Ah, the French, the nation-state equivalent of that friend from high school who always seems to be doing better than you and who your mom won't stop asking about. The French cook well, they dress well, and, according to a Kickstarter campaign for an AI-powered alarm clock, they're even better at getting up in the morning.

The alarm clock in question is called the Bonjour and pledges to be your "morning assistant," making your life easier and more luxurious. It offers all the sorts of features you'd get from Google Assistant or Alexa (warning you about traffic on your way to work, checking your calendar, playing music, etc) but houses this information in a chic-looking circular alarm clock with an animated UI and built-in speaker. It can also hook up to your security cameras and control your smart home, and, yes, if the campaign video is anything to go by, the morning after you buy the thing you'll wake up in a bed full of baguettes with perfect hair singing alouette, gentille alouette.

Anyway, the bottom line is that Bonjour is yet another home assistant that promises a lot but is unlikely to really deliver anything particularly special. It's definitely a cool idea to have a well designed alarm clock that you can control with your voice, but in my experience, if even Google Assistant or Alexa can't sort out your life, it's unlikely that a device with less AI smarts can do better. Plus, your phone can likely offer similar functionality but without it being confined to a single room in your house. Bonjour? I'm saying "au revoir."