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AlarmClock posts

Bang & Olufsen's multifunctional BeoTime gets carefully handled

by Vladislav Savov posted Nov 4th 2009 at 5:50AM

It's rare that we get to see magic wand-shaped remote controls, and rarer still for them to have integrated alarm clocks. The Bang & Olufsen BeoTime is just that sort of exotic specimen, and its $375 touch-sensitive aluminum body has now been tested for our amusement. Being able to turn on your other B&O products by simply grabbing the remote or setting an alarm for the desired time struck positive notes, and those bite-sized displays earned praise too. With automatic backlighting, built-in accelerometer, and full channel readouts, they ensured the minimum of strain for the user (which is probably still pretty high considering they're tiny!). There wasn't much to complain about, but at that price point you wouldn't expect it either. Full hands-on gallery can be found at the read link.

iLuv ships weather-watching iMM183 dual dock iPod / iPhone alarm clock

by Darren Murph posted Oct 31st 2009 at 6:35AM

It belts out severe weather alerts as storms are barreling towards your domicile. It acts as a decent bedroom stereo. And it wakes you and the SO up to your own favorite jams -- all while charging your iPod or iPhone throughout the night. If those amenities sound like must-haves in your own life, you might be interested in knowing that iLuv's iMM183 dual dock alarm clock is now shipping, nearly a full year after being originally announced at CES. The pain? $149.99 -- but hey, that's a small price to pay to keep your dear media player / handset out of a tornado's eye, right?

Gallery: iLuv ships weather-watching iMM183 dual dock iPod / iPhone alarm clock

Ask Engadget: Best iPhone 3G (3GS) alarm clock / radio?

by Darren Murph posted Oct 15th 2009 at 9:02PM

We know you've got questions, and if you're brave enough to ask the world for answers, here's the outlet to do so. This week's Ask Engadget question is coming to us from Bora (from Turkey, he'll have you know), who is sick and tired of waking up to bleeps, wails and static-filled tunes not on his iPhone.

"I own an iPhone 3G and I'm looking for a decent speaker / alarm clock for it. I am going to listen music in a mid-sized room, so I want nice quality speakers with solid bass. I also want to use it as an alarm clock, so it would be great if there is such a feature. The price can be low-mid to mid-high range. I was looking at the Klipsch iGroove SXT; it's powerful, slick and the reviews are good, but it doesn't have an alarm clock feature. It's no deal breaker if I can set it up from the iPhone, but I'm not sure. Anyway, I'm open to recommendations. Thanks!"

Don't front -- we know a big swath of you loyal iPhone owners out there also have some sort of docking alarm clock / radio, so why not share your experience(s) with yours? It's easy, we promise.

iHome's iP88 dual iPhone / iPod alarm clock gets all rectangular on us

by Darren Murph posted Oct 1st 2009 at 8:17PM

Hey guys, guess what? iHome just popped out yet another iPod alarm clock. Hold the applause, please. The iP88 doesn't differ too much from the units that have come before, but we do appreciate the dual docking capability for those who have two iPhones or iPods and must wake at different times of the day. It'll also play back tunes through your 'Pod, blast out FM talk show hosts and charge your devices all the while. It's shipping now for a penny under $150, though we're still struggling to decide whether we adore or loathe the decidedly boxy design scheme...

[Via Slashgear]

Sony ICF-CL75iP alarm clock / digital frame / iPod dock a surprisingly attractive assimilation

by Ross Miller posted Sep 2nd 2009 at 5:23PM

We'll be honest, it takes a whole lot to get us excited about iPhone / iPod docks or digital picture frames these days, but congratulations Sony, you've managed to pierce through our hardened hearts with the ICF-CL75iP Dream Machine. Sony Insider brings word of the actually quite handsome bedside attraction, an assimilation of those aforementioned products with an alarm clock to boot. We're looking at a 7-inch WVGA LCD screen, 1GB built-in memory, FM / AM radio, and a retractable dock -- in case you don't feel like capitalizing on the total synergistic package. Photos can be pulled directly from the Apple handheld or loaded via USB, and your wake-up options include built-in presets, a customizable 10-second voice recording, or the iPod / iPhone itself. Our only knock at this point is the minimal codec support -- MP3 and WMA for audio, and MP4, M-JPEG, and AVI for video -- but if the $149.95 price on a cached SonyStyle listing stays accurate, we can be a little forgiving. In fact, throw in Chumby widget support and we'll be downright smitten -- make it happen, Sony.

