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My weekend project: alarm clock that makes you prove you are really awake

1 points by svmegatron ↗ HN
I've been reading a bit about sleep cycles, timing, and trying to be more awake lately, and I had an idea - an alarm clock that makes you do a simple math problem before it will turn off. That way, you wouldn't turn off your alarm while still half asleep, without consciously realizing it.

A few hours with heroku and twilio later, I have this: http://www.getwakeupcall.com

I kind of like it, because it seems simple and useful. But if I do pursue it, I'm not really sure how to. A subscription web service is easiest and simplest for me, but if I go that route I would have to charge much more than I would for, say, an iPhone app with similar functionality (since the web app calls the user's phone, potentially many times per day, and a local app would probably not have so many ongoing costs).

I'd love to hear your thoughts on 1) whether this idea is worth pursuing and 2) if so, in what format?

Many thanks!

2 comments

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Kisil
Services make sense when you add value on an ongoing basis. Since it's not only possible but pretty simple to build this as an app, it makes much more sense to sell it as an app.

More importantly, anything that depends on having active service is much less reliable, and an alarm clock should be reliable above almost all other factors.

svmegatron
That's a very good point. Really the only benefit I can think of to providing it over the phone is that it would work with any (well, almost any - it wouldn't work with a rotary phone) phone, not just a smartphone.

Thanks for the feedback! I will get started now :-)