• @TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip
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        4 days ago

        Fine is the right term for this. The alarm clocks were not great, not terrible. They were just fine.

        You couldn’t adjust the sound volume or the sound they make. In the later years of alarm clocks, you did have some fancy lamp-radio-alarm-hybrid devices that did have some settings. However, they were woefully inadequate for my needs, so I was stuck with a solution that was nothing more than fine.

        Enter mobile phones and their ability to play any mp3 file. My life changed! I made a custom sound that starts gently instead of jumping straight to the RUN OR DIE -stage we’ve sadly grown accustomed to in the past decades. IMO a mobile phone alarm is orders of magnitude superior to any alarm clock I’ve ever seen.

        • @Droggelbecher@lemmy.world
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          104 days ago

          I fucking love alarm clocks. Why? My phone used to be the very first and the very last thing I touch every day. As soon as I unlock my phone, it becomes hard to not get distracted and do other stuff on it. Now, I can have phoneless mornings and evenings.

              • @Num10ck@lemmy.world
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                24 days ago

                i wonder what everyone else is using… and which alarm apps lets you have a playlist instead of a single song

          • @TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip
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            34 days ago

            Over the years I’ve had a bunch of different gentle alarm sounds. Most of them were nature sounds I edited myself. For example, once I had an owl sound that started from zero volume, but ramped up very gradually.

            However, now that I use an iPhone, it hasn’t been very easy to do that. Making a custom ringtone is just stupidly convoluted, and making a custom alarm seems to be completely impossible. I need to look into that, because I really miss my great alarm sounds. The default sounds are all trash.

            • @LucidNightmare@lemm.ee
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              3 days ago

              I remember adding some back in the day, and to this day, they are still available even though I switched from the iPhone 7 I had to the 13. I know you have to do it through iTunes, but that is all that I remember. :(

              • @TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip
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                23 days ago

                If you use the normal alarm feature, it’s possible to use custom sounds. However, if you use the sleep schedule from health, you’re stuck with the default sounds instead.

                • @LucidNightmare@lemm.ee
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                  23 days ago

                  Oh, you are exactly right! I never used the sleep schedule for this exact reason! I need that nuclear meltdown alarm, or I am not waking up! xD

        • @Vandals_handle@lemmy.world
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          34 days ago

          I’ve had an iHome alarm clock at my bedside since 2005. It has a dock for an iPod and a utility plug for other audio devices. Many other brands of alarm clock have utility plugs for audio input as well. Phone different? Yes. Superior? No.

      • silly goose meekah
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        74 days ago

        They did one thing and they were fine at it.

        so were radios, calculators, landline phones etc

        • @Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.worldOP
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          4 days ago

          You right. I don’t need to argue. I will elaborate, if that’s OK.

          So radios:

          I love the old am/fms super neat. Come in all shapes and sizes. By the time I was oldenough, though, they had “boom boxes”. Boom box wanted to give you speakers that you could blast through the house, CD tray, cassette player, cassette recorder, microphone jack. I’m more then happy to trade in the boom box for a phone and set of Bluetooth headphones.

          Calculators:

          The times you need a calculator you don’t have one. If you did, it was garbage. No one’s packing a ti-87 all day everyday. Not to say there wasn’t really nice pocket calculators, just i never got much use out of them.

          Landline:

          Miss them. Have memories of using my grandparents rotary phone. Just, by the time I was old enough, no point in having two phones. At least for me.

          • silly goose meekah
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            34 days ago

            I’m not looking to argue either, I’m just trying to share how I see things, so this feels more like a discussion to me.

            I mean yeah, I don’t think anyone can argue against the convenience of modern technology. I just think we’d be fine without smartphones.

            Instead of a boom box or a radio (which weren’t really meant to be portable anyways) you could use an mp3 player, by now they’d probably have Bluetooth as well.

            I know some people who carry around dedicated calculators despite having a smartphone, so I think if you need it somewhat regularly, you’d just have it with you. And if you don’t have it with you, your calculations are probably not that important and urgent, so you could do them at home if necessary.

            Regarding landlines, there’s barely any situation where I feel the need to contact someone right in that moment, so a landline with a voicemail would be fine most of the time.

            Long story short, all I’m trying to say is that smartphones have replaced a lot of things that were fine, not just alarm clocks, and I don’t see why they ‘deserved it the least’. I do understand that I can’t expect a shower thought to go that deep though.

  • @Mr_Crash_Davis@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    This is true. Looking more broadly there’s a bunch of industries that have been affected by smart phones.

