Hybrid Solar Radio Alarm Clock
Alarm Clock
2009
Design
This is a product I designed in Japan, born in 2009. A simple and low-key electronic digital alarm clock. Every morning, the first thing you see is always the alarm clock, so I wanted to create a simple and practical product. In the design process, I did a lot of research on myself, rather than on users. I found some interesting habits. When a person wakes up every morning, the first thing they see is familiar, simple, monochrome, and a vague impression. And after you get up and start a new day, there is no chance to see this alarm clock again. So, the meaning of this electronic digital alarm clock only exists at 7:00 or other set wake-up times. So, other than displaying the time, any other detail is not important. This feature or habit determined its appearance. The front of the alarm clock has no extra details, only displaying the current time, and because the information seen when waking up but not yet clear in the morning must be simple, the 12-hour system was used instead of the 24-hour system. Other necessary information was also deliberately reduced in display size.
Development
I use the behavior of the alarm clock, using 4 fingers to "hook" from the back of the alarm clock, instead of "pressing" it. At that time, I also surveyed other department colleagues in the company, without any inducement, only showing the photos of the "pressure-type" or "hook-back" alarm clocks that were already on the market, and letting them choose which one they used. Less than half of the habits were vertically "pressed", and more than half were "hooked". This proves that I am a user of the more than half of the "hook" users, but there are no right or wrong distinctions between these two methods, only functional decisions. The back buttons are as large as possible, completely different from the front design, because I found that almost all clock adjustment mechanisms on the market are almost on the back, and the adjustment process is also extremely inhumane. You have to remember various combinations to achieve a certain function, but after adjusting, almost all of them forget. So, considering the function and the number of buttons, under the premise of trying not to do the combination key to achieve complex functions, the alarm clock adjusts the hours and minutes to the surface, that is, pressing the up button is to increase the time, the down button is to reduce, the hours are linearly increasing or decreasing. Each button has its own unique characteristics and touch. It is also trying to solve the eternal problem of extremely inhumane time adjustment.
Market Performance
After its launch, it quickly entered LOFT, HANDS and other major department stores. The first batch of sales was 15k, and it had already attracted serious attention from SEIKO, CITIZEN, and MUJI, which are also competitors. And as a designer, I just wanted to make such a simple and low-key, practical alarm clock that I could see every morning when I woke up.
If you are interested in my design and development projects, or looking for cooperation, please feel free to contact me via email
ramxue@gmail.com
