Getting up before 9am is probably one of the worst chores of the day. It's almost like you wake up, but your bed keeps you firmly tucked under your warm sheets. So you set the alarm for "just another 5 minutes." Then an whole hour goes by, and you're late for work. Again.

If the conventional alarm isn't enough in the morning, you may want to check out the Ramos Alarm Clock by Paul Sammut. This alarm clock, currently a project on Kickstarter, looks like any other wooden alarm clock. You set it like a normal clock, and in the morning the alarm goes off like a normal clock. However, there's no button to switch off the noise. Instead, you have to walk to a "defuse panel" (which you would place somewhere like the bathroom or near the coffee maker) and enter a code to make it shut up.

The theory is that not only have you got out of bed and move around, but you also have to use your brain to remember the code, which helps to wake you up. Plus, the tempation that is your bed is nowhere in sight, making you less likely to hop back in.

The defuse panel looks like a simple numerical keypad within a frame, easily hung up on a wall. The code is generated every time the alarm goes off, so you need to make sure you glance at the clock before you make the trip to the Defuse Panel. The standard version of the panel can connect wirelessly to the alarm clock from up to 50 feet away, making it easy to place in various parts of the house.

Paul hopes to raise $75,000 through Kickstarter to get the idea off the ground. That huge sum will pay for a wood shop, the various materials and equipment required to produce the first few batches, and to make future improvements to the design. If you want the basic LED birch Ramos, you're looking at a $160 pledge. For something else, like a different wood or a display made of nixie tubes instead of LEDs (pictured above), consider investing at least $200.

Ramos looks beautifully designed (there's something about nixie tubes that makes a project cool!) and it's a great way of bringing a little tech into your wake up cycle. Check out the Kickstarter project page to find out more about the Ramos and some of the technology inside it.

[Kickstarter]

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