The Curse of the Hotel Clock Radio
The hotel clock radio is hurting the economy: It's waking millions of us up at the wrong time and making us very cranky.
Here's the problem: every time you go to a hotel room, it's equipped with an unfamiliar clock radio. The radio has a terrible interface, and the alarm is always set for the previous guest, who always had an early flight to catch. We need some kind of federal code to enforce minimum interface design standards for these things, because they are doing a lot of damage. I propose we start with these:
- There must be a vivid warning indication that ALARM IS ARMED.
- There must be a single, big, prominently placed button marked TURN OFF ALARM.
Once again, I have been caught by surprise by one of these sneaky devils. In this case the culprit is an RCA 3740:
It has woken me up with supposedly soothing synthetic surf sounds. Not actually very soothing, under the circumstances. I search its occult interface in vain for some way to disable the alarm. I fail. I unplug it, and - well, what do you think might be a good design choice here? Possibly you might anticipate that the user wants to turn the thing off. But in this case... a loud beeping starts, and won't stop. Presumably to alert the user that SOMEONE IS ATTEMPTING TO DISABLE THE CLOCK RADIO!
Oh yes, someone is. From now on, I travel with a hammer.
Read More Entries by Spencer Critchley.
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Yep. This alarm clock looks even more diabolical than the one next to my bed right now. Mine must be carefully programmed, with the skill and delicacy of someone arming a time bomb (hmm...accurate analogy?), or else it will wake me at random times with a series of ear-piercing shrieks, which grow louder by the second...and cannot be silenced. Who designs these things, anyway? I wish to complain.
Bring your own
That's why I always use the alarm feature on my cell phone. It automatically adjusts itself to the current time zone, comes with its own battery in case of power failure, and wakes me up more certainly than any alarm clock.
Can't trust the wake up call either...
Amen. Can't tell you how many times I've set the hotel alarm clock only to have it stubbornly refuse to wake me up at the appropriate time. Alarm clocks and fax machines are both designed to be as confusing as possible. I think there is a global conspiracy to reduce efficiency.
And don't think wake up calls are any better, hotel checkout staff just love it when you ask for a discount because they forgot to make good on your wake up call. Hospitality staff everywhere are in on this subversive sabotage cult.