Best Alarm Clocks On The Market in 2022

Q: What Is The Best Way To Set An Alarm?

A: This seems like a loaded question. The point is that it’s set, right? Eh, not exactly. When you want to go for the gold and make sure you’re getting up on time, you need to do more than just set your digital clock. You need a loud alarm clock that’s going to actually do its job, and pull in some weight.

Set up your bedroom clock to be close enough to you to shut it off, but far enough away that you have to get up to actually his snooze or power it down. Your digital alarm clock should also be a radio alarm clock, so you can wake up to some tunes and start the day off right. Alarm clocks for heavy sleepers are going to have a louder radio capability, which will get through those thick dreams of yours, and get you up.

Also, don’t just set an alarm—set five alarms, on everything you can in the house (explained later) and don’t just rely on your one digital clock to handle all of it. They’re the big guns in this game, and the other small alarms are the infantry.

Q: How To Train Yourself To Wake Up Early

A: This is no simple task. It requires diligence. You up to the task? You have to get the day rolling before you roll out of bed. These are just a few ways you can seize the day without razing the curtains.

1. Get up one minute earlier each and every day. We have biological clocks; it’s not just some weird term we use. Time doesn’t exist. I’m not going to get all existential on you and make you contemplate your place in the universe, because you already know what that is—being the version of you that gets up earlier. Your body needs time to adjust, and if you can wean into it like this, in a month, you’ll be waking up a half-hour early.
2. Make your goals early in the morning. This sounds dumb, and trust me here, it’s not going to be easy, but when you look at a goal you really, truly, deeply want, and you associate it with having to get up early in the morning to achieve it, you’ll start prioritizing. Don’t just think—act on your goals.
3. Go to bed with positive thoughts. Tell yourself, “I want to get up early because…” and then, actually do it. Sleep studies happen all the time, and they tell us what exterior activities are affecting our dreams, our nightmares, etc., and talking to yourself as you drift off to bed has been proven to work. If you’re looking forward to something in the morning, tell yourself about it, and your body will hold onto that through the night.

Q: How Can I Wake Up Faster?

A: This is difficult because it works differently for everyone involved. If you’re just not able to wake up properly, then you’re probably what most of us are: tired from the constant stress of life and trying to sleep it off to a healthy level. It’s exhausting, all of life. Waking up faster and feeling fuller right when you hit the ground is a must, and it’s difficult. Here’s what to do:

1. When you first open your eyes, try your hardest to remember that you’re supposed to shoot up, and try to jolt really quickly. It’ll be faster than you nestling back into bed and realizing that you don’t want to leave it.
2. Throw yourself off your bed in a fit of rage. If you have a hardwood or tile floor, and you’re higher than a platform bed, it’ll wake you up with one swift motion. You may seem crazy to your girlfriend, or your buddy on the couch when the loud thump wakes them up, but you’ll be a bit more ready for the day at this point.
3. Keep a cup of water on your bedside. The second you wake up, stand up and dump it on your face. You had to take a shower anyway, right? It’s a shock to the system. If you have a minifridge by your bedside and can ensure it’s icy cold, you get bonus points.

Q: How Can I Make Sure I Wake Up On Time?

A: Heavy sleeper, are we? Waking up on time is one of the constant issues that we’re all facing. How many times have you awoken to find that you’ve slept through your alarm clock? Your alarm clock is supposed to wake you up, and instead, you’ve had such a busy, long night, that you just can’t seem to hear it. Here’s what you do:

1. Put that clock out of reach. If you can hit the snooze button, you’re probably doing this in a half-dazed state, and proverbially shooting yourself in the foot. Put the alarm clock across the room. The key to this is ensuring that it’s still close enough to you that you’ll hear the sound.
2. Set multiple alarms, but not on the same device. The world started relying on their smartphones to wake them up, and it simply doesn’t work. Nothing is better than a good old fashion alarm clock. Here’s the trick: any device in your home that has an alarm feature, set it. That means your stove in the other room, the microwave, your alarm clock, your smartphone, and perhaps a stereo system (if anyone’s still using those). It’s one surefire way to ensure that you’ll freak out all the way to your feet.
3. Change where you sleep. Your bed’s comfortable, and that’s the problem. Skip to the couch, where you’re not in a deep sleep. If you’re a heavy sleeper, make it a tiny bit less comfortable, so you won’t be slouching about through the entire buzzing or ringing of your clock.

5 Apps That Can Help You Wake in the Morning

We all need a gentle nudge in the morning. Even if you’re getting used to your alarm clock, you’re still going to have the initial desire to be lazy with it, and you’ll get into a routine where it’s not affecting you as much anymore. Look to your smartphone, and this list, to add extra steps to waking up in the morning.

1. Wake N Shake

While it’s not to be used in lieu of an alarm clock, this handy app will aggravate the hell out of you until you’re awake. You have to vigorously shake your phone for the duration of time previously set, or it’ll keep going. Pair this with sixty seconds after your new alarm clock going off, and you’ll throw yourself into a frenzy that you’ll need to power through to get out of. By that point, you’re already up.

