We met in the second grade and it’s been one long conversation ever since. Bonnie Richer and yours truly at T-Bar on Third Ave. and 74th Street last night discussing the very nature of a wake-up call and the people we would like to wake-up. Meow!

Image from : dailynewsdig.com

For the last several years, I always wake up before the alarm rings, sometimes an hour before. It doesn’t matter if its 5am, I’ll wake up at 4. I’m always concerned that the alarm will not go off, so subconsciously I just wake myself up.

Such was the case this morning. I caught an 8:30am flight from Miami to New York. My alarm was set for 5:30am, but I was up way before that. I usually shut the alarm off the minute I wake up. The sound of the alarm represents a warning to me, “The day has started, whether you like it or not.” I don’t like it.

My nephew Sam emailed an article from Newsday to me which talks about the different wake-up alarms available. I was happy to read the story because I wanted to see if there were some new options. Unfortunately, Newsday charges non-subscribers a fee to read their digital content, so I was blocked from reading the story.

I’m not going to divulge how I got my hands on the article, but I did. I wanted you to see the wake-up alarm options as well, so here is a copy and paste version of what you need to know.

Alarmy—I think this one is quite clever.

(iOS $1.99, Android, $1.71)
Alarmy proudly bills itself as the “World’s Most Annoying Alarm App,” and it may well be true. First, you take a picture of something near your bedroom — for example, your bathroom sink — and “register” it within the app. To shut off the alarm when it sounds in the morning, you must get out of bed and use your phone’s camera to snap a new photo that matches the one you registered.

Alarm Clock Xtreme—I think this one could be stressful.

(Android, $1.99)
Anyone trying to get up for work knows if you snooze, you lose, especially if you repeatedly hit the snooze button. Each time you hit the snooze button, Alarm Clock Xtreme’s alarm gets louder. For repeat snooze-button offenders, the app can be customized so the only way to quiet the alarm is to successfully complete a math problem. Don’t worry: The calculations are easy, because even Einstein wasn’t Einstein at 6 a.m.

Alarm Clock Pro–-This would never wake me up.

(iOS, Android; $0.99)
For those who don’t need a lot of prodding to get up, Alarm Clock Pro is a good-looking solution. The app is stylishly designed to emulate a large LCD clock and has several themes to choose from. You can pick any song on your device as the alarm to wake up to. The app has a built-in flashlight, a nice feature on dark, cold winter mornings.

Wake Alarm Clock–This could be harmful to your smartphone,

(iOS; $3.99)
This popular iOS app offers several ways to wake you up. You can set the app to “shake” mode, meaning you physically have to grab the phone and shake it to shut the alarm off. For those who wake up easier, “swipe” mode should suffice, because all you need to do to quiet the alarm is run a finger across the screen.