h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A radio alarm clock that can also store and play mp3s and FLACs. Does such a thing exist, I wonder? And I don't mean one that will dock an mp3 player.

Then, when I go to bed, I could listen to my copies of those late-night Radio 4 comedies that I used to love hearing, as well as a certain other Radio 4 series that we all known and love.

I've been looking for certain key features in a bedside alarm clock for years. There seems to be one obvious condition that clock designers are oblivious to: THE DARK!

I want a clock that DOESN'T constantly light up my room. The "dim" settings on most LED clock faces are still way too bright. There is no reason that the "snooze bar" couldn't also function to light the display only when needed. Unless the alarm is going off, the snooze button serves no function. And when the alarm is going off the TIME should be brightly displayed.

Also, speaking of buttons, they really need to consider the ergonomics of using a clock radio in the dark. They typically play lip service to this by putting a few Braille-like bumps on a couple of buttons, usually not the ones you use most often though. And they should add a row of station presets, in the manner of those we used to find on car radios, three to five buttons would suffice so that it would still be easy to differentiate them by touch. One button that cycles through ten or a dozen stations isn't that helpful, especially since that's usually a tiny round button amongst several others, and it usually doesn't have a little Braille-like bump. Also, I'd like to possibly select discrete stations (or even as you desire, recorded programs) for falling asleep to and waking up to. I'd prefer to maybe listen to calm music as I fall asleep and wake to the news. There is no reason this isn't a common feature today.

Cool old Guy Checking his alarm clock
"Does not completely fill the requirements, it has got a card reader, plays most kinds of digitised audio in stereo.

When you place it is a bucket / box / cupboard the sound quality is excellent. Only there is no radio function.
Brand and type; Alecto AC24 "

A card reader... that would work. Or even one with a line-in so I could hook up my little mp3 player (I know I said no docks - that's cos I doubt any would fit this one).

I've seen alarms with most of the features you mention, BG, and I've seen alarms with some of them, but I've never seen them all in one package. And they all make such perfect sense, so why has no-one put them all together

My one has a small LED which stands proud of the on-off button so it's dead easy to find that one either when it's off (you can feel it) or when it's on (you can feel it *and* see it). Once you've located that one it isn't too hard to find the others. It's starting to show its age though. It's a little boom box that has a clock and an alarm, which we bought, must be more than ten years ago, when a local branch of Marshall Ward was closing down. For what it cost back then you could probably get an entire hi-fi system now.

It's been playing up lately. It has two volume buttons and two tuning buttons - one each for up and one each for down. The button that lowers the volume will, instead, sometimes tune the radio to the bottom end of the FM range so I have to use the tuning button to go back to the station I was listening to. And sometimes the alarm doesn't go off. When I check to see it's set I find that it isn't, although I haven't changed any settings. I've been late for work once or twice because of that so I have to check each night now to make sure it's on. The button that switches the alarm on and off is right next to the power button (the one with the LED poking through it) so it's possible I could have fat-fingered it when I turned the radio off before going to sleep, but I haven't ever done that in the 10+ years I've owned it, and it's only just started to exhibit this problem.

It also doesn't have a backlit display so if I wake up in the dark and want to know the time I have to switch the light on.

But mostly I just want to go to bed, lie back and listen to The Shuttleworths, The Goldfish Bowl, World of Pub, Alice's Wunderland...

I have one like this
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-Machine-Cassette-Player-Icf-cs650/dp/B00KNKJYQS
That I demoted decades ago to bathroom duty, but now I'm sorely tempted to bring it back to the bedroom. (I was shocked to see it's still available on Amazon. )

It's far from perfect, but I had it for so long that even though it hasn't sat by my bed for nearly twenty years, I'm sure the muscle memory to find all the controls will return in a week. It uses actual, physical dials and slider switches, rheostats and such! None of those crap electronic buttons that give no physical feedback.

I think I demoted it when I got one with a CD player. But I never listen to music before going to bed anymore anyway. So, yeah! Screw that cheap, little, nearly useless and quite annoyingly bright one I currently use. I'm putting the Dream Machine back into bedroom duty.

I still have a few hundred cassettes I could stick in and play through it.

