In spring ’07 my wife and I bought a new alarm clock, a Luna from Extreme Mac. A great clock, the twin alarms have a lot of configurations and options. Among the most satisfying:
 | A gentle chirp alarm that starts at low volume and transitions to high volume over about a minute. |
| Adjustable snooze timer; set it for a 2-minute interval, or a 20-minute interval, or anywhere in between. |
| A display that can be set to very low brightness levels. As sensitive as I am, I went a step further and added a red filter over the display to dim it down even further. |
| a remote control. Handy for hitting the snooze button without having to roll over. |
The only pitfall? The backlit LCD display is direction-sensitive: when viewed from the wrong angle, the contrast disappears and it becomes very difficult to read. Unfortunately for us, that was exactly the angle of my view to its spot on the nightstand. The solution, of course, was to raise it up to a suitable height. But rather than just stack books under it, I decided to make something a little more artsy:
Made it out of oak scraps I had lying around. The holes are purely for style, to break up what would otherwise be large flat spaces. I made them with a hole saw, and then rounded the edges with a router + roundover bit. The whole thing is stained a very dark shade to match the nightstand on which it sits. Simple, but elegant; looks like a piece you’d find as part of a photo in a furniture catalog.
Questions? Comments? Email me!
©2006, Mitchell P. Patrie