I haven’t bothered to continue my search for a standard old manual alarm clock, because if I have to drive out of my personal comfort zone (my ‘hood) to buy something, it usually doesn’t get bought. My heart wasn’t thoroughly in the purchase anyway. I’m not entirely certain I would be able to function without a snooze button. It’s integral to my waking up process. I’d say my brain is slow to wake up, but that would be a lie. I just don’t like getting out of bed in the morning!
Therefore, I’ve been using two cellphones going off every morning on my side of the bed, which has been working well enough (though highly annoying). Between the three alarms in the bedroom every night, at least one of them always goes off correctly. Still, it’s bothersome to have so many alarms potentially going off at the same time, bothersome to have to maintain a charge on cellphones not being used as cellphones, and I wasn’t sleeping well for fear of a day when none of them go off at all, so I have also continued testing to figure out why our cellphone alarms have been acting oddly, and I believe I may have found the source of the problem.
When I originally posted my grumblings about this bothersome problem, a friend relayed a tale to me of another friend who’d had similar issues. His problem seemed to be caused by a strong electrical field. Lin didn’t immediately poo-poo the idea, so I figured it might have some merit. Cellphones are tiny computers these days, and they aren’t especially well shielded (owing to the ubiquitous internal antennas), so both of us could see there might be something to the theory.
Too lazy to try to scare up a meter to do actual research, and knowing the electrical usage in the bedroom, I thought about what might have changed lately. After all, we’ve had these phone since December, and this “alarm not alarming” problem is pretty recent. Well, there has been a somewhat recent change in electrical usage in the bedroom lately. Aside from the two things which have been plugged into one of the two plugs in the bedroom since we moved into the house –my blowdryer and a lamp– I had recently started turning on the ancient ceiling fan at night. I’d found the fan helped me sleep better during my naps, and I wanted to try it at night. I’m a middle-aged woman, what can I say. Sometimes I feel like I about to spontaneously combust, and cool moving air feels nice. I’ve been getting the best sleep ever.
When I describe this ceiling fan as ancient, I do mean it is equipment original to the house (circa 1959). Upon moving into the house, my first reaction to it was “Awesome! Vintage ceiling fan!” Then I turned it on and my reaction was “Wow. Electrical hum from the wall controller, and look at that deathtrap!” I use it, but it has always made me a bit nervous, though obviously it hasn’t burst into flames, shorted out the electrical system in the house, or fallen down and killed us in our sleep. I definitely could imagine it causing an electrical field of some sort, because well, it’s a scary old ceiling fan whose control box makes a loud electrical hum. Seriously, you can hear it sucking down the juice.
Reluctantly, I stopped turning on the ceiling fan at night when I went to bed a few days ago. My cellphone alarm has been going off perfectly and consistently every morning since. So has Lin’s. I’m not entirely ready to declare the problem solved, but there does seem to be a connection. I will (grumpily) continue to not use the ceiling fan at night. If the alarm failures cease entirely, I guess I found the culprit responsible.
Doesn’t make me happy though. I was really sleeping well with the ceiling fan on at night. Best sleep I’d gotten in ages. I guess instead of a new alarm clock I will now be considering a quiet, safe, and Energy Star compliant fan of some sort. I’m going to give it a few more days before I declare that the ultimate solution to our cellphone problem, but it seems likely it is. It’s a bit too coincidental that all our alarms started working properly when I stopped using the ceiling fan.
Erica for the win! Thanks for the suggestion!