Building a better wakeup call

For those whose first challenge of the day is getting out of bed, help is on the way. Two products percolating in the region's technology labs, brainchildren of a pair of night-owl college students, use different approaches to rouse reluctant risers. SleepSmart, a sensor-studded headband conceived by Bryant University undergraduate Samee McDannel and developed by Axon Sleep Research Laboratories in Providence, monitors its wearers' brainwaves. Instead of waking them up at a precise time, the alarm goes off at a moment within a given half-hour time range when they are in a stage of light sleep rather than a deep sleep cycle, which minimizes grogginess. Meanwhile, a runaway alarm clock named Clocky, the inspiration of graduate student Gauri Nanda at the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge, rolls off the bedside table, tumbles to the floor, and races away from the bed when the snooze button is hit. Its owners have to chase the two-wheeled, shag-carpet-faced timepiece around the room to turn it off.

Both products are on track to hit retail shelves next year, with SleepSmart expected to be priced between $200 and $300 and Clocky between $30 and $50 in the United States. Axon president Eric Shashoua said SleepSmart will be "ideal for people who travel constantly between time zones" (an occupational necessity for jet-setting executives in the global economy), but it also will target a broader market. Nanda, for her part, has been swamped by queries from Clocky coveters worldwide since her invention was featured on technology websites and in the media this spring.

The concept strikes a universal chord among those who burn the midnight oil. "It's about refashioning technology into something everyone can relate to," Nanda said. "I've had all types of people tell me they have trouble getting out of bed."