Megan Singleton: BloggerAtLarge.com writer on the scented alarm clocks being offered by hotels

The Holiday Inn Express recently unveiled a new morning alarm system that's designed to be more pleasant than a blaring clock.

The Holiday Inn Express Breakfast Alarm Clock is designed to wake guests up with the smell of bacon, coffee or muffins.

BloggerAtLarge's Megan Singleton got the chance to try it out to find out if this technology's worth the hype.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks EDB Travel with Windy Woo Tours. Where
the world is yours for now.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Megan Singleton, blogger at large dot com, is with me.

Speaker 3 (00:20):
Now, good morning, good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Okay, So this is kind of a little unusual. This
is a little bit different, and I'm really keen to
see if it works. So hotels are now offering you
the opportunity to instead of having a loud, aggressive alarm
going off, you're able to set your alarm for a smell,

(00:42):
a smell of coffee or bacon or muffins to be
sprayed around the room. Tell me how does this work?

Speaker 3 (00:51):
Okay? So well, firstly, let me explain. I was at
the Holiday Inn Express, which is a Newish hotel built
in twenty twenty two. On the site, I actually have
the former New Zealand Herald building, so the Windom and
Albert Street buildings. So it's great accommodation. And if anyone's
listening thinking about I need to come Auckland for something,
it's affordable. You're two blocks from the Skytower precinct, You're
a block from Queen Street, but I was there. Yeah,

(01:14):
it's a great guy. I was there to try out
said smelly alarm clock. So you're right, it doesn't make
a sound. It makes a smell, And I could choose
from three cents that they had there, the bacon, the
blueberry muffins, all the coffee. So as soon as I
walked in, I thought, I want to try out a
smell now, and then I want to try out a
smell as an alarm, you know, when I woke up
this morning. So the clock itself is in a little diffuse,

(01:36):
a sort of device with a digital clock as part
of it, and it plugs into the wall. So you
fill the diffuser with water. You choose from one of
those aforementioned scents, you drop five drops in. How I
tried bacon as soon as we walked in. To be honest,
I think the room was a little bit muffiny when
I first arrived. Anyway, maybe the previous person had the

(01:57):
muffins going. I wasn't sure. So then I did. The
bacon started puffing out of the top of the gadget
and I'm wafting it into my face, going, oh, is
it bacony? I'm not sure? It certainly smells like food anyway,
and I thought no, so we I washed it all
out and we went out and got some cocktails. You're
so close like Federal Street. It's all great up there. Anyway.

(02:19):
I decided, right I'm not having up beside the bed
for the morning. I don't want to put thing right
in my face when I wake up. So I washed
it out again, and then I spent honestly about ten
minutes just trying to set the clock up because I'd
unplugged it, and I thought I've done that correctly. Oh
I hadn't. So I put my coffee drops in, I
set it up over by the fridge, and I'm watching

(02:40):
through the night, going, am I smell anything kind of
smelling thing? I don't think I can smell anything like
a relaxing night. Yeah, okay, however, I have to shout
out to the blackout curtains because I got up at
seven point fifteen and it hadn't started. So I manually
turned on my alarm clock, and yes, it smelled like coffee.
Within minutes, I could smell coffee in the room, and

(03:01):
I thought, this is this is quite fun. Would it
have woken me up? I don't think so. I think
it would be quite good if it actually made me
a coffee. And of course the hotel rooms don't have windows,
so you can't vent that stuff out. So anyway, I
have to say I made a video. I've popped it
on my Facebook blogger at large page so people can

(03:24):
see my whole process. Look, it's fun. It's a gimmick.
You have to request it when you make your booking.
It's not just coming standard per room. But I really
found it quite enjoyable. And I chose not to do
the muffins in the end because you sniff them all
first and you decide which one you think is going
to work for you, and it's a lot of fun.
It's really good. I love it.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
Although I think Megan has a very good point. If
there was a little coffee percolator that that just kicked
in at seven o'clock when he wanted to wake up,
made you the coffee and smells of coffee, how good
would that be. I can understand the lingering of other
people's smells might be a bit of an issue as well. Anyway,
great story, love it. Thank you so much, Meghan.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin. Listen
live to news talks. It'd be from nine am some
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