I recently bought myself a yellow alarm clock.
One of the pleasures of adulthood is finding out that there are too many choices available for almost every class of consumer product. I usually hear it phrased like this: “has my life really gotten so boring that I get excited when my favourite brand of thermal underwear goes on sale?”
Personally, I really disliked being a child, so I always look at it the exact opposite way: “wow, when I’m given the freedom to choose every minute detail of my own lifestyle, even picking my underwear becomes a new source of joy.” I don't feel like my sense of youthful whimsy has diminished at all. It's just that the sense of control over my own buying power, previously only felt on Christmas and birthdays, has now been extended to fill the entire year.
The problem with the Internet nowadays is that you can't find random forum posts written by real people who are ornery enough to give you their fair impressions of a product. I am filling this gap in my own tiny way.
Everything I want
Here is everything I want in an alarm clock:
- Portable.
- Not corded.
- Aesthetically pleasing. (However I define it. I live in a 1920s home and try to avoid any décor with the “Amazon product look”.)
My budget was nominally around $100, but I've been tempted by stupider things than this before.
As a freelance cartographer, I do a lot of business trips around the Canadian Prairies, so I imagined that a familiar travel alarm clock would help me feel grounded and refreshed when I’m in an unfamiliar budget motel room. (Of course, normal people use their phones for this. It's an entirely separate matter that I have been trying to train myself to sleep a room apart from my Internet device. I was sending too many stupid texts 5 seconds after waking up.)
Actual vintage
My first shot was a mechanical travel alarm clock, probably from the 60s. Just by knowing too much about my personality, you can probably guess that I find mechanical clocks interesting.
This was retro-cool and had a very practical form factor, plus it was a thoughtful Christmas gift. Bad news: its alarm was totally unreliable, which made it unsuitable for business travel. I still had lots of fun tending it for a few months!
Not by choice, I was forced to add an extra bullet point to my spec sheet. The hunt was on.
- Quartz movement. (It turns out that things not containing dozens of cool fiddly gears are more dependable.)
Flip clocks
I quickly became enamoured with one particular retro product category: the flip clock. Yes, they are still making these today. Just look at this product listing!
Sadly, a real Twemco is not cheap: $250 shipped to Canada. (These flip clocks, locally produced, apparently became a cherished symbol of corporate Hong Kong in the 70s.)
What about a knockoff? I thought about it, I really did. But the entire point of this research project was to invest in something that would make me happy to interact with every day. And I know from experience that knockoff companies generally cut corners on those tiny details: sloppy typography, flimsy insubstantial button presses, poorly molded plastics.
With some additional qualms about whether the mechanical flip mechanism was really "portable" (can these survive being tossed in a suitcase?), I couldn't justify the extra expense.
I started browsing through various suspiciously SEO-optimized Top 10 lists, most of which did not share my fussy aesthetic priorities at all.
Okay, good on them for actually buying the products and photographing them all together.
It wasn't all slop: scrolling down until I read the phrase "design enthusiasts" pointed me towards Japan’s Lemnos brand, which specializes in modernist industrial design and apparently doesn't try all that hard to market itself overseas.
Made in Japan
I love the total apathy that Japanese corporations seem to have towards actually selling the things that they manufacture. The Lemnos corporate website proudly announces that Lemnos clocks are "available only at the finest stores and art museums in North America". Oh... okay.
You can also buy them directly from the manufacturer, but the UI doesn't work very hard to point you there.
I am sure they have some practical marketing reason to try and limit distribution to a better sort of retailer, but since you're reading this blog post on what is ultimately a direct-to-consumer sales website, I can't say that I personally relate to this model.
There are some very entertaining products buried deep inside the Lemnos catalogue. This is the one I would immediately buy if I was rich:
However, selecting for alarm functionality thins the field down to seven entries, all reasonably worthy of a design award, and most within my budget.
The Meteor is probably the most handsome, but I've been going with a brass-and-mustard theme on my main floor, so I went straight for the most colourful option and grabbed the Farbe in yellow. (If you like primary colours, it is also available in a navy blue.)
For god knows what reason, after being told all over the Internet that this thing would cost me USD $100, I was able to find it on eBay for USD $62. That's a reasonable $93 in real dollars. Against all the odds, I really did stay inside my budget.
Is it any good?
The problem with forum product reviews is the sunk cost fallacy: if I wasn't mad enough to return it, I've probably convinced myself to like it. I have used my alarm clock daily since buying it. (Actually, being self-employed is such an awesome lifestyle, the truth is that I only need to set an alarm about once or twice a week.)
At my current stage of interior designer evolution, I think the minimal design and bright yellow colour strike the right balance of neutral and silly. It's certainly noticeable, but it won't completely break the immersion of a pre-war or mid-century theme, like I think a digital clock would. (My concern about effectively portraying any particular era in my room is a long way off, as I am currently sleeping on Ikea's cheapest bedframe.)
As a reward for reading to the bottom, here's a photo you apparently won't find anywhere else on the internet: the back panel of the Farbe. A too-fiddly set of controls could easily be a deal-breaker for a small device like this. Note there is no snooze button (a plus for me, as I wanted something very simple).
The tactile feeling of setting the alarm knob is nice and heavy. It comes with four soft click points per hour, meaning that you can only really set the alarm to 15-minute intervals. This suits me fine and I find it vastly preferable to a digital alarm interface, to the point where I find myself using this clock for all kinds of alarms around my house. (Certainly, in my daily routine, there is no point at which I would ever need to wake up at exactly 8:19.)
There is one mild nuisance: the alarm can only be turned off by operating a small toggle switch. This is much less inconvenient on a battery-powered device where I can just pick the entire thing up, but it would be fatal on something that needs to permanently live on my nightstand. On such a small device, it would be a little smarter if the alarm setting knob was placed further from the alarm toggle.
To replace the battery, the white panel pops off with a satisfying friction fit. (Friction fits are a sign of expensive precision machinery, and are the type of thing where knockoff products will usually deliver a much worse experience.)
As is very frequently the case in this industry, the industrial design comes from Lemnos but the electronic timekeeping unit is manufactured by Rhythm. So, my complaints about user experience should probably be addressed to a completely different faceless Japanese conglomerate.
A few months after purchase, I have indeed taken my alarm clock to many budget motels, and I find that it still makes me happy every day to pick it up and fiddle with it. In this respect, I would personally recommend this product.
The last word
Do you respect my desire for a simple battery-operated alarm clock, but question my minimal taste? Check out the Rhythm Rock n' Roll Chicken, also available on eBay for $99.
