Innovative alarms from around the world, before alarm clocks were used

It is very common for you to press the snooze button every time the alarm clock rings on your phone or bedside table. But do you ever wonder how people woke up across the world at a time when alarm clocks were not invented? While the rooster or animal calls are quite common and familiar, there were other ways too to trigger awakening at certain times. From the tribal communities to ancient Egypt, China, Greece, used some innovative ways to wake people up. Below we explore seven such interesting wake-up systems before modern-day alarm clocks were invented.

Here are some lesser known alarm systems used globally before the advent of alarm clocks as we know today

In many tribal and nomadic communities, people used to take turns in staying awake all night and guarding the community. These people often used to ring the alarm when it was finally time to wake up. Either they called out loudly or went tent to tent calling out everyone. This kind of alarm system is still used in certain cases today. During camping or while setting up tent, often this method is used for waking people up.

In old Britain and Ireland, especially during Industrial revolution, the tradition of Knocker-upper was at its best. A person would go around the neighourhood calling out, knocking doors with a stick or shooting peas and tapping on the windows to wake people up. History spells out that even cats were trained to behave similarly, to wake people up.

One of the most interesting methods of waking up was drinking large amounts of water right before going to bed. This would mean that the body would have to relive itself and in order to do so wake up early. This method was used in China and India where the human body itself became the alarm.

While we keep using the word sunkissed today in most of your Instagram photos, sunkissed was a real phenomenon back in the days. Houses were built in such a way that the roof had a hole through which the sun rays fell directly onto a person’s face while they were asleep. Moreover, sometimes mirrors were used to reflect the sun rays to the desirable spot. Thus, with the hot sun-rays directly falling on the face, it was surely time to wake up. This method was quite common in ancient Egypt and Peru.

Prevalent in China and Japan, incense sticks were burnt in this method. Trails of incense sticks were laid out in patterns and supported by weights which would drop whenever the incense burnt out and triggered a chime, which was the sonic response to the alarm system. Anyone waking up to this system would then wake up to the surroundings smelling fresh and fragrant.

In Medieval Europe and China, pins were inserted at certain intervals on a burning candle and placed on a metal plate or bowl. As and when the marks melted, the pins fell off on the metal plate below and the clank noise became the alarm system.

In ancient Greece, Egypt and China, water clocks were also prevalent. These harnessed the power of flowing water which was made to trigger a sound system when it reached a certain mark, thus denoting time.