As reported on TechCrunch.
by Darrell Etherington
I have an iPhone, and like most adult humans I imagine, I use that as my alarm clock in place of one of those quaint old-fashioned pieces of dedicated hardware we used to use. But it’s not always ideal: you can’t just smash a button to get it to stop trying to wake you up, for instance. The wobL, a new Kickstarter project launching today, hopes to fix that.
As its name implies, the wobL wobbles, and therein lies the key to its functionality. It’s designed to be used with a companion alarm clock app for iPhone, which allows a user to activate a snooze mode simply through motion. The idea is that you reach over and simply tap the phone or the stand, resulting in a rocking motion which triggers snooze and gives you a free extra few minutes to catch some Z’s.
Of course, this presents some problems: it’s so easy to trigger wobL’s snooze mode that you may manage to rock yourself into never waking up at all. You’d admittedly have to be really dedicated to staying under those covers, but if you’re in Toronto this week, say, and it’s -30 degrees out, you have some pretty good motivation.
Wobble does make it easier to hit snooze instead of accidentally turning off an alarm altogether, so it’s got that going for it. It’s also mechanically simple, and yet allows for you to keep your phone plugged in and charging at night. The app is iOS-only for now, but the stand itself is designed to work not only with all iPhone models, all iPod touches and cases, but also with Android smartphones.
The wobL team is looking to ship its device by October of next year, and early backers can get one for just $25. This is the first project from Third Prime studios, but the team behind it has ample experience building consumer products for other companies, and its relatively simple hardware design means it should stand a good chance of seeing the light of day should it reach its $29,000 funding goal.