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Review: Axbo Sleepphase Alarm Clock
Sat, 1st Jan 2011
FYI, this story is more than a year old

This is, hands down, the most bizarre tech product I’ve ever had to review.

Ever noticed how some mornings, despite getting a full eight hours’ sleep, that you’ll still wake up feeling terrible? aXbo argues that this is because your alarm clock has woken you up at a non-optimal point in your sleep cycle. Apparently, there is an optimum wake-up point for individuals within a given sleep phase, and the aXbo can monitor your body movements during sleep (using special wristbands worn to bed). So if you set your alarm for, say, 6.30am, the aXbo may wake you up at 6.10am if that happens to coincide with your optimum sleep phase. Sure, it’s 20 minutes early, but you might just feel a lot better (not to mention you have an extra 20 minutes before leaving for work!).

The device itself is a rather space-age looking clock with an LCD display with only a clickwheel and[buttons].

It can be used by two people and subsequently alarms can be set for different times.

Because the design is minimal, it wasn’t entirely clear how to perform some advanced options (if you even could at all). For instance, I was unable to figure out how to disable an alarm or set it to weekdays only, which led to a couple of rude awakenings over the weekend!

PROS: Long battery life. Updatable via USB.

CONS: Not entirely intuitive.