Soundless Alarm Clocks

The subject of today’s post on the Alarm Clock Blog is somewhat similar to our earlier post about Alarm Clocks for the Hard of Hearing.

When we refer to Soundless Alarm Clocks, we’re of course referring to alarm clocks that use some means other than sound for alarming people or waking them up.

If you do a little bit of research online, you’ll find that there are actually quite a few different Soundless Alarm Clocks to choose from. Such alarm clocks definitely have valid uses, and here we can easily think of some of them:

• Soundless Alarm Clocks will are great for persons with hearing impairments
• They can be a big help to couples sleeping together, where one of the pair has to wake up at a much different time than the other
• Soundless Alarm Clocks might be a better solution for those situations and locations where there is perhaps already a lot of noise in the surroundings. Such noise might make it difficult to notice an alarm going off. Or, if there’s a lot of noise in the vicinity, someone attempting to sleep might have to resort to using earplugs, which would make hearing a normal alarm quite difficult!
• Let’s say you’re using such an alarm clock to alert you, instead of to wake yourself up. In such cases, it might sometimes be advantageous to be alerted without disturbing anyone else around you, especially if you happen to be out among other people!

So, now that we’ve ascertained that there are definitely some valid uses for Silent Alarm Clocks, let’s take a look at some of the different kinds of makes and models of them that are out there.

First we discovered the “EezAwake” which, in its own words:

It’s the silent alarm clock!! Sick of waking up on someone else’s schedule? Use the EezAwake to wake you up on your time! The secret is EezAwake’s triple-action oscillating nodes that are embedded within the comfortable wrist band. The pulsating nodes wake you softly and quietly so you never have to be annoyed waking up again!!

…But their website looks like such a crass sales letter, it’s kind of difficult to take their product seriously, in our humble opinion.

Another potential problem we have with wristbands is: do you really want to sleep while wearing something on your wrist? The first thing we do, when we go to bed, is take our wristwatches off, because it’s simply more comfortable to sleep this way.

EezAwake have published one of their television commercials on YouTube describing the product in more detail:

As you can easily tell by watching the video, this product is a kind of a wristwatch that alarms you via some kind of pulsating vibrations. We’ve found several other makes and models of silent alarm clocks that function in a similar manner: they’re essentially vibrating wristwatches.

But we did find another kind of Soundless Alarm Clock that inspires a little bit more confidence in us. It’s called the Shake Awake Alarm Clock and, instead of functioning as a vibrating wristband, its a device small enough to fit in your pocket and it kind of reminds of us of the old-fashioned pagers that a lot of people used to carry around before mobile telephones became so widespread.

According to the ShakeAwake.com website, they offer vibration alarms and a “multi-alert timer (patented). It flashes, sounds and vibrates.” We think it’s pretty neat that there’s the option of additionally using flashing lights as an alarm…this might be a good way to be reminded about something when you don’t want to actually carry the device around in your pants pockets the entire time.

Still other forms of Silent Alarm Clocks involve purchasing any kind of alarm clock that offers a vibration module (such as the Sonic Bomb Alarm Clock which is mentioned in our earlier article) and then simply trying to deactivate or mute the sound alarm, leaving only the vibration alarm active. This is surely one solution that ought to function well.

…And then there’s the designer solution.

Johan Brengesjö, an Industrial Design Engineer from Sweden, was recently awarded a Silver medal at the IDEA (International Design Excellence Awards) in 2008 for his rendition of a Soundless Alarm Clock.

As you can see from the photo below, Mr. Brengesjö’s solution looks quite elegant, and consists of a simple, flat digital clock with two rubber wrist bracelets, which are kind of designed as “his and hers” alarms. In other words, each partner wears a separate rubber wristband which can be set up to alarm him or her separately at a different alarm time.  The basic idea is very similar to the vibrating wristwatch concept, but the execution sure looks much more refined.

To the best of our knowledge, however, Mr. Brengesjö’s Soundless Alarm Clock can not yet be purchased in stores (if you happen to read this, Mr. Brengesjö, and your alarm clock actually is for sale already, please correct us via our blog’s comments form).

So there, Dear Clock Fans, you have a short introduction to the topic of Silent Alarm Clocks, including a presentation of some of the more popular makes and models of these devices.

If you could use a Soundless Alarm Clock, we hope we’ve been able to give you some good ideas of the different possibilities which are available to you.

Until next time, we’ll remain here as your not-so-silent alarm clock…waking you up loudly, as usual.

Tags: alarm clocks, Crazy Alarm Clocks, Johan Brengesjö, shake awake, silent alarm clock, silent alarm clocks, sonic bomb alarm clock, soundless alarm clock, soundless alarm clocks, vibrating alarm clock, vibrating wristwatch, vibration alarm

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