Well, it was worth trying, but this morning I had to concede. The reason I gave up using that clock above was that the tuner is crap. I absolutely cannot tune it to the station I want. It has a signal lock light and when the light comes on, there is a lot of static, white noise, wind. If I tune just off band, I can sacrifice stereo and get rid of the static, but as soon as I walk away from the radio, the tuning is lost. Obviously, my body is attenuating the signal. I've abided the static until this morning when I could hear it over the radio program from the next room. I wasn't sure that it wasn't something wrong with my A/C it was so loud.


So, today I'll be searching Amazon for a new clock radio. I think I'll try to find one with H/D Radio (whatever that actually does) and a red display, hoping that won't be as bright. (The clock I relegated to the bathroom is doing double duty as a night light; it is literally brighter than the night light I have plugged into the wall.)

I think I have to do something like that too. My radio alarm is switching the alarm setting off with increasing regularity, but entirely at random. At least it's doing it so often now that I know to check it every night before I turn the light off.

Not that I ever need it really, seeing as how it's all but impossible for me to sleep beyond 5am these days.

Yeah... I haven't actually needed my alarm all week as my has volunteered for that duty.

It looks like I should drop the "HD radio" option from my search. There just aren't a whole lot of HD clock radios. And by adding it to my search terms results in returning way too many "spy camera" clock radios.

Er, what are they spying on?

Can't be anything that exciting if you need an alarm to wake you up afterwards.

Right!?

Well, you know, most blokes fall asleep straight after rumpy pumpy. There's a good physiological reason for it, but I'm blowed if I can remember what it is.

Now the on/off button has started switching the thing from FM to AM, as well as (sometimes) switching it off. Or on

This is the one I ordered. It's got some really nice features (including distinct buttons for each preset station).

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0016CWV3U

I'll take a closer look at that when I get home from work.

No, really. I left my reading glasses at home this morning

Ugh... I'm currently in the middle of a spectacle crisis.

I recently had my annual optometrist visit and ordered a new set of lenses for my main set of glasses. Fortunately, my work/reading arms length or nearer glasses are still fine; but my others were getting blurry for reading. Both are progressive lenses. I've also been needing prescription glasses for motorcycling as my vision is just not good enough to see both distant signs and my instruments without some sort of bifocals. I tried ordering some cheap wrap-around glasses online earlier this year, but since they are single vision (and I may have entered an error in my prescription) I ended up with two useless pairs (clears and shades) for only $75. So, with my new prescription (only change was a stronger "ADD" for my near vision segment) I went back online to try and find some suitable glasses. True wrap-arounds are out since they won't work with bifocal/progressive lenses and they're constructed with two sets of lenses with the prescription behind the outer protective lenses which means my peripheral vision is partially blocked. I found some "faux-kleys" sporty frames that might work. They looked more "wrap-around" on the website than in reality. They have the same amount of curve as my normal glasses. Oh, well. With my windscreen on the bike, it's not as essential. But there was a much more serious problem. I couldn't see out of the damn things unless I tilted my head down, chin to chest and slid the glasses down my nose. I also was noticing issues with my main glasses. With both pair, anything at arms length or less I could only see exactly straight ahead. With my main glasses even that wasn't quite right. I went back to the optician and we figured out my eyes have moved a bit. (Not really surprising after the year I've had. The usable areas of the lower segments of my glasses were farther apart than my eyes. The transition line was too high on both pair with my "riding" glasses being 5mm too high. I should be getting my new main lenses in soon at the local opticians office. I've returned my riding glasses to the mail order place where they'll check for defective lenses, but I had the local optician check the lenses already. The actual prescription was fine, they just need to have the "seg height" lowered the 5mm. Well, I heard back from Zenni Optical (the website I ordered from) that they don't adjust the seg heights. They have a standard that "works for most people". I've written back and forth with them and it looks like my best option will be to switch to lined bifocals. Maybe I'll get some of my money back for the difference... maybe.

I just want this all sorted.

What a 'mare.

Now that we have optical cover at work I really should make myself get up off my arse and go for a test.

Now why does the Firefox spellchecker, which is using a British English dictionary, not recognise the word 'arse'?

I just got a call to let me know my new lenses are in.

Oh, and I should say that even though I'm having a bit of trouble, I do recommend purchasing glasses online. The markups for glasses are ridonkulous. When I pick up my new lenses I'm getting a copy of my secondary, near vision, prescription. I'm thinking about getting a spare pair of my work glasses for home.

My local optometrists' prices are reasonable, but I can always find deals online for much less.

That said, I may still go back and drop a few hundred dollars locally on a proper set of riding glasses if the mail order ones don't work out.