Marketing a wake-up alarm that I made

[firmwear]

Happy holidays to everyone, I hope you had a festive holiday season and a Happy New Year.

But now it is time to get back to work.

1 month ago, I finished building a custom wake-up alarm for myself.


This alarm uses weight sensors underneath my bed to sense the total weight of the bed and any other person's weight.


As you can see, each sensor is homemade but able to safely measure upto 200 kg, and overload occurs around 240-250 kg.


In the bottom of the picture, you can see the controller circuit I designed to do this job. It has a Bluetooth transceiver so I can connect to the alarm using my Android smart phone. I wrote a complete app to create/delete/edit alarms, edit device configuration, calibrate the system to a new bed, and all the other necessary crap I cannot remember anymore. I am not good at using a smart phone so I do not have any screenshots to provide you. Sorry!


To set an alarm, instead of setting up a wake-up time I set up an alarm period. For example, if I work from 8 AM to 5 PM, I can set my alarm to turn on at 6 AM and turn off at 5 PM. The alarm will emit an alarm sound if bodyweight is detected anywhere on the frame during said time period.

Actions to delete or edit an active alarm are not allowed by software. Also, the configuration cannot be altered while any alarm is active. The control unit can detect if a sensor is disconnected or removed from the bed frame. The control unit has an internal battery backup in case the power is disconnected.

I did not use a locking case but I used lots of screws ;-) If I need a lock later on, it will be trivial to add it. Long story short, I tried to make this alarm of mine tamper-proof. This project took more time than I had anticipated, but I now have a working prototype. I have been using it for a month now with no faults.

My motivation to build this is my lack of will-power in the morning. This machine has changed my mornings drastically. I literally jump out of bed because I have no other choice now. It is more trouble to disable this alarm than it is to just wake up and start my day.

I have no idea how to market this thing. I filed a regular patent application (my first ever), pro se, on Dec. 20, 2015. I made a lot of mistakes in all aspects of this project, but I still made it this far. I am willing to share some details (within reason) of my work so far and I am very interested in hearing any advice other Forum INSIDERS's can share for the remaining work I must complete to effectively market this device.

Thank you.

 

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[croman]

I love it.lol.

Making the bed unsleepable.

Brilliant.

Not sure how easy to install or use this is for final customer....

Keep at it. Maybe there is some ideas floating around on this forum to fine tune the design if need be.

 

[croman]

Also how would this work with a king size split box spring?

Honestly, I would buy this unit.

Can you imagine all the parents of teenagers putting this in to their kids beds?? I can!
No more torturous mornings of trying to tear your teen out of bed for school.

I like it.

 

[adoredunchin]

Hmm I see two ways to market this on kickstarter:

1. Finished Product

- Make a professional looking 'set'. You know, putting those wires together, paint the wood/use aluminium etc.
- Get PR on blogs that promoted kickstarter projects in the past
- Sell the shit out of it

2. DIY

- Make a guide how others can build it yourself
- Get PR on DIY blogs
- Use pinterest for social reach
- Sell components with a mark-up

You could sell/license the patent to some company, but I have no idea which company that would be.

 

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[firmwear]

Also how would this work with a king size split box spring?

Honestly, I would buy this unit.

Can you imagine all the parents of teenagers putting this in to their kids beds?? I can!
No more torturous mornings of trying to tear your teen out of bed for school.

I like it.

I plan to eventually accommodate any/all bed types.

Right now, I only have the one prototype for my bed frame which has 5 support columns. The software is already adjustable for a differing number of support columns. Unfortunately, the chip I am using right now can only support upto 5 sensors. I am using the 5-input chip since I can build the circuit by hand. In order to increase the sensor-input count, I would have to design PCBs first.

I purposely used the cheapest weight-sensors I could find. The final cost of this device would be fixed-cost for the controller + sensor cost x [HASHTAG]#feet[/HASHTAG] per bed frame. In the prototype shown in the OP, the cost of one sensor assembly is roughly $6. Right now, I am buying all of the parts retail so it bears no resemblance to mass-production costs.

Thank you for your positive feedback!

 

[firmwear]

Hmm I see two ways to market this on kickstarter:

1. Finished Product

- Make a professional looking 'set'. You know, putting those wires together, paint the wood/use aluminium etc.
- Get PR on blogs that promoted kickstarter projects in the past
- Sell the shit out of it

2. DIY

- Make a guide how others can build it yourself
- Get PR on DIY blogs
- Use pinterest for social reach
- Sell components with a mark-up

You could sell/license the patent to some company, but I have no idea which company that would be.

These are good suggestions, I will investigate these options further.

 

[theag]

Cool project! I would replace the boring alarm with an electroshock though.

 

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[theag]

In all seriousness though, I think this could be a good match for Kickstarter.

 

[firmwear]

In all seriousness though, I think this could be a good match for Kickstarter.

Thanks for the feedback.

 

[Jake]

Can it instead raise the bed up towards the ceiling? You can upsell the buyers on ceiling spikes. Talk about motivation to jump out of bed.

Nevermind..I think I was looking at the picture wrong.

 

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