Yesterday, I was sick as a dog. I got home at about 2:30 PM, walked my dog, and passed out in bed.
I was sound asleep, but when my wife yelled at something, I woke up. *sigh* it was only the dog chewing on her clothes. I looked at the clock. 5:30. The clock has a little display that says if it's
AM
or PM, but in my grogginess I didn't recongize the difference between AM & PM. All I knew was that I had just woken up at 5:30 and I have to be at work at 6:00 in the morning. I panicked. I jumped out of bed, grabbed the nearest bunch of clothes I could find, and started getting dressed. My wife looked at me like I was insane. I said "it's 5:30, I'm late!". And she informed that I had only been in bed for 2 hours, and I still had a full 12 1/2 hours before I had to be at work.
I felt like an idiot. (by the way, let me say in my defense, that at this time of year it *is* just as dark at 5:30 PM as it is at 5:30 AM.)
This idea is for a clock that has several neat functions that I have yet to see. The first function is a flashing display, when the alarm is set. If you look at the clock before the alarm has gone off, you see the words, in large, friendly letters, "YOU'RE NOT LATE, GO BACK TO SLEEP". The flashing display alternates between this message and the time every two seconds.
Conversely, if somehow you managed to sleep through the alarm and you wake up after the time it was set for, you see in large, angry letters "YOU'RE LATE! GET YOUR ASS OUT OF BED!" (specific language used is selectable with the parental controls)
The second (or third) function is called the "butler function". The clock has an infrared sensor that detects if you're in bed or not. It keeps records of what time and days you usually set your alarm. If you get in bed and haven't set your alarm on a day that you usually set it, or if you stumble into bed very late, a friendly, butler-like voice asks you "Sir/madame, will you be needing a wake-up call in the morning?"
Using the latest voice-recognition technology, simply say "four forty-five AM" or whatever time you need and the alarm is set. If you don't need an alarm the next day, simply say "No thanks."
You may want to double-check the alarm display to make sure it's recording the right time until you're confident that it knows the nuances in your voice and is accurately recording the right time.