Ramos alarm clock | Hacker News Reader

Ramos alarm clock

kickstarter.com

109 pointsdzlobin69 comments

It is probably a mistake of him to let the beautiful nixie tubes and the elegant wooden finish pull so much weight in the promo video and then reveal that the final product will feature very bland LED numbers and an equally non-attractive plywood finish. He should sell the product, not the one of a kind and too expensive to manufacture prototype.

If you check the donation levels, there is indeed a nixie tube version.

Yup, I'm selling the Nixie Ramos also. The thing is I really want to make the Ramos alarm clock available to people, and the nixie clock costs a lot to make. That's why I'm also offering the cheaper LED model, so that more people can benefit from the Ramos alarm clock functionality.

EDIT* Oh and by the way, the wood in the prototype is the same as what will be used in $160 LED Ramos, it just has a darker stain. I'm glad you like it :)

You're responding as if you are performing customer service. I appreciate that. But my point is that your project will not get proper funding on Kickstarter with a video edited so that it is the bait and switch feeling of prototype vs. finished product that stays with the viewer.

I'm not your customer here, I'm pointing out that your marketing is broken. Any amount of explanations in the comments on HN is not going to change the fact that your video leaves the viewer with the wrong impression.

I'm still actually selling the Nixie Ramos. How am I baiting and switching them, if I'm showing people something I'm selling to them?

You don't give this info in the video. What you should do is to do the video using mainly the product that you are going to build and tell everyone how awesome it is. And then in the end you flash the nixie tube version and say: "If you commit $XX you'll get this awesome retro version".

Please know that I'm not saying you're trying to scam people. I'm saying that they will see the video and then feel scammed. You have perfectly noble intentions but as the video is laid out you fail to communicate them.

EDIT, just want this to be perfectly clear: You seem to be an awesome person, you have an awesome product, it is awesome that you use Kickstarter. BUT your video is a turn off. And it is a shame because of all the awesomeness people will miss who only see the video and then hit the back button at the exact moment in the video when you say "Well, I've already started working on a much more affordable production model". You introduce your main product with the absolutely non-sexy word "affordable", after having shown a much more awesome version for a full minute and a half.

I think it's a decent enough pivot. The Nixies are almost sold out and the LEDs are selling, too. The only problem I see is that there's not enough to justify the high end. He's already committing to 500+ Nixie clocks (hopefully there's machinery involved!), in hindsight he probably could have gotten rid of one of the smaller pledges and bumped everything else up a notch or two.

@paulsammut

i think you're missing one important point : ramos alarm clock doesn't/can't solve the wake-up problem ( people just have to go to the bed early and have a purpose to wake up early ) and just another alarm clock screaming at 6 o'clock in the morning isn't "sexy".

If one would buy it, it would be because the nixie tube and remote control. It looks retro (=good ) but you can remote control it and it wakes you up by the "super hipster nerd" way ! I think you should remove LCD model or if you insist to keep it , give it a modern look ( aluminium case etc ).

tl;dr: this addresses a fundamentally different problem, which would exist even if you went to sleep early

The problem with the alarm clock is that people traditionally put the clock on a night stand or somewhere easily accessible from the bed. At that point, if you can hit snooze from the bed, you most likely will doze off. Most of the time, even if you went to sleep early, there will be some internal resistance to actually leaving the bed (it's warm :)

If you put the alarm far away, then you are forced to get up, and by that point you've already fought most of the resistance to actually getting up. Problem there is that the visual clock is too far away from the bed.

The real problem that this solves is decoupling the physical clock presence from the alarm silence mechanism, forcing you to physically leave the bed. Even if you get up early, you still have to overcome the desire to leave the bed.

I keep my alarm about 10 meters from my bed, and I got up and put it for 20 minutes later... about 4 or 5 times this morning. Can't remember for sure :)

Buy cheap alarm clock from Amazon $5 - $10. Put it far from your bed so you have to walk over to it to turn it off.

I love the look of the Ramos, especially the nixie tubes but I just don't see much of an improvement over placing the alarm clock on the other side of the room.

If you really want to get crazy, buy 3 or more cheap alarm clocks. Place each one in a different room and freak yourself out when you wake up each morning as your rush to each room to turn off the alarms. ;-)

I already have that installed in the form of two roommates who have annoying alarm clocks.

When I was living in the dorms at school, I had a nasty habit of turning off my roommate's alarm and going back to sleep.

Full disclosure - I helped with the project but I'm also one of those people who on some days CANT get out of bed.

