Have trouble getting out of bed early in the morning? Is the snooze button the most used (and abused) part of your alarm clock? Would you like to be able to wake up as soon as the alarm goes off? If you’ve answered ‘yes’ to any or all of these questions, then Ramos is the best gadget for you. The most annoying alarm clock in the world will make sure you get out of bed every single. morning at the right time. It is impossible to ignore Ramos, and there’s no way you can go back to sleep. Let’s see what makes it so special.
For starters, the makers of Ramos have done away with the ‘unlimited’ snooze button. Unplugging it won’t work either, because a battery takes over as soon as you yank out the cord. The ‘lockdown mode’ ensures that you won’t be able to reset the alarm as wake-up time approaches. So that effectively takes care of manipulating the alarm. But then it gets worse. Once the Ramos alarm clock starts to ring, there’s no button on it to turn the infernal thing off. The only way to stop the noise is by punching a defuse code into a telephone-style keypad that is installed in another room. You have no choice but to get out of bed and punch in the code, which requires some degree of brain functionality, so you will be awake by the time you are done with Ramos.
Well, it isn’t really as cruel as it sounds. Snoozes are allowed but only a particular, predetermined number. Or, you could use the courtesy mode, where the alarm goes off for 10 seconds and then gives you a full 1 minute to wake up. After the minute is up however, it gets going again, and the only way to stop it is to input the security code.
Ramos is the creation of Paul Summit, a 25-year-old engineer from Hoboken, NY, working at Stevens Institute of Technology. Paul himself had trouble waking up early, so he built this clock in an attempt to solve it. He’s used it successfully for an entire year, waking up exactly when he was supposed to. In Feb 2012 he began sharing his invention with the world through Kickstarter. In around a month-and-a-half, over 400 orders for Ramos were placed. The product is expected to be shipped in September this year. You can choose between three variations – LED Ramos ($200), Nixie Ramos ($350) and Ramos Custom ($800). It’s a good thing the clocks are expensive, considering the only way to turn them off without getting out of bed is to smash them.
