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These days, my alarm clock is my 2 ½ year old son. But I remember the days of beeps, radios and snooze buttons like it was, well, 10 minutes ago. But here are five crazy ways to wake up that I never imagined until I went researching stuff for a post you’ll see later this week.
1. Match Alarm Clock
Built in 1877 by two brothers from Brooklyn, this whacky alarm gave new meaning to the phrase “when the clock strikes…” Because it quite literally, struck a match at the desired wake-up time. The match then swung around and lit an oil lamp, which brightened the room until the slumbering sleeper woke up, or, alternately burned to death.
2. Tugaslugabed
Built in 1910, this cute clock woke you up by pulling your toe. Before slumber, you’d place a loop around your toe. Then, eight seconds before wake-up time, an alarm would ring and then at the set time the gizmo would pull hard on the loop to rouse even the heaviest of sleepers.
3. The Flying Alarm Clock
Skipping ahead to modern day now, the next three clocks you can still purchase if you look around online. First we have the Flying Alarm Clock, which launches a helicopter-esque doodad at wake-up time. Gives new meaning to the phrase “I flew out of bed this morning.”
4. The Ticking Bomb Alarm Clock
The copy from the manufacturers is so epic on this one, I’m just going to reprint it word for word (translated from Japanese):
1. Let’s say you set your alarm for 8AM.
2. At 7:57AM, a recorded voice pipes up: “Three minutes left…” Then starts counting down to zero.
3. In the next few moments, one of the lamps on the left will flash at random. You must diffuse the same-colored wire in order to stop the bomb from ticking.
4. If you fail your mission, the explosion WILL go off. When the timer reaches zero, the speakers on this thing will emit a loud BANG, signifying your failure. If this was real life, the girl would be dead by now.
If you’d like to purchase the bomb, go here.
5. Clocky
This one is for all the people who distrust alarm clocks. You know who you are! You people who are always defending the fact that you overslept because your alarm never went off. If you hit snooze when this alarm goes off, the clock rolls off your nightstand and wheels around your room looking for a place to hide before it sounds the alarm again. Talk about a wheely effective wake-up call!
Own a funky, unusual alarm clock I haven’t mentioned? Tell us about it!
Keep up with all my posts via Twitter: @resila – and all our brilliant writers @mental_floss
Comments (43)
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How does one diffuse a wire? Maybe you mean “defuse.” (Although technically that’s still incorrect – you do that to the bomb itself, not a wire.)
posted by ribbit on 2-8-2010 at 9:21 am
I own the Flying Alarm clock and the Clocky, because I’m a very heavy sleeper.
The flying alarm clock works very well, as its loud, annoying, and gets me up.
The rolling one just isn’t loud enough for me. =[
posted by Frank on 2-8-2010 at 9:25 am
That’s the fun of Janglish, now, isn’t it? Did you find no mirth in \All your base are belong to us?\
posted by Tom on 2-8-2010 at 9:29 am
Well into my twenties, I owned a Nickelodeon alarm clock which looked like some sort of wacky cartoon gizmo, but was loud enough to wake all of my roommates in a converted factory apartment.
It began with a super loud countdown to a thunderous rocket ship noise, followed by a shrill bugle playing Reveille and then a booming barbershop quartet singing Nick-nick-nick-nick-na-nick-nicknick-Nickelodeon!!
It was the only thing that could rouse me from the three hours of sleep a night that I averaged in those days.
posted by EMStoveken on 2-8-2010 at 10:25 am
@ Tom – LOL!
recaptcha: bludgeon and
… a good bludgeoning would definately wake me up, no alarm clock needed…
posted by kimmy on 2-8-2010 at 10:37 am
Many truck drivers are familiar with an alarm clock called the Screamin’ Mimi. Why is it so special? It will send out a 120 db alarm! Enough to wake the dead. You can see it here http://www.the-perfect-present.com/Pages_SCRM/Screamin_Meanie.html
posted by David V on 2-8-2010 at 11:26 am
I got my husband the kind that has a siren that wakes you up, that changes it’s pitch as it goes longer. It also has a vibrating disc that you put under your pillow that goes off at the same time. It’s the only alarm that’s really worked for him, provided he remembers to set it and turn it on.
posted by Leah on 2-8-2010 at 11:45 am
I received the flying alarm clock for Christmas last year as a gag-gift from my brother. It works much better as a cat toy than it does as an alarm clock! But then, I wouldn’t really know how well it works as an alarm clock because my cat hijacked it…
posted by Ophelia on 2-8-2010 at 11:46 am
I still remember reading about that one that was recommended for people with seizures and deaf people that would hit you with a rubber ball to wake you up.
