On 05/01/17 08:45, Martin Brown wrote:
On 04/01/2017 22:11, Tim Watts wrote:
OT

I am surprised by the pathetic lack of quality alarm clock products.

The Philips "wake up to light" ones are good - well made, ring up an LED
light gradually to a very high brightness to help soften the wake up of
people who hate winter. But even that does not retain time in the case
of a power cut or (better) sync to the 60kHz time signal.

For me, the perfect clock would be:

Soft display - VFD or OLED simulating VFD.

60kHz time sync

There is no point in having 60kHz time sync when the set has DAB since
it can obtain the correct time from the transmission anyway.

Who said mine would have DAB?

Multiple alarms, with settable "which day" option.

Excellent snooze with light touch to snooze. Should alarm forever until
fully silenced.

Auto dimming display that is bright enough to be seem in direct sunlight.

Better would be LCD display with backlight for night time.

I disagree - I hate LCD displays. You can dim LEDs right down - but it
would be interesting to see how dim "Unicorn HAT" Pi LEDs go to when on
setting 1/255. VFDs were the nicest displays IMO but sadly non existant now.

Proper mains with no wall wart. Should be nice and heavy so as not to
fall off shelf when poked.

Disagree entirely - just makes it a lot heavier, bulkier and more
dangerous with mains voltages inside the chassis.

I want heavy. All the modern clocks are too flimsy and light - slight
tug on the cord and they fall off the shelf.

As for mains - unless you are planning on pouring coffee over it,
there's nothing dangerous about it. It's more dangerous to have a bulky
wall wart in a socket down the side of the bed where it's covered by
bedding or liable to get hit by the bed frame (on a smooth floor).

Also, I place more faith in a nice solid iron transformer with provable
isolation than some random cheap switch mode PSU.


It should be easy enough to make one work from a 5v USB supply.
(not like you need massive power or anything in an alarm)


That would be a theory - doesn't seem to stop the shop ones comming with
massive wallwarts sadly.