

Posted at 9:48 am on Feb 20th, 2008 by ryan

@Jack Dalton: Awesome idea!

I just read up on the chumby and it’s an interesting platform.
maybe not 180.00 US interesting, but still really cool.

Posted at 9:50 am on Feb 20th, 2008 by strider_mt2k

Wouldnt a mute button ruin the point?

Posted at 12:38 pm on Feb 20th, 2008 by Peter

Timed 120v switch+500 wat halogen work light aimed at pillow+(public school style fire alarm with strobe and big red E-stop button mounted on the other side of the room). works for me.

Posted at 12:33 am on Feb 21st, 2008 by matt

6:00 am: UUUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH ;)

Posted at 3:55 pm on Feb 21st, 2008 by atomthroat

nice idea but i will just end up killing the thing.

i think it should be something that gives you a electric shock!

Posted at 7:13 pm on Feb 22nd, 2008 by Someone

How about just go to bed earlier so you’re not so tired in the morning?

Posted at 4:42 pm on Feb 24th, 2008 by buddy

Can I buy one? This gets to the real issue that I have getting up in morning. Physical activity does not wake me up. Mental exercise, however, does the trick. This is a great idea and well executed with clean and simple design.
When does this go in to production?

Posted at 9:16 am on Feb 27th, 2008 by Don

This wont work for me unless the alarm clock is connected to my phone to lockout the calculator feature in the phone while the alarm is ringing.

Posted at 12:34 pm on Feb 27th, 2008 by Laxminarayan G Kamath A

Informative Article… AWESOME.

Posted at 6:25 am on Feb 28th, 2008 by Eliseo

I thought of similar idea sometime ago.
I wanted my mobile phone to give me a random number and ask me to put it in. I think it is very easy to modify the software ??!

Posted at 10:36 am on Mar 5th, 2008 by mma173

Please check out our new Binary Alarm Clock:
http://binary.onlineclock.net

Posted at 6:29 am on Mar 11th, 2008 by OnlineClock

Interesting idea! I thought of a similar project some time ago, because i too suffer from the “sleepy alarm turn-off syndrome” :) but in my case, you’d have to enter one random number that would appear on the display instead of doing the math. Of course the whole thing would have to be (shock/water/bullet)proof so you could not turn off the alarm by brute force :P

Posted at 6:44 pm on Mar 16th, 2008 by Tomé