AJ Ferrara

Building a Full-Room Sunrise Alarm Clock from Recycled TVs

tl;dr GitHub Repo

I've always been interested in the idea of waking up with the sunrise. In addition to supporting a more natural circadian rhythm, I find that I am less groggy upon awakening.

A common solution is to leave the window curtains open. However, I live an a suburban environment where many streetlights shine into my windows at night. This light makes it difficult to fall asleep.

My solution to this problem was to create a device that would physically block the windows at night and then itself brighten at sunrise. Years ago, I watched a YouTube video about turning recycled TVs into light fixtures and I realized that this would be a viable solution. I could physically block the windows with the TVs at night and then in the morning, have them illuminate synchronously via an Arduino circuit.

These are the steps I followed to build it:

Building the TVs

1. I followed DIY Perks' wonderful YouTube video to prep the TVs

2. I wired 4 LED strips in parallel on the backlight display for increased luminosity

3. I made sure to leave enough wire exposed outside of the TV to power it via my circuit

Building the Circuit

1. I adapted Benjamen Lim's great guide and Arduino code to suit my needs

2. After building the circuit, I adapted the code for my desired time zone and "sunrise" timing

3. Since it runs off of an Adafruit real-time clock chip, I can upload the code once and have it repeatedly run daily with no maintenance

4. I hooked up the TV power wires to the original LED output of the circuit (the TV is essentially a big LED) and my circuit was complete

Here is the V1 circuit and TV screens to be mounted (my Arduino code can be found here):

Here is a video of it working in action prior to mounting!

After a little drilling, elbow grease, and twine, the screens are mounted. Here is a photo of them turned off and then fully turned on.


I was blown away at how bright these screens were and how much they illuminated the room with believable daylight.

And finally, here is a video of the linear version of the brightening working in action:



This was easily the largest project I have ever worked on as it encompassed both software and hardware. Look mom, my electrical engineering degree actually paid off!