HappyWakeUp

http://www.happywakeup.com/en/index.htm

HappyWakeUp is a smart alarm clock that aims to improve your mornings by waking you up when your body is the most ready to get up. A friend of mine heard of this software from a Canadian news podcast (CBC) and was wondering if this software actually worked. So she asked me to give it a try and I thought it'd be another review to add to my blog. More importantly, I'm not a morning person, so if this actually worked I'll feel better in the morning.

According to Smart Valley, the software makers of HappyWakeUp, HappyWakeUp is based on medical research of human sleep structure, sleep cycles, and sleep disorders. HappyWakeUp monitors your sleep using the microphone of the phone and makes statistical analysis of your sleep quality to determine when your body is ready to wake up.

For this to all work, you have to place your phone really close to your head while you're sleeping so those of you worried about cell phones causing brain cancer should stay away from this software. They suggest placing the phone in either of the following locations:

• Beneath the pillow or sheet near the pillow with microphone down
• Bed table within 50cm of pillow with microphone up

If you're OK with sleeping so close to the phone then let's check out the software. For my post I am testing Happy WakeUp version 1.15.

HappyWakeUp connects to the Internet to check licenses (scary!)

Available licenses:

If you download HappyWakeUp from the S60 then you can get a 7 day free trial otherwise you have to pay.

This is what you get when you forget the set the S60 alarm first:

It's not the most user friendly interface but at least there aren't many options to confuse users

Starting HappyWakeUp:

After setting up your regular alarm you're greeted by a screen that shows you the current time in large font, the original S60 alarm time at the bottom, and between that is the window (usually 20 minutes before your S60 alarm) for waking you up.

I mentioned earlier that HappyWakeUp will try to wake you up at the best time but of course that time could be anywhere during your sleep since your body will go into the different stages of sleep more than just once. So HappyWakeUp will only wake you up between the window and your S60 alarm. If HappyWakeUp can't figure out the best time it'll just sound the alarm at the S60 alarm's time.

I tested HappyWakeUp for 3 nights straight and set up another phone to serve as my alarm back up in case HappyWakeUp didn't sound the alarm. For the first 2 nights, HappyWakeUp sound the alarm about 15 minutes before my S60 alarm. I was not ready to wake up and just turned off the alarm and waited for my back up alarm to sound. For the third night it woke me up just after my dream got near the end (the dream was actually getting boring) which was about 17 minutes before my S60 alarm. I was so groggy and couldn't get out but I did hit snooze on HappyWakeUp instead of off. Then it sounded at my regular time and I was grumpy as usual. Maybe even more.

I snoozed through every HappyWakeUp alarm. Overall I was still grumpy as usual and sleepy so it didn't feel like it worked for me. Considering I could easily replace HappyWakeUp with multiple alarms, I find HappyWakeUp very expensive.

Software Rating: Not Recommended