This beautiful headboard simulates sunrises

The world would be a much better place if everyone could wake up to their own natural circadian rhythm and natural sunlight peeking through their window. But the world doesn't work that way and a lot of people have to force themselves to wake up. This is especially true for people who don't have conventional work schedules and this beautiful Sunrise artificial headboard gives them a pleasant wake up call.

Consider how our ancestors woke up before artificial lighting arrived and humanity was still nomadic, because we haven't evolved much since. As the sun began to rise, the sky changed from black to dark blue, then continued to brighten for an hour or two. This provided people with gradual stimulation to bring them from sleep to wakefulness, in stark contrast to the sudden, ringing alarms that are common today. This headboard simulates the gradual sunrise and a built-in personal assistant brews coffee to give sleepers a little extra incentive to get out of bed.

This headboard is beautiful, thanks to its fantastic design and craftsmanship. It partially covers sleepers' heads with Adafruit NeoPixel RGB LED lighting, which increases brightness and changes color during the wake-up routine. Two Arduino Mega 2560 boards control all system functions, including the personalized personal assistant called PRISMA. An Adafruit MP3 Shield gives PRISMA a voice and a MIKROE SpeakUp 2 Click voice recognition board allows PRISMA to understand commands. A DS3231 real-time clock is required for accurate timing.

Details on the construction of the headboard and the functions of PRISMA are available in the Instructables tutorial. But it can respond to a handful of basic commands, such as setting a wake-up time. At this time, the slow animation of the LEDs for the artificial sunrise begins. It also controls the operation of the coffee maker through a relay module connected to one of the Arduino boards.