posted by Sara in AL on 2-8-2010 at 12:21 pm
Try this one on for size. Genius!!
http://www.seriouseats.com/2008/07/wake-n-bacon-alarm-clock-the-best-sleepending.html
posted by Dale on 2-8-2010 at 12:43 pm
In college, I plugged a spotlight into a timer, and aimed it at my pillow. At the set time, the light would come on and cook my head. Not pleasant, but it worked. :)
Recaptcha: “buffoons here”. Where? I don’t see any…
posted by Jon on 2-8-2010 at 1:17 pm
the 120 decibel one would be great until it blew your eardrums out and then you’d be seriously effed…
my brother had an alarm clock that only played obnoxious euro pop. it would wake me up down the hall.
ReCaptcha: To gape
posted by tess on 2-8-2010 at 1:31 pm
I used to have a magic schoolbus alarm clock that crowed like a rooster when it went off.
I miss that thing.
posted by Cassandra on 2-8-2010 at 1:45 pm
Having a profound hearing loss, I have two fun things in my bedroom. One is a fire alarm that have a exceeding loud (90db)fire alarm with 177 Candlera strobe. I also have an alarm clock with a pad that will vibrate the every living stuffing out of the bed.
posted by Andy on 2-8-2010 at 1:53 pm
i have an alarm clock
posted by dre on 2-8-2010 at 3:15 pm
Nothing wakes me up faster than my two year old standing quietly staring at me. She doesn’t make a sound but it wakes me up and the sudden scar keeps me up.
posted by Fate on 2-8-2010 at 3:44 pm
Unless you’re seriously hearing impaired weird alarm clocks are a ridiculous waste of money. Buy a regular, reasonably loud and annoying alarm clock, put it on the other side of the room from your bed. When it rings, get up and shut it off and stay up and go about your day.
Go to bed at a reasonable hour. Set the alarm for when you really need to get up and really get up. It’s simple.It’s silly that adults are so resitant to getting up when they know they should that they would resort to expensive silly clocks.
I lived in apartment for a while and my neighbor loved to ignore his alarm clock. It must have been one of those extra loud models as it was so loud that I could hear it through the walls of his apartment into mine. I wouldn’t have minded if it just sounded quickly when he needed to wake up and then he’d quickly shut it off. However, he would ignore it completely for like 15 minutes, then hit snooze a couple of times, and keep repeating the cycle. It would often take an hour or more for him to finally get up and for the alarm to quit disturbing me. Finally, I went over and discussed it with him. I hoped that if he understood that he was being a nuisance, he’d fix the problem. He didn’t. He learned later in the week that the police knocking at the door in response to a noise complaint is a WAY too effective alarm and after that he got up promptly on the first ring of the alarm.
posted by Melissa on 2-8-2010 at 4:04 pm
http://www.engadget.com/2008/10/21/bandais-gun-oclock-shoot-the-target-or-youll-never-snooze-ag/
Find the video on youtube, it is hilarious. It’s gun o’ clock!
posted by katastrophe4u on 2-8-2010 at 4:06 pm
I own a clocky! I absolutely love its friendly yet jarring sci-fi-esque beeping and whirring. Up until last year, I had a terrible CD player/alarm clock that would get off balance at the slightest nudge, start skipping, and never actually play. Perhaps I hit it a little too hard one too many times or maybe it was just shoddily made to begin with. Either way, it had to go go go phshhhhh.
Now that I’m no longer struggling through Frances Burney’s works after going to class, writing a paper, and working retail for twelve hours, I have to admit I find waking up in the morning significantly easier. Clocky was a great temporary fix, but graduation turned out to be the only viable long-term solution.
posted by Nichol on 2-8-2010 at 4:59 pm
I had a very loud alarm clock that did not have a snooze. Because you had to spin a dial to within 10 minutes of the time you wanted to wake up, it was way to difficult to reset just for 10 more minutes of sleep. I put it half way between my bed and the bathroom. (I found if I had to walk past my bed on my way out of the room, my bed was way too tempting!)
posted by Kelly on 2-8-2010 at 5:13 pm
They’re called “cats” and they are highly effective!
posted by A2Veeness on 2-8-2010 at 8:04 pm
In college, I found a Sailor Moon alarm clock at an Asian grocery store, and I bought it as a gift for my dorm roommate. The next morning, we woke up to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcUavI1c3JY
Needless to say, the alarm wasn’t set again. (And I’m surprised that someone has actually posted the same alarm clock on Youtube!)
posted by Amy on 2-8-2010 at 9:05 pm
Melissa,
Not everyone is like you. Some people are very (VERY) heavy sleepers and can sleep through even obnoxiously loud alarm clocks. Others have the uncanny ability to get up and shut off an alarm clock that is across the room and get back into bed, sometimes without even realizing what they just did. That is specifically why some of these alarm clocks have been invented.