    Here’s just some of the devices you no longer need thanks to I-phone / Androids:

  • Lv_InSaNe_vL
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    234 days ago

    About a year ago I got one of those alarm clocks that slowly light up to simulate the sun rise, and that’s been a game changer. I wake up so much easier and feel less groggy when I do.

    Highly recommend

  • I have never trusted my cell phone as an alarm due to my anxiety of if I set the volume correctly or not. I’m rocking my Sony Dream Machine that’s got to be over 20 years old now. Works perfectly, would recommend.

  • spicy pancake
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    184 days ago

    me and the rest of the ADHD gang keeping the alarm clock market on life support because a phone alarm is too easy to turn off in your sleep:

    • AmbiguousProps
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      54 days ago

      I can’t sleep with an alarm clock because my ADHD causes me to always want to look at the time if it’s in immediate view

      • spicy pancake
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        44 days ago

        have you tried blocking the view of the clock with a Mountain of Pillows™?

        • AmbiguousProps
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          54 days ago

          maybe worth a shot, but I feel like I would impulsively “need” to look still, and end up looking over the Mountain o’ Pillows

          • spicy pancake
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            33 days ago

            fair, fair

            i wish you whatever your equivalent of Pillow Mountain is that helps you find sleep success! :]

        • ivanafterall ☑️
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          34 days ago

          Warning: alarm may not be audible when it inevitably slips under pillows or between mattress and wall.

    • @deegeese@sopuli.xyz
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      44 days ago

      I keep my phone on the opposite side of the room so I can’t turn off the alarm without getting out of bed.

      • spicy pancake
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        13 days ago

        I used to have an alarm app that forced me to scan a barcode to turn it off (I used my shampoo bottle)

        guess who learned how to force power off their phone without waking up 🤪

        in the end I’ve found my ability to wake up has improved significantly after treating acid reflux (unsurprisingly it fucks up your sleep) and, to some extent, treating the ADHD

  • @killabeezio@lemm.ee
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    43 days ago

    I wish I would have kept my Garfield alarm clock. “Nahhhhh, don’t get up, sleep longer”. Hated getting up, but loved that thing.

  • @latenightnoir@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    The Smartphone Wars, when Nokia bombardments were a daily reality! Rough times…

    That’s also how the alarm clocks were wiped out! It was a massacre…

  • @huquad@lemmy.ml
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    84 days ago

    I just got a new alarm clock and haven’t used my phone since. It’s a bit unreliable, doesnt have a snooze function, and the sound is a shrill cry, but I love her anyway.

  • @Donebrach@lemmy.world
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    84 days ago

    All I want is a reliable alarm clock that isnt a fucking app or sony’s bizarre “dream machine” that can’t fucking keep time.

  • @daggermoon@lemmy.world
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    114 days ago

    I have a Sony Dream Machine CD clock radio. I can wake up to CD’s. It’s pretty cool. I hope it lasts forever.

      • @Today@lemmy.world
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        44 days ago

        It’s so nice to wake up in the night, barely open one eye, and know what time it is. Once you get used to it, you’ll miss it when you travel. My FIL had a small folding travel one.

  • @kitnaht@lemmy.world
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    94 days ago

    You know what I miss? Answering Machines.

    I’m tired of voice mail. I want my “voice mail” to live ON the phone and be provided by an app.

      • Nate
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        54 days ago

        Modern voicemail isn’t done on device like it was with an answering machine. Instead of your machine picking up, your telecom provider does, so you’re no longer actually receiving a call, they are. Theoretically you could have it pick up a ring before your telecom does, but then you’d have 2 mailboxes and if you’re offline the call would go to your provider’s box.

        This is even the case for landlines nowadays. I had to setup a new phone for a lady and Comcast was snagging the call before her machine would. Had to change it to pickup before they did.

        • @kitnaht@lemmy.world
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          14 days ago

          There’s also security sandboxes and stuff in Android which don’t allow interaction with the phone components. You ever notice that there are no apps at all which can record the call you’re on? That’s why. They’ve locked it down so that you don’t have the tools to create such an app in the first place.

            • “On a previous android phone”

              They’ve been incrementally locking down those features and options (or security holes) over the years. I’ve used Tasker almost from the very first android phone to automate tasks and watched those features it tied into slowly get stripped away or locked down to the point of being useless.

            • @kitnaht@lemmy.world
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              4 days ago

              Voice recorder. Not phone call recorder. When I said phone components I’m not talking about the smartphone’s sensors and components. I’m saying the “phone” components which make the smartphone able to receive and make calls. That’s actually a sandboxed environment.

  • @XeroxCool@lemmy.world
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    23 days ago

    While I never use the alarm function, I love having my bedside alarm clock because it has a projector that puts the time on the ceiling. It’s convenient when your bedside table is lower than your mattress