SFU graduate invents alarm clock that makes you get out of bed

An SFU grad has made an alarm clock he hopes will free us all from the temptations of the snooze button.

A former all-nighter student and lifelong lover of sleep, Winson Tam first had the idea for the product as a way of forcing himself to get up and out of bed, instead of perpetually pressing the snooze button.

“[It’s] definitely a pain point of mine. Always [pressing snooze] in my sleep,” he says. “Yeah, it sucks. So I wanted to created something to fix that.”

So Tam created Ruggie. Functioning more-or-less like a regular alarm clock, Ruggie’s strength comes from a set of buttons hidden in a mat you place next to your bed. When the alarm goes off, the only way to turn it off is to stand on the mat for five seconds. This, according to Tam, gets you up and out of bed, and on your way to creating new morning habits.

“On our webpage, when you sign up there’s a survey that asks ‘What’s your biggest frustration in the morning?'” says Tam. “It turns out a lot of people have this problem, and they would really spill their hearts out. It’s a big problem for everybody, apparently, and I would love to be the guy that can solve this problem.”

The response has been immediate, and the Ruggie has already raised over $16,000 of their $50,000 goal at the time of publishing.

Tam currently has a working Ruggie prototype, but is seeking funding for mass production. Those interested in supporting Ruggie can visit their Kickstarter page, or their official website.