posted by Mrs. Coffee on 2-8-2010 at 10:03 pm
When I was a kid, many years ago, I had a horrible clock radio alarm. It was so bad that the tiny “click” of the relay 10 seconds before the actual alarm was enough to get me out of bed very morning. Pavlov would have been proud.
posted by Bob Roberts on 2-8-2010 at 10:16 pm
I used to have this piece of junk Spongebob clock. The snooze button was located on the bottom so you only had to tap anywhere on the top to snooze. But the stupid Spongebob character on top prevented that from happening so the only way to shut it off was to bang it repeatedly on the bedside table. Man, i wish i still had it
posted by ufluffed on 2-8-2010 at 11:12 pm
I work split shifts–half in the early morning, half in the afternoon. I regularly take a nap before going back to work. I use my cell phone as an alarm clock. The ringtone I use is the Benny Hill Theme. Wakes me up every time!
posted by Fox on 2-9-2010 at 12:44 am
I had a friend that was trying a poly-phasic sleep thing for awhile. Didn’t go so well, but before completely giving up he bought an alarm that was incredibly loud AND had 4 different interlocking pieces that would go flying off in opposite directions. In order to shut it up you had to find and assemble all the pieces.
posted by miss jelly on 2-9-2010 at 12:54 am
I got a piano-shaped alarm clock years ago that would loudly play a recorded version of “Für Elise” while the keys would move. It was pretty effective… for awhile.
The clock eventually began to malfunction, sometimes going off in the middle of the night. I could never find the button (in my stupor I’d start pulling the keys out instead) so sometimes my mom would have to come into my room to shut the darn thing off.
posted by Leah on 2-9-2010 at 1:16 am
Fate, my now grown-daughter used to do the same thing. Scared the bejezus outta me many times!
I’m a heavy sleeper and so is my youngest daughter. I’ve thought about the flying clock and Clocky for her. I found that I have to change my alarms frequently otherwise I get used to them and sleep through them. I’ve amassed quite the collection, much to my husband’s dismay.
posted by shirleyfeeney on 2-9-2010 at 1:39 am
@Melissa
I had a roommate like you, and she too had a hard time understanding why ever anyone would need to use a snooze button. I’m sincerely jealous of people like you who can just “wake up,” but whether physiological or psychological, I am a zombie first thing in the morning. After a full 8 hours, I stumble blindly into things, fall asleep in the shower, etc. I keep my alarm clock on the other side of the room, but sometimes I wake up long after I should have, cradling the alarm clock in bed with me. Once, my second alarm went off (I set multiple for reasons that should be obvious soon) and I stumbled out of bed to turn if off, but could not find the clock! When the first alarm had gone off, I must have gotten up, placed the clock in my underwear drawer and gotten back into bed. I didn’t remember this at all and was so frustrated (and groggy) I just started crying.
I’m sure your neighbor’s alarm was just too loud, but don’t fault him for how long it takes him to mobilize in the morning. You’re making an already unpleasant experience so much more unpleasant.
posted by Lynnie on 2-9-2010 at 2:39 am
Oh, and at least I’m not my father: he experiences what are either epic sleep walking sessions or else mini fugue states. He once fell asleep in his bed and woke up in a field a few towns over, and few kilometers from his car. When he was younger a similar thing happened only with a beach and a kayak. A handful of times he’s fallen asleep at home and woken up in his car, parked outside of his work, still in his pajamas!
posted by Lynnie on 2-9-2010 at 2:49 am
I have an Ultraman alarm clock from the local night market that woke you with the dulcet tones of high-pitched electronic warfare. Bombs falling, klaxons, machine guns, explosions, you name it. Sadly, the hands have gotten all loose, which makes it useless as a clock. Now I just wake up to the most ridiculous, happy alarm tone I can find on my phone.
(Recaptcha: ‘Freudian bodyguards’. Dare I ass?)
posted by Bwee on 2-9-2010 at 4:14 am
A few years ago, I came across an alien alarm clock. To turn off the alarm you have to wring the alien’s neck! It also specialized in insulting you!
posted by tlegokid on 2-9-2010 at 12:04 pm
My current alarm clock is my husband. I rarely hear the actual alarm clock; he hits it almost immediately. He’s a light sleeper. Me? When I was in high school, I had a LOUD alarm clock. To make sure I didn’t oversleep, I had to construct cunning arrangements of stuff on top of the clock each night. Deactivating the alarm meant finding the damn thing. But I’d have to vary the pile; after a couple of weeks, sleep-me would learn how to get through it without having to bother my conscious self.