You can put the panel pretty far. If your bathroom is a hallway away, this might make the difference. You cant put a regular alarm that far, you wouldnt hear it. For me, physically getting up isn't enough because you can do that half asleep. Thats where having to punch in the date helps, I think this part fires a few more synapses and gets the engine running. It certainly solved it for me.

Or get an alarm clock which has no snooze :)

Seriously, it helps. For years now, my alarm has been this simple function in my zshrc:

  function alarm()
  {
        sleep $1 && mplayer /path/to/mp3 -loop 0
  }

It's much harder to snooze this way (unlock screen, switch to terminal, exit mplayer, enter new duration).

You can then just turn of it off and go right back to bed. At least that what I would do

You'd be surprised how fast that alarm clock would stop working ... I'd just forget to plug it in at night :P

Pro tip: Get a outlet timer and put a bright lamp on it. The lights in my bedroom click on at the same time each morning and make it much nicer to wake up.

Edit: I use this one: http://amzn.com/B000NBCEM8

Wouldn't work for me. Sunlight does, but unfortunately I can't set the time for sunrise ;)

I have one of the Philips wake-up lights[0] which gradually brightens its lamp over 30 minutes before playing some optional bird-chirping. The gradual light-up feature gives it an edge over the sharp turn-on of a lamp plugged into a timer, but I'm often lying on my side with my back to the lamp, in which case the bird-chirping wakes me instead of the light. I'm thinking of running a cord from the Philips's bulb socket to the bulb in a floor lamp which I can position above my head (instead of to one side, like the Philips).

[0] http://amzn.com/B003XN4RIC

I've recently connected my bedside lights (on each side of my bed) to a dimmable X10 socket. Using the programmable controller, they gradually brighten over 20 mins when all lights in the room turn on and my alarm goes off.

Felt it was more fun, less intrusive, and as cheap (ish) to roll my own solution.

It's a long way from the old days of a radio on full-volume static or alarm clock thrown under the middle of my bed!

Zen clocks are far more easy to wake up to:

http://www.now-zen.com/

"the acoustic chime bar is struck just once … 3-1/2 minutes later it strikes again … chime strikes become more frequent over 10 minutes … eventually striking every 5 seconds until shut off"

Interesting. I don't like the triangle shape and I would prefer digits instead of dials but this alarm clock could be better than waking up to a buzzer.

I'm not sure what to think about the fact that it use the same frequencies as "music therapist" do.

It just makes it pleasant rather than jarring or off key (which is a HUGE difference).

The shape == form follows function. It's a (tuned) metal bar across the bottom that's struck by a hammer. It's supported by an elastic bungie so it's allowed to vibrate/hum after it's hit.

I've been using a Now & Zen timepiece for about 5 years now. It is far more pleasant to wake up to a gentle gong than electric buzzers that shock you awake. You can adjust the strike force to control for loudness. I keep it set fairly soft. When I first got it, it would take a several gongs before it gradually woke me. Still no need for snooze though. These days I usually become aware of it on the first or second gong.

Yeah, I bought mine 17 years ago and still use it.

I've had a low rent, versatile version of this for my alarm for nearly a decade now. The Beastie Boys' album Paul's Boutique has a very light and soothing intro song that is about 1:30. Slowly gets louder and louder. It is a very pleasing way to get up, when it works. And if it doesn't, track 2 has a loud drum intro that is guaranteed to wake you up. Over the years, I've trained myself to get up in time to stop the alarm before the annoying drums. Much better than any loud buzzing or doing math problems to make sure you are aware. Took 5 minutes in Audacity to stitch the tracks and works with any alarm that lets you pick an .mp3.

Lovely. I'm always looking for unique general purpose gifts. I'm adding these to the list.

I recently set the alarm on my Android to Grieg's Morning Mood. (Thanks Looney Tunes for the inspiration.) I find it apt and effective.

It looks very nice in theory, but for me, this is a terrible idea. It looks like a great way to wake up stressed and upset. Adjusting your sleep schedule is better for your body and sanity than any complicated alarm clock systems.

A much more elegant way (I believe) is to have it in software as an Android / iOS app. There are quite a few apps that force you to solve a simple math question / puzzle. You could always put your phone somewhere away from your bed.

At one point, I was working on an alarm app that had some game mechanics built into it (points for waking up on time, waking up on time for 5 days in a row, waking up before 6am etc.) and had various types of puzzles to turn off the alarm. I gave up on it because I decided it was more of a sleeping habit issue than an inability to wake up. You can't consistently sleep at 2 in the night and expect to wake up by 6 in the morning ..

