There is one thing that we can agree on: more sleep is better. None of us want to wake up, which makes that snooze button oh so tempting. That leads to the inevitable cycle of pushing the snooze button over and over again until suddenly you find yourself let for work or your kid’s school drop-off time. Many people have tried to find solutions to this problem over the years, but we like Arpan Mondal’s Smart Wake-Up Mat.
This is a small mat designed to sit by the user’s bed. When the alarm goes off in the morning, the user must get out of bed and stand on that mat for five to 10 seconds. Until they do so, the alarm will continue blaring. Snooze is not an option here and the simple act of getting out of bed and standing up should be enough for most people to shake the sleep off, ensuring that they won’t fall back asleep. Best of all, this is affordable and easy to build.
The clock is an Arduino Uno board, which has onboard timekeeping accurate enough for an application like this — though it will drift eventually without the use of an RTC (real-time clock) module. The alarm sounds through a piezo buzzer. Instead of an expensive and finicky load cell, the Smart Wake-Up mat utilizes a custom sensor. It is essentially a big button made of aluminum foil sandwiched between sheets of cardboard. A mat of the user’s choice covers that. When the user steps on the mat, they push down the foil so it makes contact with a wire, completing the circuit.
If you have trouble getting out of bed in the morning, this is a great solution.
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