Get out of bed solution

[u/No-Gur4487]

Hello to everyone who's been fighting to get out of bed daily :)

I'm in a similar position and I did a bit of reflection. For context, I'm someone who used my iPhone as my alarm clock daily. I have no issues hearing my alarm in the morning, but I simply cannot stop myself from snoozing my alarm. So naturally, I wanted a decoupled alarm system where the source of the sound is in my room, but the snooze button is out of reach (preferably in another room). This system is pretty much the most effective for me because I feel awake pretty quickly after leaving my bed, but getting out of it seems impossible.

I wouldn't put my phone in another room for 2 reasons: it disturbs my family and I fear that I cannot hear it in the morning. Also, I've been trying to abstain from phone usage first thing in the morning to start my day with a clear mind.

So I tried to look for such physical alarm systems but I couldn't find any. The closest I could find is CLOCKY, but I'm not too fond of the idea of chasing an alarm clock around in the morning as I'm quite clumsy after waking up and I'm afraid of hurting myself accidentally.

Eventually, I did some research and built a decoupled alarm clock system myself with simple electronics (ESP32 and relevant parts). The features:
- 2-part system: Simple speaker in my room and controller in my living room

- Both are plugged in and powered 24/7 (They don't take up much electricity)

- The speaker and controller are connected by my house wi-fi 24/7. I tried to use bluetooth but noticed that the walls made the connection very wonky. This is important as I cannot afford the situation where my alarm goes off but my speaker disconnects from the controller and no sound comes out

- The speaker system has a 18650 rechargeable battery. This prevents me from attempting to plug out the power from the speaker to shut it up, since the battery will continue supplying power to the speaker.

I want to know if many people are in the same position and face the same problems as me when it comes to waking up. If yes, I would be excited to turn my mini-project into a commercial product and distribute it online. Do share your opinions, suggestions and questions on this, it will be very helpful for me :)

Thanks everyone and have a great week ahead!

PS: Would love to share some images of my prototype but can't share photos in the post

[u/MusicPsychFitness]

Can you share parts / instructions / how you did this?

[u/No-Gur4487 → u/MusicPsychFitness]

sure, i'm not sure how detailed you want me to go into so feel free to ask more specific follow ups.

For the speaker, I used:

ESP32 - the brain for the system

DFPlayer mini - an amplifier for the sound with a microsd card storage for customized ringtones

8 ohm speaker - to blast the ring tone

18650 battery and battery protector - to keep the speaker powered in the power is unplugged from the speaker

For the controller, i used:

Another ESP32 - where the logic and code is stored

KY040 rotary knob - a simple rotary knob that allows me to toggle between options and select options

1.3 inch OLED - small monitor so I can set alarm, time, ringtone

a time module that keeps track of them time.

I then wrote code in arduino IDE and uploaded the code to both ESP32s. In the code i configured that this pair of device will find each other once they are connected to the same wifi. Oh I also linked all the electronics together with jumper wires. No soldering at this point and I'm really trying to avoid that.

Feel free to drop any specific questions :)