The phone's last job
Your alarm clock shouldn't be your phone.
Two bells and a hammer. Zero distractions.
Goes up to $54.99 on August 1
- No app
- No screen
- No subscription
- 30-day guarantee
- 1 AA, not included
- Ships from the US
It's not the alarm. It never was.
The phone sleeps on the nightstand because it's the alarm. That's the deal. That's the whole reason it's allowed in the room.
It isn't the alarm. It's the thing that got picked up at 12:47 to check one thing, and it's still going.
The alarm is the errand. The errand is the excuse. And the excuse is why it's still in reach at 11, and at 1, and at 7.
It was never about willpower. It was the alarm.
Same excuse. Two rooms.
It doesn't matter whose nightstand it's on. The argument is identical, and it wins every time, because it's true — until it isn't.
Down the hall
You take the phone. You get one sentence back.
“But I need it for my alarm.”
And they're right. That's why it went back in the room. That's why you've lost the argument twice now — once about the phone, once about the alarm.
You're not fighting a kid. You're fighting a job opening nobody else applied for.
Your room
You put it across the room. You went and got it.
“I'll just check one thing.”
Six feet isn't friction when the alarm is on the other side of it. You had a reason to cross the room, so you crossed it.
You didn't fail. You used willpower where you needed a second object.
Six things that don't work. And the one that does.
You've probably tried three of them.
More alarms
Six set, six snoozed. Same thumb, same swipe.
A seventh isn't a plan.
Screen Time limits
Set for 10 p.m. “Ignore Limit” tapped every night since.
A lock you hold the key to isn't a lock.
Charging it across the room
You got up. You got it. You brought it back to bed.
Distance is not friction when the alarm is at the far end of it.
Taking it away
Same excuse. Same argument. Now with a lockbox and a key.
And the alarm's locked in the box.
Do Not Disturb
It stops the phone bothering you.
It has never been the phone bothering you.
A sunrise clock
An app. A screen. A login. A thing to charge.
That's solving a phone problem with a phone.
Give the job away
Not a rule. Not a lecture. Not a lockbox. A second object that does the one thing the phone was claiming to be there for — and nothing else.
The excuse doesn't get argued with. It gets made redundant. There's nothing on that phone that needs anyone until morning, so it stays where it's put.
Get the clock — $39.99 →The handover takes about nine seconds.
Set the time. Pull the alarm knob. Put it on the nightstand.
No wifi password. No app. No account. No settings menu to renegotiate with yourself at one in the morning, and nothing for anyone to quietly switch off.
The phone charges somewhere else now. It has no errand.
Two bells and a hammer, four feet from a head.
It rings. It keeps ringing. There is no snooze you can reach without opening your eyes and finding it.
Sleep through a phone and you wake up in a feed. Sleep through this and you're just asleep, next to a bell that's still going.
And nobody has to stand in the doorway saying it again.
What it is, with nothing added.
Two bells and a hammer
Mechanical. It's loud on purpose — that's the entire feature list.
Metal, about four inches
Small enough for a nightstand, heavy enough to stay on it.
One AA
Not included. No cable, no dock, no port, nothing to charge.
No app
There isn't one. There is no account and nothing to update.
No screen
Nothing on it lights up, notifies, or asks for anything.
Mint green
One colourway for now. It's the only one we're shipping.
About the ticking: some of these tick and some don't, and we haven't held this one, so we're not going to guess for you. If it ticks and you hate it, send it back — 30 days, any reason, no argument.
Don't take our word for it. We're a clock.
Dr. Shalini Paruthi, via CNN
A sleep doctor makes the same point in CNN: stop using the phone as the alarm and it gets much easier to get it out of the bedroom — which cuts distraction and putting sleep off.
Johns Hopkins Medicine
Johns Hopkins tells parents to keep tech out of the bedroom, and warns that a summer schedule that slides a long way is much harder to pull back in September.
American Academy of Sleep Medicine
The AASM says 13 to 18 year olds need eight to ten hours, and to shift back gradually — about fifteen minutes earlier a night, not one brutal Sunday.
We're not doctors. This isn't sleep advice.
Sources: CNN · Johns Hopkins Medicine · AASM
The 2 a.m. questions.
They sleep through everything. / I'll sleep through it.
Maybe this too, some mornings.
But sleep through a phone and you wake up in a feed. Sleep through this and you're just asleep, next to a bell that's still going.
They'll hate it.
Probably. That's the point — it isn't for them. It's for every morning after this one.
I use my phone for podcasts and white noise.
Then the phone stays. This only takes the alarm job — what else it does is your business.
What if I need to reach them at night? / emergencies?
This doesn't solve that. Where the phone sleeps is your call, and it always was.
What does it run on?
One AA. Not included.
Do I need an app?
No. There isn't one.
What if it's not for us?
30 days, any reason.
Not buying today?
We'll email you once, before the price goes up on August 1. That's the only one you'll get.