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Can this thing really wake you up with the scent of croissants?

19.5.2017

Translation: machine translated

An alarm clock that wakes you up with the smell of croissants, toast or coffee. Does it work? And above all: what does it smell like?

Waking up is generally a pain in the arse. If there's also an alarm clock that gives me a headache with its insistent "mööp mööp", the whole thing doesn't get any better.

The ideal situation would be to be woken up by the sun's rays and have breakfast served right in bed. That, or at least the idea of it, is what the sensorwake is trying to achieve. The production of the sensorwake was funded via Kickstarter in 2015 and raised four times the required amount. It wakes you up with a pleasant smell of fresh toast. So that you immediately get hungry and run to the kitchen to look for your stale toast. Maybe not quite like that. But certainly enough to make it easier for you to get up and at least it smells nice.

The sensorwake sprays your desired wake-up fragrance for two minutes. If you haven't woken up super relaxed and hungry by then, you will hear a wake-up sound. So you can't use the excuse "I didn't smell the alarm clock" with your boss. An odour capsule wakes you up 30 times. Then it needs to be replaced.

The test

We tested this in a variety of ways. First in the editorial team. Alarm clock unpacked, connected to the power supply, set the time. Everything is super easy. Then put the toast fragrance capsule into the alarm clock. Wait patiently until it starts to smell. The scent came. And with it the nausea. Like a small hairdryer, the alarm clock spreads the smell of toast throughout the room. Unfortunately, the whole thing doesn't smell like toast, but like burnt bread with a pinch of olive-scented candle. The colleagues in the immediate vicinity immediately grimaced and made vomiting noises. After a minute, outraged shouts came from the back of the office: "What's that?", "Switch it off!". Okay, it didn't go down too well. The smell is not exactly pleasant and doesn't have much in common with toast. But it certainly makes you want to switch off the alarm clock quickly. And if you were to place it far enough away from the bed so that you could get up to switch off the smell...? No, that was just too daft for me.

My flatmate tested the alarm clock for one night. She didn't wake up to the smell. But the beep. She didn't find it a particularly great experience. She had the smell of toast in her nose all night and now never eats bread again, she says.

In addition to the supplied toast odour, there are also croissant, coffee and ocean variants:

Alarm clocks

sensorwake Capsule coffee fragrance

Alarm clocks

sensorwake Capsule croissant fragrance

Alarm clocks

sensorwake Capsule ocean fragrance

Second attempt

I can't believe that this alarm clock is a completely pointless stinker. That's why I ordered and tried a second fragrance. The croissant scent. Croissants are better than toast anyway.

You know when you've already had a croissant, but there's still one left and you're hungry anyway and it's still ages until lunchtime? So you have a second one. And in the middle of the second croissant you feel really sick and all you can taste is butter? That's exactly what the smell of croissants from the sensorwake tastes like. I don't mean that in a negative way. It's just a very buttery odour with a hint of vanilla. At least nobody found this odour unpleasant.

Conclusion

The sensorwake is an unrivalled experience. It definitely wakes you up in an unusual way. I personally don't like the two fragrances we tested. But we sell the thing amazingly well. So there must be some of you who are convinced. Let us know! Which fragrance have you tried?

The alternative

If that's all too much for you, you can also wake yourself up with soft light and birdsong. I've tried it, and the chirping and chirping is not so unpleasant.

Alarm clocks

sensorwake Capsule coffee fragrance

Alarm clocks

sensorwake Capsule croissant fragrance

Alarm clocks

sensorwake Capsule ocean fragrance

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Alina Biedermann

Junior Editor

alina.biedermann@digitecgalaxus.ch

I love black humour, my small collection of jackets, Red Bull, furniture, lie-ins, British accents, dogs, laughing until I cry, Polaroid cameras, full ice-hockey stadiums and that moment when the red lamp lights up behind the right goal. Singing songs loudly and out of tune (and busting some matching moves) is also something I enjoy – as is strumming around on my guitar.

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Can this thing really wake you up with the scent of croissants?

The test

Second attempt

Conclusion

The alternative

A morning grump tests the Wake-Up Light by Philips

1 comment

A morning grump tests the Wake-Up Light by Philips

1 comment

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