5 more minutes? New clock answers resounding ‘no’

HOBOKEN, N.J. — There is no snooze button. If you unplug it, a battery takes over. As wake-up time approaches, you cannot reset the alarm time.

It could be the world’s most exasperating alarm clock.

Once it goes off, to stop it you must get out of bed, go into the kitchen or bathroom, and punch the day’s date into a telephone-style keypad. That’s the only way to stop the loud ‘ding-ding,’ designed to sound like a customer angrily banging on a concierge bell at a hotel.

It was invented by Paul Sammut, a 25-year-old engineer who lives in Hoboken, N.J. During the day, he builds and researches underwater robots and vehicles at the nearby Stevens Institute of Technology.

He started working on the gadget because he was finding it hard to get up and make it to work on time after college.

“I wanted to make something that would essentially force me to get out of bed when I wanted to get out of bed the night before,” said Sammut. “And I was thinking about ways of doing it and I thought about how in high school I had the perfect solution to this, which was my mother, and how she would, if it was time for me to wake up, she would force me out of bed.”

He built the prototype in his spare time and uses it every day.

“Now I wake up before it goes off,” said Sammut. “I subconsciously fear it and know I have to get up.”

After a friend suggested he try and sell the device, he made a video demonstrating it, and posted that on kickstarter.com. That’s a website where the general public can support creative ideas by investing in them financially.

“We raised over $150,000 over a month and a half and we currently have over 400 orders,” said Sammut.

Sammut has formed a company and is now trying to fill all the clock orders by the end of the summer.

He acknowledges there is one way to stop the alarm without getting out of bed.

“You could smash it,” said Sammut.

But with a $350 price tag, that would be a really expensive way to sleep in.