2. Rise & Shine

Similar to our #8 selection, this app uses a gradual brightness increase to slowly wake you out of your sleep, before laying down the hammer and buzzing to wake you up. If you’re waking up angry or abruptly (more on this in a moment), then this is the perfect trick to keep ahead. Just ensure your alarm clock also has a USB charging slot to keep your phone nearby. This works well if you position it differently than your gradual light alarm clock, as if you’re getting two sunrises instead of one.

3. Spin Me

Sounds pretty self explanatory, right? You have to get up, position two thumbs on the bottom of the screen, and turn around according to the predesignated amount of spins. You’ll actually have to jerk yourself around, and by the end of it, you’ll look at the bed and say, “Well, I’m already up.” At least, that’s the hope of the app developers. This one comes in handy if paired with louder alarm clocks, as well.

4. I Can’t Wake Up!

No, that’s not a statement - it’s an app title. This little handy dandy game makes you solve puzzles or finish writing exercises before it’ll let you off the hook. If you try to snooze it too many times, it’s going to remember, and put you through hell. It’s like getting interest on the fact that you slept in an extra five minutes the day before. For the love of gear, just solve the puzzle, and muddle through the morning - you’ll be glad you did.

5. AlarmMon

Gamer? We pegged you as one. This app makes you finish a quick run of a super fun, bright, and sometimes aggravating game that takes you through the mental motions of waking up in the morning. If you don’t feel like you can get up, don’t worry - the bunnies will make you.

Q: How Many Hours of Sleep Should I Be Getting?

A: There’s always going to be a sleep-related study going on, but you might be surprised to find that it’s not a one-size-fits-all answer. There’s about 1% of the population, known as The Sleepless Elite, who don’t need to clock-in a bunch of hours with their pillows. Some of us just run better off of less sleep, even if we don’t realize it right away. There’s such a thing as oversleeping, too, so how do you really know your specific sleep needs?

For most of us, we go off a simple formula:

• Adults 22 years and older should get between seven and nine hours of sleep every night
• Teenagers and young adults up to age 21 should be getting between eight and ten hours of sleep every night
• Babies require fourteen to seventeen hours per night. We know you’re not a baby, but doesn’t that sound like epic naptime?

It’s vital to your personal health. When you rest at night, after about twenty to thirty minutes, your body begins to enter REM sleep (if you’re lucky). Either way, your body slows down. Your heart rate hits around 40-50 BPM when you’re sleeping, compared to the 60-100 BPM you go through while you’re awake. This gives your body time to give your heart a rest, repair blood vessels, and repair muscle tissue if you worked out, or physically strained yourself during the day.

It also helps prevent kidney disease and heart disease. When you’re sleeping, your pancreas and liver secrete additional enzymes, as if to get your body all prepped for the day ahead. It regulates your blood, handles waste at a reasonable rate, and winds you up again. In short, sleep is ultra critical, and requires your attention.

Q: Why do I Wake Up Angry or With a Fast Heartbeat?

A: If your clock is waking you up too abruptly, pulling you out of REM sleep like Leo from a dream inside another dream, your body goes into a moderate level of shock. You’ll feel your heart kick up all of a sudden, because now you’re awake, and your body has been taken by surprise. You have to go from a resting heart rate of 40-50 BPM, back to a standard heart rate (or a little higher at first) of around 60-100 BPM

This might also explain why you wake up pretty pissed-off in the morning. Your body, thrown into shock, floods with hormones and confusion, enabling you to feel anger or grouchiness in lieu of, well, anything else. You need to get more sleep, or get a slow-burn waking alarm clock to ease yourself out of sleep, instead of ripping yourself out.

Q: What is the Best Supplement to Help Sleep?

A: From personal experience, a firsthand account of an insomniac, if you will, Sleep Sense really did the trick. There’s a million reasons why you might not be sleeping, and while most of the time it’s stress or something of the sort, it could also be a deficiency of certain vitamins and minerals. Sleep Sense comes with melatonin, magnesium, and other ingredients, all designed to help you sleep, without the fear of becoming addicted or dependent on them. It took about three years to get over insomnia (if the TV is on, I still can’t sleep), but after enough trial and error, and a good dose of Sleep Sense, it did the trick. I stopped dreading the alarm clock so much.

Our Top Pick, and Why

There’s a lot of science when it comes to sleeping, and there’s never a short supply of sleep-related tests going on. One of our favorite electronic brands here on Gear Hungry has made the most effective clock (in our humble opinion), and it’s the #8 pick: Philips Wake-Up HF3505. Slow light build mimics the sunrise, and gently pulls you out of a sleep-like trance before hitting you with some serious sound. Between price, effectiveness, and the fact that we didn’t have to chase it around the room (sorry Clocky, we’re not morning people), we absolutely loved this one.

Disclaimer: Gear Hungry is not responsible for supplements you purchase, or the side effects that may or may not come from them. Any medications or supplements recommended here are purely based on personal review, personal experiences, and in no way designed to coerce you into attempting them yourself. We’re simply stating what works for us, which may or may not work for other people.