At one point, as an alarm clock, I had a headless box under my bed that would play loud music. To turn it off, I had to ssh into it from my laptop - and the password was extremely long.

Ultimately, the long password wasn't enough to "wake me up," and by then I had a smartphone, so I got an Android app that made me solve math puzzles to turn off the alarm.

Ultimately ultimately, I realized that it was really a behavioral problem. Now I just get up when my alarm goes off. :)

(That makes it sound like the "behavioral" solution was simple, but believe me, it was extremely far from simple. And I still think the product being advertised here is an extremely cool idea and potentially very useful.)

In Sleep (for Android), I have set it to turn off by scanning the barcode of the shampoo bottle in my bathroom.

However, if I am too sleepy, I just open the phone and throw the battery to the other side of the room.

What is great about this product? If used properly, once you turn it off you have no excuse not to start your day. (brush your teeth or hop in the shower) Very cool.

What sucks about it? I don't have any desire to buy it. I just don't need another alarm clock yelling at me in the morning. Plus it will only be a matter of time before I learn how to ignore it, like I have done with every alarm clock before it.

What is my pain that I would like a new alarm clock to solve? I want an alarm clock that wakes me up in a natural way. I want it to pull me out of my REM cycles gradually so I am ready to get out of bed, not jarred out of bed.

If you told me that you had done research on REM cycles and that it takes x amount of time to move from one level of sleep to the next. And that your product plays music softly, then increases in volume in natural increments for the human mind. If this was the problem you were solving, accompanied with the wireless kill switch, then I would be very excited about this product and would consider shelling out my hard earned money for it.

I would even be okay if you couldn't solve this problem, so long as I knew that this is the problem that your alarm clock will eventually solve. I would expect the alarm clock's software to be updatable, so as you get closer and closer to perfecting waking up, my $135 alarm clock will get better at it as well.

I hope this feed back is useful to you. Good luck to you. It looks cool, and it is a neat idea.

Agree with all of this. On top of it, passed the it not really increasing the quality of my waking up..Just increasing the chances I will. Even if it solved a problem that I really needed to solve, which it really doesn't. The price is wayyy too high, just in a whole other league. I could never justify over $100 on just an alarm clock. It doesn't have awesome speakers, or an ipod dock etc. I could buy a dozen alarm clocks for this price, and literally just put them everywhere.

i know, and it really sucks that I can't make it cheaper. Its literally me and a couple of friends starting a whole manufacturing process. I can't afford to invest 2-3 million on a large production run to get the per/part costs down to regular alarm clock levels. Along with that I have the wireles radio modules to contend with.

But, I put alllloottt of effort in the wood housing and the alarm functionality that I really feel sets this apart from just a regular alarm clock.

Thanks for your input; the fact that you've taken the time just to talk about it makes me grateful

Thanks for the feedback! I thought about this, and I wanted to do it.

A really effective way to measure REMs cycles is to have an accelerometer on your bed, just how the Sleep Cycle Iphone app does it. I designed a system that would involve having a small wired puck that you put on your bed, under your pillow, that links to the Ramos. The coding and interfacing with the micro-controller is straight-forward, and it would work.

The issue I had with it is that it was extra "baggage" i'm adding to the clock. I felt like to implement the puck system, it would take away from the simple straight forward, 0 installation solution that I really wanted to achieve. That wire really just like, irked me. And to make it wireless means another radio which leads to more cost to the user. And with a wireless puck you need to power it, which is again more cost to the user. I actually also made this earlier alarm clock that used a heat sensor to detect if you're still in bed. Hehe it didn't work real well though. https://s3.amazonaws.com/ramos_alarm/Paulsammut_BHS_alarm.pd...

But still, i agree, it would be really really cool if it had that feature, but it got to the point where I started trying to add all these little things, and the whole Ramos idea started shifting. I didn't like it. And the remote panel really does the job at getting you out of bed and away from it, which is key.

PS. from what I've noticed from using Ramos for a year, is that I've developed a fear to it. Like, deep down in my head i know i'm gonna have to wake up, and I usually will naturally wake up with the alarm time.

again, THanks for your interest!!

-paul

Wow, I can't believe you put sensors in the bed, that is awesome. You are completely correct though, an alarm clock should be next to the bed not in it.

But you don't need to know what cycle your customer is in to implement a gradual wake up process. You can just assume they are in the deepest sleep, start incrementing, and eventually the alarm clock will be in sync with their current state of sleep.

Again, the product looks great.

Oh there's ramp-up mode for that!