Update: Turns out it's actually up for pre-order right now through Sony Style Canada, CAN $199.99 (that's US $180) and shipping out October 1st.

[Thanks, Neil!]

Read - Sony Insider
Read - Sony Style cached listing

Philips HF3490 Wake-up Light is also a bedside lamp, iPod dock

by Vladislav Savov posted Jul 30th 2009 at 6:54PM

Did you know that waking up by natural light is a lot less stressful than doing it with sound? Yes, apparently your toast tastes better too. Philips has long been a proponent of light alarms and, in an effort to stay hip with the kids, it's added a detachable iPod / iPhone dock to its latest offering. The HF3490 might never serve as your music station, but it tries hard, bringing an FM radio and some soothing sounds along. With 30 different levels of brightness and a "dusk simulator," this device has enough tweaking options to ensure you wake up just the way nature intended -- with birds chirping and soft sunlight on your pillow, all simulated by futuristically ugly electronics. If you can get over the $199 price, you can pre-order one for delivery on August 22.

[Via Coolest Gadgets]

Woodstation acts like a weather station, looks like a dead tree

by Joseph L. Flatley posted Jul 16th 2009 at 11:13PM

Usually the intersection of woodcraft and gadgetry consists of little more than taking a piece of gear and putting it in a box. Woodstation may be no different, but at least it does its thing with some style, placing its LED display beneath the surface, allowing it to seemingly display weather data on the wood itself. And if that weren't enough, the device contains a motion sensor (it turns itself on when you enter the room) as well as date, time, and alarm functions. Available in a maple or walnut finish, this bad boy is currently available in the UK for £89.95 (about $147). And unlike the Amazon Kindling, this thing actually works.

[Via Pocket-lint]

Bang & Olufsen's BeoTime alarm clock / remote favors a flute

by Darren Murph posted Jul 15th 2009 at 12:20PM

Bang & Olufsen -- the Danish boutique retailer famous for engineering gorgeous AV products that only a sliver of humanity can afford -- has just introduced its newest product, and it's a far cry from the gargantuan HDTVs and superfluous sound systems that it's used to shipping. Designed by Steffen Schmelling and inspired by Mozart's The Magic Flute, this elongated wireless alarm clock actually serves another purpose. Once it has awoken you from your slumber just in time to catch The Price Is Right in high-def, you can take it with you in order to control some of your other B&O components. The cubes you see are actually displays, and the built-in motion sensor enables display backlights to activate with a simple touch. We're told that the device should hit showrooms this August for $375, though you should probably budget for an anger management course to keep from smashing this thing to bits the first time it buzzes at 5:30AM.

[Via PRNewswire]

Gallery: Bang & Olufsen's BeoTime alarm clock / remote favors a flute

Finger Dance Alarm Clock: it's like DDR, in an alarm clock

by Darren Murph posted Jul 4th 2009 at 8:04AM

If the world required that you complete an expert DDR jam each morning only moments after you awoke, there's a solid chance the global death toll would far outpace the birth rate. Thankfully, all that's typically necessary is that you actually listen to whatever device you've got ringing. If you've noticed lately that said noises just aren't cutting it, here's a little puzzler that's pretty much guaranteed to either get you up or entangle you in infinite frustration. The £9.99 ($16) Finger Dance Alarm Clock sounds at a user-determined time, and once your weary eyes begin to focus, you then have to use your digits to follow a lighted dance pattern in order to shut the cacophony off. It's half torture, half genius -- precisely the way we like it.

[Via OhGizmo]

Infallibly Polite Speaking Alarm Clock does what it says

by Darren Murph posted May 20th 2009 at 1:07AM

Truth be told, there's an alarm clock out there for every type of waker, but this bad boy just might be the most enjoyable (if such a thing actually exists). Sold by the always intriguing Hammacher Schlemmer, the Infallibly Polite Speaking Alarm Clock supposedly "reproduces the subtle wit employed by P. G. Wodehouse's most famous character, the valet Reginald Jeeves." In fact, it plays back 126 fey wake-up messages in the voice of Stephen Fry, with our favorite being the following: "Excuse me sir, I'm so sorry to disturb you, but it appears to be morning... very inconvenient, I agree... I believe it is the rotation of the Earth that is to blame, sir." If only the thing weren't $99.95, we'd have one in every room.

