Air Freshener Alarm Clocks: Cool Trinket, or Useless Cash-Grab?

You may have heard of a crazy new invention in the last few years: An alarm clock that wakes you up with smells, not noise.

Sounds like an invention straight out of a future science fiction movie. Like something you might see in Star Trek, right?

Well, it seems like the invention isn’t quite advanced to “Star Trek” levels yet.

The Sensorwake “Smelly” Alarm Clock

Air freshener alarm clocks became briefly popular in the news during 2015 when Sensorwake, a company pioneering the new smelly clock combo, ran a Kickstarter campaign advertising their new invention.

The only problem? When the smell-based alarm clock actually became available to customers, almost all the reviewers totally trashed it. You can read them here on Amazon yourself.

The reviews have many different complaints. Perhaps the most obvious one is that the smell produced by the alarm clock wasn’t very strong – certainly not strong enough to wake you up in the morning.

Sounds like kind of a pointless “smelly” alarm clock if the smell it produces can’t wake you up, right?

Other complaints included:

  • The company was slow to ship the device.
  • The odor produced by the device is too weak to fill the room and wake you up.
  • The device takes too long to propagate the odor. Minutes after it starts propagating the scent, it then wakes you up with a backup noisy alarm just in case the odor didn’t wake you up. This ruins the whole point of the smelly alarm clock concept.
  • The clock doesn’t hold the chemical cartridge very well, allowing the scent to leak out of it at all times, not just when you want to wake up.
  • Extra scent cartridges that were supposed to ship with the clock weren’t sent.
  • The customer service at Sensorwake was unresponsive and rude.

Since the original Sensorwake air freshener alarm clock was released in 2015, the company has since released a Version 2.0 of the clock called the Sensorwake Trio. They ran a successful Indiegogo campaign promoting it in 2018. This version is for sale on Amazon right now, but my recommendation is to give it hard pass as well.

There aren’t many reviews yet, but the feedback available seems to host the same complaints as before: the device produces a weak scent. It also only fits European outlets, so it won’t work in America without an outlet adapter

An air freshener alarm clock may be a cool idea, but it seems like Sensorwake has not done a good job of making this idea into a reality.

Maybe if they produce a version three of their concept clock, it will perform better than versions one and two. But how many chances are we going to give to this bizarre concept before we say enough is enough?

Any Other “Smelly” Alarm Clocks?

There aren’t many companies even trying to produce an air freshener alarm clock. This is probably because most people who want to put a scent into their home want the scent to be there all the time, not just in the morning.

We did find one air freshener alarm clock currently for sale that looked promising on the surface. However, based on the reviews, there are a lot of customers dissatisfied with this product as well. With a significant percentage of disappointed customers, I wouldn’t risk my own money to buy this device, even if it looks fancy at first glance.

We also found an old air freshener alarm clock that was produced in the past, which you can see pictures of on Amazon here. But that product has since been discontinued, probably due to lack of consumer interest.

One version of the older clock is still available from a seller on eBay, but it’s unclear how many they have in stock or how long such a product will be available.

Conclusion: Stick With A Normal Air Freshener, And A Normal Alarm Clock

If you want a nice smell in your home in the morning, you should avoid poorly crafted experimental air freshener alarm clocks. They don’t seem to work very well.

Instead, just freshen your home all day long with a proven air freshener device such as this.

You can even get electric air fresheners that work on a timer, so they only freshen your house during the daytime when you’re up and about. This is a great idea because the scent cartridge doesn’t get used up at night when nobody is awake to smell it,

Me personally? I recommend finding a good air freshener, and finding a good alarm clock separately.

But as for finding two in one – it doesn’t look like it’s gonna happen any time soon.