One particularly dark morning about a year ago I had the idea of making an alarm clock with a plug outlet on it. The thinking was that you would plug your bedside lamp into the outlet and when your alarm clock goes off, your lamp turns on*. This concept is based simply on the fact that it’s just harder to wake up when your room is completely dark.
Since this idea is relatively simple, I actually looked into what it would take to get a patent on it. Turns out it’s a little bit of work and kind of costly. However, there currently isn’t a patent out there for this idea if anyone feels like running with it. I’ve decided to make my fortune in other areas.
However, I still had the problem of not wanting to wake up to a dark room. To alleviate this I recently took an extra electrical timer used for Christmas lights I had lying around and plugged my lamp into it. I set the timer to turn on at 6am and go off at 8am. It actually has made waking up a little easier.
I just wanted to share that.
*Note: In the event you wanted to use your lamp without turning the alarm on, there would also be a button on the alarm clock labeled “lamp”. When pressed the lamp would come on.
