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The parcel that was delivered was simply delightfully packaged. On one side, it read ‘NEVER OVERSLEEP AGAIN’; on another, ‘ALARM CLOCK ON WHEELS’. I’ve read about Clocky in foreign tech sites some time ago, where its claim to fame is that it runs away from you when the alarm goes off so that you’ll have to physically get up to locate it and shut the alarm off.

Some say this is an annoying way to be woken up but others swear by it helping them get up on time for important meetings and interviews. I used to be a really heavy sleeper – my friends from uni can testify to this claim as they have seen me sleep through 25 missed calls, had the joy to slapping me across the face on occasion to get me to wake up, and had extreme peace within the household when I’m asleep and not singing off key. However, these days, I’m no longer the ‘log’ sleeper that I was and I wake easily to my cellphone’s alarm. Oh, how I wish I’d met you earlier, Clocky

Full review after the jump

After unboxing Clocky, I was surprised to find that it was actually smaller than I expected it to be. The construction and build quality felt solid and the wheels had quite a bit of bounce to them (after all, Clocky claims to be able to jump off heights of up to 3 ft!). My Clocky came in chrome colour and it looked immaculate with its white wheels. If you find chrome being a magnet for fingerprints, Clocky comes in ‘almond’ too – the original colour.

Excited to see Clocky in action, I put the batteries in (note that batteries are sold separately) and saw Clocky’s display light up. I quickly pored through the owner’s manual (yes, I’m a typical male – troubleshoot later rather than read the manual before operation) and set the time and subsequently set the alarm to go off within the next minute.

I waited in anticipation whilst little Ryan waited curiously, wondering what dad was waiting for. All of a sudden (well, not really, since we waited) Clocky’s alarm rang – and it sounded very much like R2D2. The sounds it made were extremely unique and somewhat shrill and I would think some study was made beforehand on the effectiveness of these sounds in waking people up. I waited a while more before figuring something was amiss – Clocky didn’t ‘run’ as advertised. I could see the smirk on YinLeng’s face now… the ‘I told you to read the manual’ look.

Upon reading the manual, I found out that you can set a snooze interval between 1-9 minutes, after which, when the alarm rings a second time, Clocky will activate its wheels to run away. Setting the snooze interval to 0 will get Clocky running the moment the alarm rings. Naturally, to see Clocky in action, I set the interval to 0 and set for the alarm to ring within the next minute.

When the minute came, Clocky bellowed in R2D2 fashion and started running in a random manner. There was no pattern to its movement but it was very swift and I’d imagine catching it would be somewhat difficult. It ran around aimlessly for a while, stopped momentarily and ran around again. I can only assume that it was designed this way to allow its owner to actually catch it with some ease. I was amazed with its movement and its ability to get out of tight corners but little Ryan was totally amused with Clocky, probably thinking it was a new toy to add to his collection. He had so much fun chasing the little clock around the room and it was just joyous to watch.

Initial reactions to Clocky aside, it was now time to actually test it out proper. I decided to test Clocky over 3 days, choosing the weekend for my test simply because:

I generally sleep later on Fridays but had to wake up early that Saturday

United were playing late so that meant I’d only sleep at around 2am on Saturday but seeing as I had a gym appointment on Sunday, I’d have to wake up at 7, which leaves me with only 5 hrs sleep – hardly enough hence I had to rely on Clocky

Testing Clocky based on my weekend schedule was perfect because it was not aligned with my usual sleep pattern and it would really allow me to measure Clocky’s effectiveness

Day1

After coming home on Friday night, I set the alarm for 8am. I like that Clocky has a built in backlight feature which is surprisingly bright in a dark room. Read a couple of chapters then fell asleep.

Woke up to the unfamiliar R2D2 alarm sound and heard Clocky’s mechanical wheels in motion. Jumped right off bed and caught hold of the little clock – it hadn’t gone very far when I managed to catch it.

The alarm was loud enough to wake YinLeng but Ryan didn’t stir. All’s good

Day2

I set the alarm for 7am before watching United take on Fulham. Turned out to be a disappointing 2-2 draw. Slept immediately after the game. Heard the now more familiar sound of Clocky’s alarm tune and sluggishly got out of bed to catch the little critter. This time, I was slower off the mark and Clocky had raced all the way across the room to the TV wall. Caught it and set the alarm off. I’m finding that I’m breaking my snooze pattern with Clocky. Hurrah! Headed off to the gym for class.

Day3

I left the alarm set at 7am. This time, I opted not to let Clocky run to see if I’d settle back to my normal bad habit of snoozing at least once before waking up proper. Being more familiar with the R2D2 sound, I still woke up easily to it. Surprisingly I did not snooze but got right up off bed – perhaps in my half awake state, thinking I had to catch Clocky

Conclusion

Clocky passed the tests with flying colours and will now take its place as my default daily alarm. My thoughts right now are that I would set Clocky not to ‘run’ unless it’s one of those days where I know I’d not be getting enough sleep or have to wake up for a really important event.

This product designed by Nanda started out as a uni project but due to its uniqueness, is now a fully commercialized product. Locally, it is available from Tboox.com at RM119 for the almond version and RM129 for the chrome version. If you’re looking for a good alarm clock, get the Clocky. Why? Because it’s so much fun and really effective. How many people do you know have fun alarm clocks? Be one of them!

Sources from How’s House