There's no two ways around being able to get up in the morning. Go to bed 7-9 hours before you wish to wake up, that's it. I'm not sure what the obsession is with over engineering alarm clocks, but the problem isn't the little gizmo on your night stand that goes beep and bloop, it's a lack of a solid sleep routine. Sure, every now and then you can will yourself out of bed if you're unrested and need to get up, but you should really be getting good sleep most nights of the week. Go to sleep earlier: the hard way is usually the easier way.

Not all of us wake up easily. My body loves to get 9+ hours of sleep, and I need something to kick it out of bed in the morning. At the moment, that's whacking the snoozer a lot, but I need a better solution.

And I think, ideally, most people follow this pattern. Problem is, my 4-month old daughter (and, I suspect, many, many other 4-month old daughters) haven't heard of this.

Absolutely. Once you have kids you don't sleep through a whole night for at least 18 months. Sometimes never again if you're the paranoid/caring kind.

Might be relevant to you and parent: There was something on NPR this morning, about some mom adopting French parenting ideas - and one of the things the French are supposedly good at is getting their kids to sleep through the night at 4 months or so. Might be worth looking at :)

This looks very cool. However, I'm looking to go a different direction: an alarm that automatically opens the room-darkening drapes and lets in sunlight, for a natural and gradual waking process. Imagine my surprise that no such product exists outside the expensive and complex home automation market. I have no experience in hardware hacking, but I might have to see what I can do with an Arduino.

Still, this looks like a very cool alarm clock, especially the top-of-the-line nixie model. Good luck!

Indeed, I wish I had the spare cash to drop on the custom model, just because those nixie tubes and wood choices are so awesome.

One of the reasons I started my home automation startup was to make myself a decent alarm clock. The first thing I did with my automation controller was program my lights to ramp up smoothly in the morning.

Blinds and ramping audio cues are perpetually on the TODO list, but motorized blinds are expensive and aren't all that useful during the winter, when the cloud-obscured sun doesn't come up until late and the extra light is needed most. Of course, leaving the blinds open all night isn't an option for most of us because of light pollution and possible loss of privacy.

Anyway, good luck with your Arduino blinds project, and good luck to the creators of the Ramos!

Having purpose in life also helps. You'll feel excited to go do your thing when you wake up.

At least that's what works for me.

If anyone is looking for a challenge buy one of these things and build a snooze button app for this clock.

With all this power and smarts built into this alarm clock, couldn't they just put in an automatic adjustment for Daylight Savings Time?

I would love to have one less clock that I need to adjust two times a year.

Edit: It knows the day of week. All it would need is to know what political zone you are in, and be able to predict the whims of the politicians. How hard can that be? :-)

I'm sure this will appeal to some people, but for the practical ones, Gentle Alarm for Android has all of these features. And it's only $2.86 :)

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.mobitobi.android.g...

It's amazing how fast such tiny projects* can raise. I just watched the video, and then refreshed the page and the funding jumped from $1,055 to $1,700.

* I mean here the actual size, and the idea (clock, ipad cover, watch...). Execution and build of the product can take a lot of time and experience.

Holy shit $75,000? Are you kidding me? That is an astronomical amount of money.

What? Why? Hardware production has a much higher capital outlay than software production.

You'd be surprised at how much tools and equipment costs.

Yeah. My wife will just love listening to my alarm going off for a few minutes as I stumble out into who-knows-where to find the defuse panel and remember the code.

That's what courtesy mode is for. (from reading the article.)

I have this habit of walking all the way up to both of my alarm clocks, resetting the alarm to 20 minutes later, and then walking back to bed for a bit more sleep.

There's no way I'll spend 160$ on an alarm clock with a remote control.

Nice idea, if a little unpractical. I thought (or read somewhere) about doing something similar using a bathroom scale (you have to put your weight on it for some seconds for it to turn off.

if you really want to get people up have them enter a code to defuse an actual explosive

WakeMate done right!

If you have trouble waking up to an alarm everyday (around the same time) then you need to really re-evaluate your sleeping conditions and habits.

After having to wake up everyday around 7am my internal clock has pretty much gotten used to just waking my body up around the time. Even on weekends sometimes (eek).

Neat product but it's more of a novelty item than anything for me.

Kickstarter - such a good way to corner all the dumb money.

Great, now I can put the panel on the night table, key in the code half groggy in the morning and go back to sleep. :)

Seriously, $135 for an alarm clock?

Why the down votes? Nobody has a sense of humour? :|

Reply on news.ycombinator.com