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Comment by mikejulietbravo | Hacker News Reader

Does this mean that 3/4 adults use something other than their cell phone as an alarm clock? That’s way more crazy to me than the initial stat.

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Yeah, I had a manual alarm clock for years, and recently discovered that my phone is actually the ideal alarm clock.

I travel a lot, often to different time zones, and instead of having muck around with hotel alarm clocks, my phone alarm always goes off at the same time every morning relative to the local time.

And there's no alarm clock at home that buzzes in the morning and annoys the heck out of my neighbors before shutting itself off after 30 mins.

A phone also doesn't blink 00:00 when the power goes out.

I've rarely had a phone successful in waking me up. I've had reasonably good luck with a Motorola Xoom tablet I still have that still works for this purpose. (The Xoom is a nice thick device that didn't slouch on component size, and can put out legit audio.)

But the most effective alarm clock I own is a good old-fashion quartz clock AM/FM radio. It's WAY louder than any phone or tablet can offer up, and having it is often more reliable as well, given that my phone sometimes needs a hard reboot after installing a security update and hence isn't booted when I wake up, or didn't align for charging correctly and ran out of battery while sitting on the charging pad.

On the other hand, the battery in the Xoom mitigates the risk of my alarm not going off due to a power outage, and it being smart mitigates the risk of being late due to a time change.

> But the most effective alarm clock I own is a good old-fashion quartz clock AM/FM radio.

Mine predates the recession, and I still rely on it. I have it on my dresser, such that I need to stand up and get out of bed to turn it off. Hey, while I'm up, let's start the day.

Another condition in the study is "within 1 minute". I guess the other 3 are just slower in their waking up process :)

Nobody uses an alarm clock after having kids.

Wait till they hit college. then you become the alarm clock. (Today, got up at 0500 Pacific to provide back-up alarm for kid on east coast with final).

I'm not saying that's not admirable but shouldn't your adult child have this figured out by now?

I don't think it is the norm to have your stuff figured out by the time you reach college

Stuff figured out = waking up on time for an exam? There are certainly things that aren't going to be figured out by college but dang, you're setting the bar madd low.

Yeah, I missed my 8am class a few times, but I never missed a final.

It's figuring out how not to oversleep for an important occasion, not figuring out the meaning of life... I mean, some people this age are working responsible jobs or serving in the military.

Swallowing your pride and asking your parent (or someone else) for help is a pretty adult thing to do.

You've never accidentally slept through an alarm before? Why not have a backup plan just to be extra sure? That sounds perfectly responsible to me.

Sure, but your backup plan probably should not involve one of your parents getting up extra early to give you a wake up call. But to each their own, I guess.

This is one of the reasons that pre-booking taxis is a good idea. Typically, they'll call you when they arrive, so they are a really good back-up alarm clock.

Yes, certainly. No argument. But when the stakes are high, a little back up doesn't hurt. It is just as much an excuse for some last minute good wishes anyway.

In any case, everybody has different circumstances. Parenting is an improvisational pursuit, every kid has different needs. In my kid's case, end-of-semester sleep deprivation has more than typical impact because of hypothyroidism that requires carefully adjusted medication and really benefits from a regular sleep schedule. Engineering school? Regular sleep schedule? Pffft. So I cut some slack. Their tendency to over-sleep alarms is partly wonky body chemistry.

I recall oversleeping for a final. Luckily, it was an intro programming, you-mean-I-can't-test-out-of-this?? class. I walked in a hour late, and left a 1/2 hour early. Had that been DiffEQ or similar.... errrf.

Nope. But I still grab my phone and look sadly at the time.

Wait until they are in school. Left to his own - 5 year old wakes up at 6:00 on weekends, and 7:30 on school days (the bus arrives at 7:00).

This sounds like me as an adult. Sleep in on weekdays and only begrudgingly rise. Weekends I'm up early. The day's a-wastin'!

This kinda annoyed me as a kid, but I also remember the reason for it: Early morning kids shows/cartoons on TV, during the weekends, was a big factor for being up so early.

Tho with VoD dominating all entertainment, what are kids doing nowadays when waking up early at a Saturday?

Fortnite

Dogs too.

