This project started just because my current alarm clock's buttons were dying... I managed to replace them by soldering spare buttons I had but this incident made me thinking: why not making my own alarm clock? An alarm clock that would be the way I want, and not a simple alarm clock that goes BEEP BEEP BEEP! I've always hated that sound!

So I’ve though of a design that woud suits my needs. The alarm clock would have a 100W LED that lights up slowly at wake up time to simulate the sunrise. The alarm clock would also play some soft music at wake up time. The volume would of course increase with time. If at a certain time, I’m not out of my bed, then, the alarm clock will be more harsh by blinking the led or playing the music louder or by making that BEEP BEEP noise (oh no, not that!!!). The time would be displayed on big 7 segments display as I am short-shighted.

At the end of this article, you can see the picture of the alarm clock. It is made of two parts: one on the nightstand and the other somewhere on the ground.

The part that sits on the nighstand contains four 7 segments display of 1.3" driven by two TLC5940, a board where all the buttons are soldered, an arduino mega, a light sensor in order to dim the display at night, a bluetooth module, an RTC module, and of course the 100W led clamped by a custom made steel plate to a zalman processor heatsink.

The part that sits on the ground is made of a PSU, an arduino that controls when to turn on the power supply, a 100W LED driver and a raspberry pi for the music.

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