Whether you have work at 7AM or a class at 11AM, waking up from sleep is usually a tough battle, and if you are anything like me, it feels like you are fighting against a sleeping spell. Many people have trouble waking up, and in the modern day, this can be due to procrastination, late-night scrolling, and a poor sleep schedule in general. So, how are people combating this?
There are two different categories I would sort methods of waking up in. One type of method aims to use natural and calming elements to ease people into waking up. This ensures that individuals feel more rested and refreshed in the morning, which could encourage a more positive start to the day. However, people (like me) may not respond to this and simply sleep through such a calming process. In fact, many people need more aggressive methods to wake up, using loud beeping alarms that are so irritable that they have no choice but to either turn it off or press the dangerous snooze button. 😪
In this article, I will describe two products that aim to use these two different types of methods to wake up, showing how their UX greatly differs based on their users’ needs and the product’s approach to wakefulness.
The Hatch Restore is an smart alarm clock that aims to alleviate the negative effects that occur when you wake up. The main attractive feature of the product is its lighting, which simulates a sunrise when you are supposed to wake up. ☀️
One article by BMC Psychiatry concluded that simulated dawns could be a “safe, relatively well-tolerated, and possibly effective means of alleviating sleep disturbances,” especially during winter seasons, when the sunrise may not be as prominent.
Therefore, the Hatch clock aims to use such findings to help their users wake up in a way that supports their circadian rhythms, leading to a more rested state of wakefulness.
One user, Kate Kozuch, wrote in Tom’s Guide, “Compared to the months before testing the Restore 2, I began waking up with a little less anxiety and a bit more energy, one day at a time.”
Although it took a month for those effects to kick in, Kozuch says she does not even need to use a snooze button anymore to wake up. There are other aspects to the Hatch alarm clock besides the lighting feature, like the ambient noise and customizing ability of the product. The clock is linked to an app that can control its lighting intensity, lighting color, and provides sounds/podcasts that either lull you to sleep or gently wake you up.
On their website, the company says that a survey of 1000 customers shows that 83% of them said their sleep had improved and 69% felt better rested.
On the other hand, many heavy sleepers and those with poor sleep habits (aka. students) need those loud jarring alarms to knock them out of bed. The default beeping noise is infamously triggering, even for those who are already awake, but it often does the job, making sure that you get up on time. However, for some people this is not enough. Either they can sleep through the obnoxious noise, or the snooze button is too enticing to pass up. I was a victim of both of these conditions and sought to find a solution, which is how I found Alarmy.
Alarmy is an app created by a Korean company that aims to counter every excuse and weakness that fuels your morning urge to sleep in. They achieve this by letting you set “missions” for yourself as a part of your alarm. These missions include: