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Comment by trigonomicon | Hacker News Reader

God dammit. I love this idea.

Being woken up by a person sounds so much more pleasant than the idea of some obnoxious scheduled noise. Alarm clocks and telephone calls are the most dehumanizing thing ever. Even if you can ignore it because the alarm isn't for you, but the person next to you. Sometimes having to wake up to someone else's terrible morning alarm is worse, because you can't exactly opt out on the same terms.

At least you can whine and complain to a person trying to wake you up, however antagonizing and snarky they may be.

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Google Knocker-up: a new Assistant feature that wakes you up with a gentle voice and interacts with you as you get out of your sleepy state. Might be worth a rebranding, though.

I'm sure I remember a mobile app that would connect you with a random user at the appointed time, chat-roulette style (although I think this was voice only, no video).

A bit of Googling has found several chat apps (e.g. Holla, Wakie) but none that specifically mention an alarm feature, but I'm sure I remember it.

It has obvious potential for trolling and abuse, but maybe a premium version, where you pay a small fee for the best 'knocker-ups' could be popular!

I remember this too so I looked it up. It was Wakie, but it seems that they’ve de-emphasized the wake-up call aspect.

Here’s an article from 2014: https://techcrunch.com/2014/12/10/wakie/

Interesting, thanks! I assumed Wakie was the one (from the name) but was confused when I couldn't find any mention of the wake-up feature.

I guess it's one of those ideas that seems fun but has way too much potential for creepiness!

If you're trying to minimize the pain of waking up, a better bet is probably the watch alarms that identify gaps in REM sleep.

I've switched from scheduled noise to scheduled light and it works very well. I'm in the process of building a bigger version with DMX controlled stage lights so I can actually feel the warmth of the simulated sun :-)

Edit: Obviously if the light wasn't effective there will be an acoustic signal at some point. Wouldn't want to get sunburn.

I used an app a couple of years ago where you would get a phonecall from a stranger. And in return you could call random people that were due to be woken up. The problem from was is that a stranger had pretty much as much authority like me snooze button.

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