Way back in 1998, I really wanted to buy a piece of new technology, the “Sunrise Alarm Clock”, which had the special quality of switching on a light one hour before your wake-up time, and gradually increasing the brightness until your alarm goes off. The theory behind this is that even when your eyes are closed, your brain is still stimulated by bright light that you can sense threough your eyelids.
Today, a sunrise alarm clock is supposed to mimic that primordial circadian rhythm, prepping your body to wake up slowly, stimulating your pituitary gland so that you have a nicer, more naturally transition than being jolted from a deep sleep by loud noises. Sunrise clocks are used by people who have trouble waking up at the correct time, be it because they are shiftworkers, living in a northern clime, or just played a little too much Grand Theft Auto the night before. Sounds great. Still, those lights were costing about $500 back in ’98, being serious boutique electronics, which put their price out of reach for me. For a long time, I thought that I would never own one of those things and I stopped thinking about it.
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat and our Discord!
Python for Microcontrollers – Adafruit Daily — Select Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: PyCon AU 2024 Talks, New Raspberry Pi Gear Available and More! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi
EYE on NPI – Adafruit Daily — EYE on NPI Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey
I did a very similar project earlier this year but I wrote a very sophisticated interface that would allow you to program the alarm clock from your tablet or computer. Here is a link to the github project. https://github.com/stimularity/NaturalNodeLamp
Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit, be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Have you tried the new “Adafruit Raspberry Pi Educational Linux Distro”? It’s our tweaked distribution for teaching electronics using the Raspberry Pi. But wait, there’s more! Try our new Raspberry Pi WebIDE! The easiest way to learn programming on a Raspberry Pi.
I did a very similar project earlier this year but I wrote a very sophisticated interface that would allow you to program the alarm clock from your tablet or computer. Here is a link to the github project. https://github.com/stimularity/NaturalNodeLamp