Ruthless Dawn

It’s a new year – 2026. 🎉 For many, this year (like every one before) is supposed to be a breakthrough. Some will make a fortune, others will build an awesome physique.
The truth is, many of you will spend this year just like the previous ones – with a phone in hand, watching silly short videos or scrolling through news that doesn’t concern you at all. You’ll be living other people’s lives. Commenting on what they do and taking example from what worked for them… without ever wondering how it worked.

 2026 is the 26th “lap” of my own rat race. 🐀 The race itself will go on, but personally, I’d like to finish it on this lap. Just leave the track and start driving my own roads, at my own pace.

Ruthless Dawn – a… alarm clock. 😅

Sorry for the rather gloomy and deep intro. I wanted to present to you my latest and so far largest project.

The most important function is the alarm. The idea of bringing items to deactivate it isn’t mine, but I have no clue where it originated.
The alarm rings only once. You can’t set a snooze or edit the alarm time once it goes off. Unplugging it does nothing – it keeps running.
But it’s not enough to just get up and press a button. Personally, with a traditional alarm, I even forget I turned it off.
The program randomly picks one of four stations. Colored LEDs indicate which station to turn in order to deactivate it.
You must place the keys in designated spots beforehand and remember their locations. The bigger your morning struggle, the more extreme the spots should be – from a drawer, through a toilet flush, to… the roof of the house or a lake. 🗝
Your mind in the morning has to “load” these locations and immediately go for the key. If this “file” loads too quickly, you need to change the key spots.
The initial alarm phase lasts 60 seconds. For the first 10, a “waking” sound plays and the LED lights up. After a minute, a continuous, unpleasant sound with variable frequency and maximum volume kicks in.

Besides that – Pomodoro. 

Simple, binary. No skipping any step. Definitely a better alternative than launching it on your computer or phone.
After focus/break ends, a sound plays and you must confirm to continue. The timer runs in a loop until stopped.

The program also includes setting the alarm time and Pomodoro durations – everything saves to a file.

Much, much more about the device in the 33-page file containing assembly instructions, part descriptions, program operation, cost breakdown, and other details.

Short demo: 

After battling with myself, I decided to share the project for free anyway.
If you like it though, I wouldn’t mind a few coins. Support channels vary by platform where you download the project.

But my buymecoffee profile is always available. Thank you. 🙏