Is Your Phone an Alarm Clock?
Is it a phone, alarm clock, mp3 player, what? Today’s cell phones have it all. There are all sorts of features and functionality available on the modern phone. One of the simplest of these applications is the alarm clock function. Most people don’t even bother using it because, frankly, it is a pain in the neck to use and too cumbersome to program to be really useful. For me, I want a phone that can make calls and that’s it, thank you very much. Oh, when you close it (I like flip phones), a time display is useful to have.
There is also a new cell phone alarm clock program that listens to you sleep. Basically, it works like this. The application uses the microphone in your phone to listen to you sleep. When it determines that your sleep is at a shallow point, right before you awake, the phone wakes you up. The software is based upon lots of research into people’s sleep patterns. It is a pretty cool piece of software. Some of you may be concerned about having a cell phone near your head all night. The phone only emits the maximum power during a call, so you need not be overly concerned.
I recently saw another fun gadget called the hotel phone alarm clock. Just like in a hotel room, you get a personalized wakeup call from this phone shaped clock. Unfortunately, the phone does not come with amenities such as room service and sheet turn downs. It does come with an interesting snooze feature, though. It tells you which button to press if you wish to have another 5 minutes of sleep.
There are also some office phones with alarm clock functions built in. You have a choice of up to 3 alarm clock settings. The phone acts as a typical office phone with the capability of reminding you of meetings, to do tasks, etc. These phones have other normal phone functions such as hands free calling, caller id, ant the other normal stuff. I like phones to be phones and alarm clocks to be alarm clocks. I use my alarm clock to wake me up and that is all it does. Too much technology can get tiresome.
