Journal: The Perfect Alarm Clock

I've always longed for the perfect alarm clock, but I've never been able to find one. I'll admit that I haven't bought a lot of them, but I've seen enough to know what I like, and what I don't like. One problem with finding the perfect alarm clock is that the true features aren't explained well enough on the product packaging, so I don't want to buy it unless I know it has the right features.

Here is a list of the features that I'd like to see in my perfect alarm clock. I've never seen these features altogether in the same clock, so someday, I might learn enough about electronics, and assembly programming, and LEDs/LCDs/etc. to build my own perfect clock.

These items aren't in any particular order.

1. The clock has to know about daylight savings time. Until this country can get its head out of its ass and stop changing the time twice a year, this is a must.
2. Ideally, the clock would have some sort of radio tuner and set the time automatically.
3. You must be able to change the alarm clock time by plus or minus a minute. I hate alarm clocks that you have to spin through 23+ hours just to wake up five minutes earlier.
4. There shouldn't be fast/slow buttons for adjusting the time, but the adjustment increments should smoothly increase speed the longer you hold down the button, possibly even doing a TiVo-like jump back a little bit when the user releases the button.
5. It must be completely trivial to hit the snooze "button". I once had a clock with three feet on the bottom, where one foot was the snooze button. If you pressed anywhere on the top of the clock, it would depress the snooze button on the bottom and let you snooze. No fumbling for just the right button.
6. The snooze time should be 10 minutes or configurable. I once had a clock that the snooze was 9 minutes. What moron came up with that idea?I don't want to have to do any match when I want to hit snooze twice and wake up at exactly 8am.
7. You should also be able to increase the snooze time by pressing it multiple times in case you want to snooze 20 minutes this time, or 30 minutes.
8. You should be able to change the amount of snooze time at any point between the initial alarm and the first N minutes before the second alarm (or third) goes off.
9. The clock must know what day of the week it is. I don't want to have to turn off my alarm setting Friday night and then remember to turn it back on Sunday morning. It should do that automatically.
10. It needs to be easy to turn off the alarm for the rest of the day. Even in the dark. With my current alarm clock, you have to feel around for this one long button, slide your finger to the end of it, and then move your finger down at a 45 degree angle to where the off button is. If you are off by one button, you'll turn the radio on and wake up the spouse.
11. The alarm volume should start out very quiet and slowly increase in volume until you hit snooze or off. My last clock scared the hell out of me when it went off. My current clock does a better job, but it still is a little bit too loud.
12. If you somehow wake up and leave the room/house before the alarm goes off, it should only go off for a minute or two tops. In the college dorm I lived in, everyday someone would hit snooze, wake up and leave without turning the alarm off and you could hear the blaring alarm going off for an hour before they came back from breakfast.

This list is just a start. I'll add more and more requirements to the list later.

If you have any ideas on the perfect features, please leave comments.