Stop! BeoTime!

Fwd Tech  Thursday 16 July 2009

Bang & Olufsen unveils the BeoTime: the flute-like alarm clock

It’s not often that we dedicate a whole news story to an alarm clock, but the BeoTime from those purveyors of luxury humungo-TVs, Bang & Olufsen, is possibly the sexiest slither of an alarm clock that we’ve ever seen… despite looking a bit like a flute.

The Bang & Olufsen BeoTime has been designed by Steffen Schmelling, who you’d be forgiven for thinking had an obsession with instruments. The BeoTime measures just 24×390x25mm and weighs a supremely light 170g, so it’ll look as minimalist on your sideboard as it does in the picture above.

So, apart from looking like a flute (it was actually inspired by Mozart’s The Magic Flute!), what are the BeoTime’s special talents? Naturally, being an alarm clock, it’ll wake you up. But it also works as a remote and controls other Bang & Olufsen units in your room. There are tiny backlit displays on the BeoTime as well that automatically adjust to the way you’re holding it thanls to a motion sensor. Elsewhere there’s a sleep timer so you can fall into your slumber without worrying about turning off tunes, and a snooze function – you just have to touch the BeoTime and it’ll go into Snooze mode.

So how much for such a precision tool? Well, the BeoTime will be hitting stores in August in the US for around $375 – that’s about £230. We’re still waiting for a UK wake up call, but as soon as we know, you’ll know.