2026-01-04
I’ve been trying to get my sleep under control for quite some time now. Getting a consistent seven hours a night is more difficult than I’d like to admit.
Step 1: get custom molded sleep earplugs made. I know this might seem excessive, but the foam ones never fit me right and would eventually fall out of my ears throughout the night. The ones I went with are made by egger, I think they’re the eSENTI, reference number 15310. From getting moulds to walking out the door with new earplugs the entire ordeal cost me 65€. A price worth paying, especially on the weekend when I get to tune out both neighbors and traffic outside of my apartment. As a bonus, the audiologist told me that I do indeed have to differently sized ear canals. Well that explains a lot. How fun.
Step 2: blackout curtains. The ones I bought were like half a meter too long for my ceiling height but that’s nothing a pair of scissors and a sewing machine can’t fix.
Step 3: have a warm and not too bright bedside lamp on your nightstand.
Step 4: put book on bedside table.
Step 5: buy an alarm and ban the phone from the bedroom. <— I am here
I wasn’t even looking for any particular alarm clock when this video found its way to me:
f4mi - The BEST Alarm Clock was made in 2009
After watching it, I knew I had to have one. A CD player and an iPod dock in an alarm? Wow. Sign me up.
A few days later it arrived and on the first night, after putting in my Japanese copy of Baauer’s Planets Mad, I noticed a glaring issue by the time 10pm hit: how does one actually turn the display off?
I did eventually discover the brightness control button on the back but it did very little to ease my discomfort. The next morning I consulted the manual and… nothing. There’s a “sleep” mode, but that’s only for stopping music playback.
Allow me to demonstrate the three brightness levels:
A display that’s both bright and blue is just about the worst thing an alarm could have. Time to open up Fusion 360!
Here are the STLs: Top and Bottom
It’s just a two-part disc that snaps together and can hold a few layers of transparent red plastic sheets in-between. I needed three to make it work. Fits like a glove (see the last slide).
And would you look at that, a dark red letters that let me sleep at night:
A note on iPod compatibility: Rockbox works like a charm. Also, the panel that adapts the various iPod sizes is mounted so tight that I had to pry it open with a knife.