My dog in particular has a useful feature. He will always come wake me up around sunrise.

that's just myth, my 1yo wakes around 630-700 and 3yo would sleep even until 0720 if i would let him (sometimes i have to go to his bed and need alarm to wake us and not miss kindergarten) and i know luckier people whose children wake up even later and we are putting children to bed around 1915-2000, i don't think it's extremely late, can't really imagine much earlier unless moving dinner before 6

Believe it or not, it's possible to turn off the alarm without checking your phone.

Not the 2nd alarm?

It's also possible to turn off the alarm without waking up. Now eagerly awaiting the follow-up study: have we developed the ability to check the phone without waking up yet?

Or swiping the alarm off instead of the snooze. Physical alarm clocks have different motions. Push big button, snooze. Click little switch, turn off alarm. Much better.

Though, like everything these days, I heard there is an app for that. Swipe to snooze. Calculate some math problem and enter the answer for alarm off. Haven't bought the app myself yet.

I put my phone across the room so I have to get out of bed to turn off my alarm. It works really well and I now have to consciously decide to go back to bed.

I set two alarms: 5 and 6. If I make my first alarm, I get an hour to myself. If I don't, I scramble to get ready before my kids wake up.

Since moving my phone, I have slept better (no more late night time wasting in bed) and I have gotten up at 5 more reliably. I'm not really a morning person, but I enjoy the morning schedule better than my previous "schedule" (kids wake me up by screaming).

Lots of people use manual alarm clocks for different reasons. Mine doubles as a vibrating alarm as I'm both a heavy sleeper and don't hear at night.

Honestly though, I'm still shocked at the number of people who are on a screen that soon. That can't be healthy for the eyes.

I don't use an alarm clock, but I'm privileged to set my own schedule. I think I check my phone ~5 minutes after waking though. For a while I put it to charge in another room, which I think was healthier - I might do that again.

I use my Google Home now as an alarm clock

I'm trying it out at the moment, although I find it too easy to snooze or turn-off, which is different from using Timely on my phone, placed across the room. Also trying Alexa at different time intervals.

I take it you don't have a cat meowing in your ear, because they want morning food?

I have an analogue bedside clock that uses WWVB to set the time. It's one of my most valued possessions, in fact. I hate digital clocks.

Do you have a non-subjective reason to hate digital clocks? I have a strong dislike for analog clocks - hard to read at a glance, and even a .1 second delay in translating the display to a useful time feels wasted (and I spend more time than that because I double check myself, because I'm wrong too often).

An answer like "for some reason manufacturers only use garishly bright LEDs" is (too) true, but not really about it being digital (c'mon eink!), while answer like "I find analog clocks to be prettier/more elegant" can be true but is clearly subjective.

I've just never understood the desire to have a clock that doesn't tell the time but instead shows some foreign representation of the common understanding of time (and not too precisely at that). That doesn't mean there is no argument I'd find persuasive, I've just not heard it yet. Care to share?

When I read a digital clock, I have to mentally translate it into a picture of an analogue clock before I feel like I "understand" what time it is.

It's probably just how I was brought up.

...completely not an answer I was expecting. It makes as much as sense as my complaint of the opposite though. (well, maybe 80% as much sense, but I'm also biased.) .

Thanks for the answer!

I'm the same way, especially with hearing a time verbally, or thinking about a stretch of time like "this meeting will take two hours".

the normal argument for analogue gauges is the additional information they convey in terms of context. might not matter for your clock. but most of the time the specific minute doesn't matter, so it's unnecessary detail. I'm not translating the analog clock image to numbers in my head; the image of the hands, the spacing of the minute hand - the quadrant it is in and how close it is to the boundary is enough. digital clocks dominate our digital environment though, .. so whatever.

A flip clock will bridge that gap.

I do in order to be able to keep the phone somewhere that it will not tempt me into looking at it when I'm supposed to be sleeping.

I have my phone plugged in on a table that's close to my bed (within 3 feet), but far enough away that I have to get out of bed to use it while plugged in.

Since starting the day with an out-of-battery phone isn't very pleasant, it's been very effective at preventing phone use before bed. It still works fine for alarms, or, if I'm on call, pages.

My alarm is the 5mins long hourly news bulletin that does not require data :)

I doubt 4/4 adults use an alarm clock at all.

I use a clock as a clock. Crazy, right?

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