Alarm excursion

Okay, that’s it. My alarm didn’t go off again this morning. Or, rather, it did, but it was set to music — and, from past experience, I had the music turned way the heck down.

My current alarm clock, a fabulous RCA widget, is really keen, nice looking, laden with features, with a clever user interface.

Problem is two-fold: I don’t need a lot of features. I want a dual-alarm clock. I don’t want a radio. I don’t want the alarm to have four ways to turn it off, including off, snooze, “off but ring at the same time tomorrow,” etc. I don’t want a “play the radio until I go to sleep” function.

I want something that wakes me up in the morning. And I want something that makes it easy to set exceptional wake-up times (e.g., a Saturday morning activity, or getting up early for a business trip, or something) without forcing me to reset the alarm back for my normal daily wake-up.

The second problem is that, well, alarm clocks are designed to wake people up. Most people so awakened will not be at the top of their game immediately, will be turning off the alarm by touch, etc. Designing a clever user interface is nice, and probably wins awards, and makes the other kids in the design pool go oooh and aaah.

But “clever” and “user” are not words that describe most folk when their alarm goes off. “Fumbling” and “lackwit” are probably a lot more pertinent, and alarms should be designed to that particular target audience. At least as far as my own wake-up needs are concerned.

Indeed, the whole reason I have the music volume turned off is the number of times that, in fumbling with the clock, I instead turned it to REALLY LOUD MUSIC, REALLY LOUD, DAMN, WHERE IS THAT BUTTON, SORRY HONEY, DAMMIT!

Rrg.

So. Time for a trip this weekend in search of a new alarm clock. Alas.

Anyone want a really keen, nice looking, feature-lade alarm with a clever user interface? Let me know.