Coffee Waker

Multi-Sensory Waking-Up Experience

2022

Your Alarm Clock is Killing You

Alarm clocks have existed for more than 300 years, yet the principle of their function is still based on jump-scaring the users. Though companies have been working on more comfortable sound while maintaining its effectiveness, limiting it to one sensory input is unignorable. How do we design a better solution scientifically proven to be healthier, and more effective in waking people?

“The jolt from the alarm increases blood pressure and heart rate, two things that can have a detrimental effect on your health in the long term.” National Institute of Industrial Health in Japan

“More than 80% of people feel dreadful or anxious when their alarm goes off in the morning.” 2000 people surveyed by SleepJunkie

Coffee Smell’s Opportunity

Studies have shown that smelling coffee triggers the same awakening effect as drinking coffee, without the uncontrollable dose of caffeine and the caused anxiety from liquid coffee. Other culturally recognized sources of caffeine such as tea also have the same effect. While coffee activates people’s dopamine receptor, blue light can also help awake people naturally by triggering their pineal gland to stop producing melatonin, together making it even easier to wake up.

Furthermore, Ke conducted an experiment letting 28 people rate the waking up experience with coffee smell and dim light only, compared to using alarm sound.

The result shows that compared to the “dot to dot” roller coaster experience from alarm sound, the linear waking up with smell and light feels not only much more comfortable and natural, but also more effective if given longer time.

Coffee grounds packed in standardized tea bag to become Coffee Waker’s pods.

Design Process

To define the exterior, Ke pulled elements from the direction of airflow, which let the function guides to a form that is purposeful in its decency.

Confirming the core mechanisms took a lot of experiments, with different ways of triggering smell, and with different components. Eventually it was confirmed that coffee smell will be released by fan blowing at coffee grounds packed in disposable pods with copper plate heating underneath. Tests show that the coffee pods could last for about 14 days before the smell started to fade.

It took 9 full iterations of models to satisfy all functions.

Form Exploration

Structural Exploration

Engineering

To compensate the enormous sizes of the amateur electrical components, Ke engineered a compact inner structure that enables the space to functionally fit all components and is strong enough even if it’s 3D printed.

To achieve the most optimal air flow, Ke designed air channels grown from the inner wall which guide the air efficiently, as well as the air intake that sinks in from the bottom, being elegant without compromising spaciousness.

Analog Interface

From the beginning, Ke wanted to create a minimal yet ritual experience after studying that many cases’ control panels confuse their users with unintuitive, complicated buttons/menus.

By adapting a familiar shape of time, Ke put an abstracted clock-like konb that users can simply turn to set the number of hours they need to sleep and press to confirm.

Through user testing, it was surprising to know that users would want to rotate only the top surface with fingers instead of turning the whole knob with hand, because some hands are not big enough to turn it comfortably.

Competitors

Eventually, if Coffee Waker is put beside its two main competitors, Coffee Waker stands out to be the most scientifically effective, elegant, and easy to use.

SensorWake

Artificial Scent

Unreliable hardware (users’ feedback)

Confusing setting/control (users’ feedback)