Alarm Clocks

I just can't seem to find an alarm clock that just doesn't suck.  The makers of these things all seem to think that everyone works the same hours five days a week, has perfect vision, and never mis-presses a control.

There are plenty of alarm clocks out there with large numerical displays.  That isn't the only thing people need to see.  Now days most have little icons on the face to tell you if the alarm in engaged, whether it will be the radio or a chime when it goes off, whether you are in standard or summer time (kind of useless),  your time zone (more useless), AM/PM (I'd be just as happy with 24 hour time) and I'm sure some things that escape me right now.

I don't have much problem with the displays, but there is room for improvement.  The icon that shows whether or not the alarm in engaged should be large enough for someone who wears glasses to see it without them.  The rest can remain small or simply leave the indication to the position of the switch on the back.

Color could be used.  Most are still segmented LED displays.  With two primary color LEDs for each segment you would have the possibility for three colors them.

Red & green gives you the additional possibility of yellow.
Red & blue gives you the additional possibility of purple.
Green & blue gives you the additional possibility of cyan, but this is hard to distinguish by eye.

The color of the display could be used to show AM vs. PM.  The color of the icon could be used to show whether alarm will be the chime or the radio.  There are other options to be worked out through user testing.

Buttons are a huge issue.  Almost every alarm clock I see has buttons of the same shape and size with the function labeling molded in or in small type adjacent to the button itself.  Neither option is good for someone with poor vision in a poorly lit or dark room.

I know that the Genius Designers will hate this.  They all seem to want to be in MOMA, but this is a fucking tool.  Each button should have a distinctive shape and/or color indicating it's function and should, of course, be as large a practicable.

Mistakes should be back-outable.  The one I have now (the RCA RP5430) has a Nap button which simply starts a countdown selectable in ten minute increments.  This is a nice feature.  The only problem is that you can't back out of it, or, if you can, the way to do so isn't apparent without reading the instruction sheet that I threw out ages ago.  When I accidentally hit it I have to set it to its minimum time and wait for it to go off before I even think of going to sleep for real.

Lastly a word about functionality missing in every alarm clock I've looked at  As I've mentioned, not everyone gets up at the same time every day of the week.  I have four different times in an average week.  Changing the alarm four times a week sucks.  I'm sure that there are some with even more wake up times than me and I'm sure it sucks more for them.  Sometimes people who share a bed have different schedules for getting up.  This means that a non-sucky alarm clock would have one preset per person per day of the week, fourteen in all.  Add another for unusual occasions for fifteen.

What sucks is that making an alarm clock with these features isn't hard or costly.  Modern programmable processors are cheap especially in bulk.

I'm not sure about the usefulness of an alarm clock after the zombie apocalypse.  Survivors should travel in groups to watch each others backs and to have someone to stand watch while the others sleep.  An alarm clock would only serve to attract the undead.