But I *also* have a tendency, every once in a while, to wake up in the middle of the night (anywhere from 12:30 to 3) firmly convinced that it’s morning and past snooze time. I force myself to wake up, grudgingly plowing through my grogginess, stumble to the bathroom, stumble back to bed, put my glasses on, and realize that I have several hours to go before I need to get up. But it can be *very* difficult for me to fall back asleep in these situations, and the real wakeup a few hours later is generally more difficult than usual.
posted by Calli Arcale on 2-9-2010 at 3:22 pm
Cats! Gotta love ‘em. Mine starts his antics around 8am, and if I havn’t gotten up to feed him by 9, he lays on my face. Forget hiding under the blankets either, the paws spring into action then!
Definitely the most effective alarm clock I’ve had in a long time. Hitting a cat with a pillow only makes them more obnoxious.
posted by Korin on 2-9-2010 at 5:01 pm
I got this for Christmas a couple years ago. I love it! It helps you go to sleep AND wakes you up!
http://www.hammacher.com/Product/70460?promo=search
posted by Anna on 2-9-2010 at 5:11 pm
1)Always wanted to try this one: Stephen Fry as Jeeves waking Bertie!
http://www.hammacher.com/Product/76635?source=FROOGLE
2)Back in the late 80′s, we lived on an acre and had a small flock of sheep. They learned the sound, rather faint, of my husband’s alarm going off and would cluster along the fenceline across from our bedroom and sound off till he got up and fed them…it was totally irresistible!
posted by Aurora on 2-10-2010 at 3:50 am
Back in college, I had a very hard time waking up in the morning. (Oddly enough, I didn’t drink, but chemical engineering can give you just as strong a hangover, hehe.) After sleeping through my loud alarm clock for over three hours one day, I came across a solution.
Static. LOUD static.
The issue with my alarm clocks had been the “dream incorporation” problem, where the sound simply becomes part of whatever dream you’re having (which makes you rather immune to being awakened by it). A clock radio tuned between stations and amplified to 90-95 dB, on the other hand, gives you loud whitish noise that had me up on on my way across the room to shut it off before I was even fully awake.
I *never* slept through that alarm, although I did hurt myself once in a while by jerking awake slightly too hard (or in the wrong direction — headboards hurt!). These days, however, I just have a very gentle piece of music set as my pre-alarm. Very rarely do I make it through to THE AWAKENER.
(“Friday emerge”, hehe.)
posted by CJ the Sleepy on 2-10-2010 at 2:03 pm
firend gave me one of these a few years ago
http://www.teawaker.com/854k.htm
Not only does it boil water and then transfer it to the jug just in time for the alarm to go off, the alarm is one of those horrible old school mechanical alarms that is excruciatingly painful for extended periods and wakes me up in an instant.
A mug and coffee punger next to the bed make for a nice cuppa to drink in the shower.
posted by Matt on 2-11-2010 at 1:29 am
I personally use two alarm clocks–my cellphone, and this:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/lights/a7c5/
(I also have the Sonic Bomb alarm clock, but I find that the Epoch is much more effective.)
My routine is first alarm goes off on my cellphone, then the Epoch, then the cellphone again (I have two alarms set for my cell). My cell’s alarm is the chorus from Roxanne–SO. ANNOYING. The Epoch clock’s alarm is more effective in that the noise is completely random. (I tried to find a video on youtube… no luck.)
Also the Epoch clock is more effective because I have to get out of bed to turn it off, lol.
posted by Jae Michels on 2-14-2010 at 12:26 am
I used to build elaborate obstacle courses between my bed and the alarm clock. Set up diagonal poles, strung up blankets and cords, put tripwires and strings with a bunch of tin cans tied on them, etc.
Worked great for a few days, but it was never more than a week until I was climbing, ducking, jumping, and crawling through to the alarm clock and back to bed without even opening my eyes, noticing the noise, or gaining any consciousness.
posted by Tau Aretas on 7-3-2010 at 2:52 pm
My alarm clock is my cell phone, with my voice yelling at me: “Its time to wake up! Its time to wake up! Wake up! Wake up! WAKE UP!” on an increasing volume.
It gets me out of bed pretty quick.
posted by Gwen on 7-12-2010 at 4:56 pm
Okay, seriously, I read mental_floss ALL the time, and here I am, browsing through tabs, and this was in here. I started to feel paranoid – I hadn’t been browsing the website. Was my computer trying to tell me something? I mean, yes, I’m difficult to get out of bed, but really…
Then I realized I’d hit the “Stumble!” button by accident. Whew.
posted by Kate on 7-29-2010 at 1:58 am