Think of that Aesop fable about the Wind and the Sun, and their contest to remove a man's coat.

As you'd remember, the Wind blasts and tugs, and in response, the man just hangs on tighter and tighter. This was Aesop's metaphor for the alarm clock. (Oh all right. Historical inaccuracy. Alarm klepsydra, then.) There's an HB similar idea [link] which is of the Cold Wind From Valhalla type alarm clock already.

My proposal is for an awakening of a sunnier kind, and is very simple - and home-hackable, even. All you do is always have an electric blanket. Attach an intelligent timed controller (which your blanket company could make out of cheap components), and program in a gradual temperature rise that reaches almost uncomfortable levels when the hour is passed.

The only problem such an alarm would entail for me is that when I sleep too hot, I have nightmares.

But they're only dreams...
-- skoomphemph, Mar 03 2014

A kind of discomfort alarm. Rock-Hard_20Hot_20Alarm_20Pillow
A way of getting rocks in your head, so to speak. You wake up, you curse life. You go to work. You gun everyone down. You go back home to get some rest. [skoomphemph, Mar 03 2014]

Teasmade http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teasmade
Extremely useful [8th of 7, Mar 03 2014]

This is definitely Baked, but probably not WKTE.
-- 8th of 7, Mar 03 2014


//Alarm klepsydra//

Post it.
-- pertinax, Mar 03 2014


Ring Ring

"Hi boss. Yeah I'm waking drenched with sweat. Must be sick. Better stay home today. Hope I'll feel better tomorrow. Yeah Thanks. Feels like the bed turned up the heat. But that's crazy."

--- If you use an electric blanket on a timer, be sure the timer can take the current. Don't want set off any fires.
-- popbottle, Mar 03 2014


On your recommendation, I connected the timer via relays, [popbottle]. Now the constant clicking keeps me awake all night, and today at noon I ran from the bandersnatch, leaped the lemonade fountain, slipped and fell down from my flying bedstead, and woke realising that I'd wet the bed, was beyond late for work (the shift starts at 3am, and we have to arrive half an hour early for the beating), and needed treatment for dehydration.

"Thank goodness I haven't gone and set fire to old Uncle Joe and his shed again, I thought."

So all in all, quite promising start, eh?

As for the Aristotle's alarm klepsydra, [pertinax], it was quite a simple contraption. The upper vessel was paraboloid in cross section, was calibrated with markings corresponding to the various pre-Vespers that had passed, within, and had a small drain hole at the bottom. The image to apply here would be a half hourglass with water instead of sand.

All Aristotle did was to pipe the outflow into another vessel with its own calibration marks. These were all holes in the side, the ones belonging to the sleeping hours being plugged with beeswax, and the rest being left as deliberate leaks.

Drips of water then fell on the philosopher at the hour of waking. (Later, when he got the job at the Macedonian court the drops fell on a slave Phillip lent him for this purpose.)

Nevertheless, I'll give it some thought, and see if this generates any interesting ideas.

[8th] ... WKTE? I'd better go and RTFM to see what that is.
-- skoomphemph, Mar 03 2014


“Widely known to exist”, which is grounds for your idea to be summarily deleted 'round these parts.

Strictly speaking, the gospel meaning of “baked” is equivalent to “widely known to exist”, but “baked” has evolved into slang for simply indicating the existence of some proposed idea, whether or not its existence is “widely known”.
-- ytk, Mar 03 2014


[+] for persistence, but if I want to wake up with nausea and a headache I'll just go out drinking the night before.
-- FlyingToaster, Mar 03 2014


// indicating the existence of some proposed idea //

Indicating the actual dirtspace existence of some proposed idea.

Something can only be tagged as Baked if it has actually been done; an idea can be WKTE (i.e. "space elevator") without being Baked.

In this case, the "electric underblanket alarm" has actually been implemented in reality. The switching device was actually a modified Teasmade <link> which made it even more useful on cold mornings.
-- 8th of 7, Mar 03 2014


Thanks, [8th]. It's one of those things thus just have to have been tried sometime. I did search a bit before posting, but didn't find anything. Just goes to show you this Web doesn't have the search and retrieve facilities of a single meatspace device, vast and wired up as it may sometimes appear. (Hmm does anybody these days still use the term "meatspace"?).

[FlyingToaster], if there's anything unique left in the idea, it's that the heat is meant to kick in gradually, in a user-defined manner. For the more heat-averse, only the very slightest of temperature rises would suffice.

Assuming the "graphability" of the proposed device is not sufficient to knock it off the Baked shelf, and back into the oven, I'll have to shift goalposts, and propose a more Heath Robinson device that also offers to spray you with the contents of a water cooler if the gentle heating effects don't work? No? And at the same time the occupants of your hamster cage are tipped onto your ear?

Oh all right, then. I'll propose a bed warmer that lies next to you, so you have one warm side and one cold. To escape from the heat, eventually you have to go over the edge of the right side of the bed. (And at night, you can self-adjust by withdrawing and retreating.)

Hmm... now if you already have a meatspace bed heating device, this additional factor could go complex on you.

Straws, straws, where's another straw to clutch at?
-- skoomphemph, Mar 04 2014



random, halfbakery