Wakie App- Get a wake up call from a stranger

by Startacus Admin

I recently saw a little internet image that simply and eloquently partitioned the world into 2 contrasting camps. On the left those who, at the sound of their alarm, awaken and immediately spring from their bed singing ‘Oh what a beautiful morning’. On theright, those who would rather chew their own arm off than face the horrors of verticality and wakefulness.

Over the years all manner of weird and wonderful gadgetry has emerged aimed at the more, shall we say ‘energetically challenged’ amongst us, but the other day I came across an app, which has the potential to trump them all, not only with success rate, but also sheer quirkiness!

Wakie Wakie!

The rather charmingly named ’Wakie’ makes use of these two separate demographics to the greater good of its users, and perhaps even humanity as a whole. It allows you to receive ‘wake up calls’ from total strangers, or if you prefer you can be the one making the calls.

Depending on your particular morning routine you can select to be either a ‘Sleepy-Head’ someone who finds it really hard to get up in the morning, or a Wakie, a person who would delight in sharing their morning enthusiasm for the betterment of their fellow man or woman.

The call you receive will last one minute and can come from anywhere in the world; the only information you receive is the country the person is from, presumably to provide a starting point for the 60 second conversation.

“A lot of people keep snoozing alarm clocks and still can’t wake up. Our research shows that a one-minute talk to a stranger wakes your brain up with a 99% guarantee”.

“When someone asks you questions in the morning your brain has to wake up to answer. Also you try to be kind, you try to turn on your social pattern of behaviour. After the call, you can’t sleep anymore even if you had a short sleep” Hrachik Adjamian, Wakie’s CEO and co-founder told TechCrunch.

A Few Thoughts

The whole thing calls to mind the phenomenally popular ‘chatroulette’ a chat website that matches random people from around the world for webcam conversations. Such a comparison is perhaps a mixed blessing for the folks at Wakie, with the other ‘uses’ people have found for ‘chatroulette’ being well documented in recent times. We shall refrain from any further discussion of such things.

To me, being awaked by a phone call from a random stranger from the other side of the world sounds nothing short of a nightmare, and their friendly attempt to help me get up would be inevitably met with a wall of irritated dismissal.

I can see though, how some less AM adverse folks might find a service like this invaluable, particularly when the fear of being rude or coming across as a total idiot comes into play and forces you to chat with them in an intelligent and alert manner.

Here at Startacus we love it when people find innovative and imaginative new ways to use technology and reckon Wakie is a great example of this!

Hats off to you team Wakie, and much luck in your mission to change the way we wake up forever!

If, like Wakie, you have an innovative and imaginative new app (or any startup or project) then why not showcase it in our collaboration space?

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Published on: 16th December 2014