[Via Slashgear]

Update: ThinkGeek has it for just $69.99 -- score! Thanks David!

Sony debuts four new Bluetooth-ready digital photo frames

by Darren Murph posted Jan 7th 2009 at 7:01PM

We know, the digiframe market is just downright saturated with ho hum offerings that offer little innovation and oodles of boring, but Sony's got four out today at CES that are just a step or two above the rest. Kicking things off is the top-end DPF-X1000 ($300; March) and second-tier DPF-V1000 ($250; March), both of which offer 10-inch panels, an alarm clock, auto dimmer, a variety of slideshow functions, an auto orientation sensor and a bit of magic that "auto corrects the white balance" in your photos. The former model arrives with 2GB of internal storage and sports a black / wood-trimmed motif, while the latter fellow gets half the storage and a less striking silver trim. Following those two are the 9-inch DPF-D92 and 8-inch DPF-D82, both of which have a VGA panel, 1GB of memory and would love be wall-mounted.

Gallery: Sony debuts four new Bluetooth-ready digital photo frames

Iconic's Wake Up Call wants to help you stay awake, alone

by Laura June posted Dec 31st 2008 at 10:39AM

We'll be straight with you: trusting something like this to keep you awake in serious situations seems like a bad idea. Iconic's "Wake Up" is apparently a plastic "thingie" that you wear behind your ear somewhat in the style of a hearing aid, which then vibrates if you slouch over -- the assumption being that you've passed out in the midst of doing something important. We're pretty sure that a lot of people can totally fall asleep anytime, anywhere, without even closing their eyes, let alone slumping over dramatically enough for this iPosture clone to catch wind of it. Regardless, we doubt the "Wake Up" functions as advertised, but it's worth a shot if Krueger's breathing down your neck, and probably worth the $17.65 asking price.

Cuckoo clock loudspeaker kicks out the jams, you out of bed

by Darren Murph posted Dec 9th 2008 at 8:43AM

And you thought The Shining cuckoo clock was terrifying -- imagine waking up to this. Designed by French artist Stephane Vigny, the loudspeaker clock does exactly what you'd expect it to. When the time comes, the doors flip open, the bottom woofer extends out and a cacophonic emission of sound is heard as you angrily wake from your slumber. We can't imagine that outstretched woofer surviving too many mornings of you waking on the wrong side of the bed.

[Via MAKE]

iLuv's iNT170 internet radio-alarm appears, no one's too excited

by Laura June posted Dec 4th 2008 at 4:32PM

Not to be left out, iLuv's also brought out another internet radio / alarm combo and it looks exactly like you'd think it would. Only cooler. The iNT170's packing access to 15,000 radio stations and podcasts through its built-in WiFi, aka INTERNET (see photo). It's got two 2.5 watt jAura sound speakers, a dual alarm clock, plus a 3.5mm line-in if you need to plug in your PMP. The clock self-updates via INTERNET, so you'll never be able to use that Daylight Saving Time excuse for being late to work again (we recommend the "flooded basement" or "sick cat" in its stead), and you'll have the option to wake to INTERNET or regular radio in addition to the old standby buzzer. It's available now for $199.

Video: Rise and Shine alarm hack is sheers genius

by Thomas Ricker posted Nov 19th 2008 at 4:41AM

Few devices receive as much attention to re-design as the mousetrap and alarm clock. Regarding the latter, Anupam Patahak, a Mechanical Engineering student at the University of Michigan, takes a natural light approach with his Rise and Shine Alarm Shades. At a predefined time, the modified alarm clock silently (or noisily) kicks off a servo to wind open the shades. Nothing like the deep, battleship gray skies of mid-western suburbia to rouse a young mind from sleep. Video after the break.

[Via Hack A Day]

Continue reading Video: Rise and Shine alarm hack is sheers genius