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Eric Ayars needed a complicated alarm clock to match his complicated schedule, and thus was born the Alarm Clock Overkill project. Instead of going off at the same time each day, the wake-up alarm can be set to go off at a different time for each weekday. As an added bonus, it also tells the temperature and alerts him to any ‘special events’ that might be going on that day, such as birthdays or holidays. With an alarm clock this fully featured, who needs a calender!
Original forum post is here.
6 thoughts on “Alarm clock overkill”
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I was shopping for a radio like this, and I was sure that everyone would have it. What I found was just one (Neverlate 7-day Alarm Clock), and I thought that they had a patent on the idea. Bad patent in my opinion.
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice, but I think folks are fine building their own, for non-commercial purposes.
That’s perfectly correct about the patents, they only prevent commercial use of someone else’s invention. Research, education, so on are exempt. It seems amazing you could patent an alarm clock that goes off at different times every day. That doesn’t seem hugely inventive.
“With an alarm clock this fully featured, who needs a calender!”
Isn’t it an alarm clock with a calendar function? If it reminds you about important date, then it walks like a calendar, and quacks like a calendar. You don’t need an extra calendar if you have this but your calendar’s right there.
It does the same thing, but is much easier to program and update. I use the scripts within Minerva (http://www.minervahome.net) to report on the weather, family events, and which trains are delayed or canceled. Oh, and it uses Festival to read the news, too :)