Alarm clock for an adjustable bed

My dear teenager sleeps like he's been knocked out, just like I did at the same age. Since he’s such a heavy sleeper he sets his alarm clock early, to have time to wake up. Unfortunately that also makes everyone else in the family wake up, long before he does. Once enough irritation has built up, someone else has to run in and turn it off, while also trying to shake some life into him.

But someone who can sleep through 45 minutes of deafening screeching from an old clock radio doesn't wake up no matter how much he’s shaken. He keeps sleeping peacefully and eventually has to be dragged out of bed to have any chance of making it to school in time.

Necessity is the mother of invention, and eventually I had the brilliant idea to build an alarm clock that drives his adjustable bed up and down, so that only he gets woken up and not the rest of the family. It's hard to sleep when someone is tirelessly pulling you up into a sitting position.

No sooner said than done, I pulled the remote control's cord out of the bed and measured how it was wired. Then I ordered a real-time clock, an Arduino Micro, an LCD display, a relay board, a few connectors, and a wildly oversized cable to connect the alarm clock to the bed. A key cabinet from the flea market ended up serving as the enclosure to build it all into.

A few hours of tinkering later, I suddenly had an alarm clock where you can set the time and the alarm, turn the alarm on and off, and adjust the display's brightness. When the alarm goes off, the bed starts with small movements at first, then gradually increases toward a sitting position.

Thanks to a long cord, I was able to place the alarm clock far enough from the bed that he has to get up to turn it off. So far, a clear success. The rest of the family is happy and content since no one has to wake up unnecessarily early. The teenager himself is happy too, since he can wake up gently and make it to school on time without stress.

When the alarm goes off, a faint whirring starts coming from his room, and a couple of minutes later he's been kneaded enough to get up on his own. A much more pleasant wake-up for everyone in the family.

Fiffigt va!