Almost no one enjoys being awakened by a loud alarm clock as the sudden rush of panic can contribute to grogginess and stress. To alleviate this problem, Simen Sørensen of the Applied Procrastination YouTube channel decided to create a lamp that simulates a sunrise to give him a calmer, more natural wake-up experience. His design utilizes an old LCD panel that has had its internals replaced by a string of LED lights to provide a pleasant and diffused glow when activated, which he calls the “Zom-B-Gone!” 

The hardware for this project is based around an Arduino Nano, which continually reads the current time from an onboard DS3231 RTC module and sends out a PWM signal on one of its GPIO pins when the target wake-up time has been reached. This signal is further amplified via a ULN2803 transistor array to a voltage that the LEDs can be driven by. 

With the hardware completed, Sørensen 3D-printed a whole host of parts that clip onto the sides of the LCD screen to form a nice, smooth surface. He also added a small foot on the bottom to act as a stand. After some brief testing, Sørensen says the device works pretty well and has helped him feel less like a zombie throughout the day.

For more information on how the Zom-B-Gone! was built, you can check out Sørensen’s video above and see the code and schematics here on Hackaday.io.