Embedded Lab

We are programmed to wake up gently with the natural light of Sunrise. Unfortunately, this rarely happens in modern days, where we are often forced to wake up with a loud noise of an alarm clock. However, things have started to change recently with the introduction of natural light alarm clocks, or sunrise alarm clock. A natural light alarm clock implements an artificial sunrise by emitting light that progressively increases in intensity and tells our body that the sun is rising up. Most of the commercially available natural light simulators are kind of expensive. But if you are a DIY person, there are simple ways to make one using Arduino and RGB LEDs.

LeeStephens’s Instructable shows how to make a natural light alarm clock using an Arduino board, RTC module, and 60 pcs of Neopixel RGB LEDs. It’s believed that Blue lights are best for waking up somebody with a fresh mood, so his clock implements the same. He arranged the 60 RGB LEDs in a matrix of five rows and twelve columns so that he could also display the time on it using a 3×5 font.

His clock now sits on a bedside table in his bedroom, and his experience says that it has woken him more naturally than ever. Watch the video below to show his clock in action.

A similar Arduino based natural alarm clock is available from NYC Resister, which uses an Adafruit Monochron clock to keep track of time and controls a RGB LED strip to simulate the sunrise at the time to wake up. Similarly, there is another sunrise alarm clock based on STM32F100RB Arm Cortex M3 processor and has many interesting features such as a backup audible alarm, snooze option, security feature of randomly turning the lights on and off at night, ambient temperature display, LED matrix panel for displaying basic animation, time and date, etc.