Gadget Review: Moshi Lifestyle Alarm Clock

By Jonathan Volks

I want to talk a little bit about a new gadget I picked up called the Moshi Lifestyle Interactive Voice Responsive Alarm Clock. Its an interesting looking alarm clock that has voice recognition software in it allowing the user to verbally tell the alarm clock what time it is, when the alarm goes off and a few other options. If your interested in learning more about it, you can go to their website here.

History: I absolutely hate being woken up in the morning especially by a loud beeping noise telling me its time to get up and go work. It finally go to a point where I really hated my current alarm clock and began thinking its time to get a new one. Perhaps one that played music or had a couple varieties of beeping noises.

I’ve only been thinking about it when I got an e-mail from Hammacher Schlemmer and the first product they were promoting was the Moshi Alarm Clock. Since I was interested in a new alarm clock I clicked on the link and read about. It was voice activated which the Trekkie in me was very interested in.  So I went ahead and purchased it. It was bit pricey but I couldn’t help myself.

First Impressions: When the shipment arrived, I was pretty excited as I do not get new gadgets often. The one thing I really liked about it was the fact that there isn’t always a light on so at night, I do not have another light shining in my face. Setting it up was real easy, all I had to do was plug it in. Then say “Hello Moshi”, wait for a response and then say “Set Time”. Moshi will respond with the correct format to say the time in and then all I had to say was 6:30 pm. The simplicity of it impressed me and at first the voice recognition software didn’t seem to have any problems.

In case your wondering the different features Moshi has are;

1. Time – Moshi responds with current time.
2. Set Time – user tells Moshi the current time.
3. Alarm – Moshi response with current alarm time, on/off, and the alarm sound.
4. Set Alarm – user tells Moshi the alarm time.
5. Alarm Sound – Moshi will play three sounds and user has to choose which one
6. Turn off the alarm – user tells Moshi to turn off the alarm.
7. Sleep Sound – Moshi will play 3 sleep sounds (water, birds or waterfall) and user chooses one.
8. Play Sleep Sound – Moshi will current sleep sound.
9. Today’s Date – Moshi will respond with today’s date.
10. Temperature – Moshi will respond with the current temperature.
11. Night Light – Moshi alternates colors.
12. Help – Moshi responds with list of commands.

Lasting Impressions: Now that I have had it for a while, I’ve noticed some flaws in it that have made me regret purchasing it. Actually what I should say is made me regret for purchasing it for the price I did. Had it been about half what I paid then I wouldn’t quite have regretted my purchase. The only real flaw would have to be the voice recognition software has trouble with the word eight. On week days I wake up at 8:10am and when I try to set the alarm it keeps setting it to 3:10am. It takes 8-10 tries for me to set the alarm to 8:10am. On some mornings I like to reset the alarm  to 8:30 but when I tried it kept setting it to 3:30am and I would get frustrated which is something I particularly do not want first thing in the morning. With this flaw I pretty much dislike to try and change the alarm so I leave it set to 8:10am and if I want to reset it then I use my alarm clock on my cell phone.

Modifications: If I had been on the design team for this a couple things I would have change are;

1. Temperature – I would have added some kind of remote sensor so that the user could put it outside and when the alarm goes off they get the temperature outside and not the one inside.
2. Voice Recognition Interface – Currently to get the time, its a four step process. 1) user says “hello moshi” 2) Moshi responds with “Command Please” 3) User says “time” 4) Moshi responds with current time. I think this could have been dropped down to a two step process. 1) User says “Hello Moshi, time” 2) Moshi would then respond with the time.
3. Add USB or SD Card Slot – I would have liked to see a USB or SD card slot to play MP3s either as the alarm sound or the sound sleep. I’m not exactly sure how it would work with the voice recognition. It would have to be something like file 1, file 2, file 3, etc. This is kind of going above and beyond for an alarm clock but would be a cool feature.

Overall: As I mentioned earlier I regret paying the price that I did for it. Something like half the would have been suffice. Overall I would have to give it a 6 out of 10. Maybe in a couple of years when voice recognition gets a little bit better that something like this would be more useful.