It’s time to wake up to yourself!
WakeYoo is the world’s first recordable alarm clock, allowing users to choose each day what sound they would like to be awakened with. It’s not ground hog day in the real world, so why not wake up to a different sound everyday – we all have more imagination than a beep-beep.
The inspiration for WakeYoo came from the failings of conventional alarm clocks. Tom used to frequently wake up before his alarm clock in order to disarm it before it shattered his sleep. Of course, this meant that he was continuously falling back to sleep, oversleeping and having to race to work. Tom wasn’t alone it seemed that alarm clocks were universally despised the world over. He wanted to remove the word ‘alarm’ from this device and so sought to find a way of waking people up in an amusing and entertaining way. After unsuccessfully rousing fellow house mates with smells, lights and even vibration Tom concluded that sound was probably the most effective way to wake someone to the day, especially if you wanted to make it funny. I mean, what could be better than to start the day laughing! But what sound would he use? The answer was none, no sound at all, which is why WakeYoo comes with no pre-recorded sound – instead it gives you the ability to record your own sound. Tom knew that he could not predict the sense of humour of potential users, or their language, personality or musical taste and so by making the product recordable it encourages users to be creative with their own wake-up call.
Tom licensed WakeYoo to Recoton Europe (owner of the Ross brand of consumer electronics) who took the product to market with him. WakeYoo was launched in the UK market in winter 2000 with a well-orchestrated PR campaign that led to instantaneous commercial success, selling over 40,000 units in the first eight weeks on sale. Shortly after product launch Recoton’s US-based parent company closed their European operation and Tom renegotiated WakeYoo’s licence with Zeon Tech, London. Extending retail channels to all major UK high street stores WakeYoo went on to sell over 250,000 units over the next few years and became a flagship product in the Science Museum’s branded line of products.
WakeYoo was followed up with Nobby, a voice recognition clock with an interactive personality.
