沒有聲音的鬧鐘：讓香味喚醒你
Nobody likes waking up in the morning to the nagging, electronic bleep of regular alarm clocks or smartphones, but the smell of just-baked croissants and freshly roasted coffee? Now you're talking.
沒有人喜歡早晨普通鬧鐘或智能手機裏鬧鈴發出的吵鬧不休的聲音，那剛烤好的羊角麪包和剛煮好的咖啡的味道呢？這還差不多。
The Sensorwake, currently debuting at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, takes a vastly different approach to getting your attention when it's time to wake up. Instead of using sound to stir you, the clock uses smell, thanks to the "timed release of an aroma of your choice".
氣味鬧鐘最近在拉斯維加斯舉行的消費電子展上首次登臺亮相，它採用一種完全不同的方式喊你起牀。比起利用聲音來刺激你，這個鬧鐘會利用你事先選擇好的香味喊你起牀。
The brainchild of 19-year-old Guillaume Rolland, an engineering student from France, the Sensorwake was successfully crowd-funded last year to the tune of US$200,000, and Rolland is now taking pre-orders for retail units that will ship in the first half of 2016.
法國19歲的工科學生紀堯姆·羅蘭德想出了氣味鬧鐘這個主意，去年他成功地利用這個想法衆籌到了20萬美元。現在羅蘭德接受零售單位預定，第一批產品將在2016年上半年陸續發出。
The device functions a little bit like a toaster, with reusable scent capsules inserted into a slot along the top edge of the clock. Each capsule lasts for "30 awakenings", meaning you'll get about a month out of a scent before you need to replace it.
氣味鬧鐘的工作原理有點類似烤麪包機，人們需在鬧鐘頂部插入能重複使用的氣味膠囊。每個膠囊能叫醒你30次，意味着你在需要替換氣味膠囊之前，可以聞一個月的香味。
At launch, there will be six aromas available via the Sensorwake website, with plans to sell them via retail outlets later (provided the product is enough of a success, we're guessing).
該鬧鐘面世之後將在氣味鬧鐘網站上推出六種香味膠囊，羅蘭德打算隨後通過零售商來出售香味膠囊（如果產品足夠成功的話）。
Aromas are bundled in packs. There's the delicious-sounding 'Continental Breakfast Pack', which comes with one Espresso aroma capsule and one Hot Croissant capsule. The 'Enjoy the Break Pack' includes Seaside (monoi, tiare flower) and Lush Jungle (cut grass, leaves). There's also the 'Vitalisation Aromatherapy Pack', which offers a Chocolate aroma plus Invigorating Peppermint. Mmm!
香味膠囊以組合套裝的形式出售。有聽起來很美味的“歐式早餐套裝”，使用者們能聞到濃縮咖啡和熱羊角麪包的香味。“享受休憩時光套裝”則能讓你聞到海的味道（摩諾伊油、提亞蕾花）和熱帶叢林的味道（草和樹葉割開的味道）。還有“活力香味套裝”，能讓你聞到巧克力和讓人精力充沛的薄荷氣味。
But do scents work as well as a regular audio alarm in terms of waking you up? While we might hate the sound of conventional alarms, they seem to be jarringly effective for most regular sleepers. Rolland claims that the Sensorwake is just as good as audio alarms, with internal testing showing his scent-based alarm wakes 99 percent of people in 2 minutes.
但氣味真的能像普通鬧鐘一樣把你叫醒嗎？雖然我們很厭惡鬧鐘的聲音，但其實對於大部分沉睡者來說它們纔是最有效的鬧鐘。羅蘭德宣稱氣味鬧鐘和發出聲音的鬧鐘一樣好，內部測試表明他的氣味鬧鐘能在兩分鐘內叫醒99%的人。
While the Sensorwake could be as effective as Rolland claims, previous research on the rousing abilities of scents hasn't been so positive. A 1997 study by fire and rescue workers in Irondale, Alabama was designed to test whether adults woke up in the presence of smoke, water and citrus odours. Of 10 sleeping participants, only two woke up when exposed to the aromas.
氣味鬧鐘的效果如何我們尚無法判定，不過先前有研究發現氣味叫醒人們的能力不容樂觀。1997年一項測試了阿拉巴馬州艾昂戴爾消防員的研究，利用煙味、水和柑橘味來叫醒他們。在十名參與者中，僅兩人在聞到味道之後醒了過來。
A subsequent study at Brown University in 2004 also found that scents were not particularly effective at waking sleepers. Pepperment and pyridine scents were presented in different concentrations to sleepers at different stages of sleep. The odours scored mixed results, while audio tones played over a speaker were significantly more effective at rousing the sleepers, leading the researchers to conclude that "human olfaction is not reliably capable of alerting a sleeper".
2004年布朗大學一項後續研究也發現，氣味並不能有效地叫醒沉睡者。他們給陷入不同睡眠階段的參與者聞不同濃度的薄荷味和氮苯味，參與者們的反應不一，但發出聲音的鬧鐘效果明顯更好。這促使研究人員們得出“人類的嗅覺並不足以叫醒一名沉睡者”的結論。
The Sensorwake comes with an insurance policy for any sleepers who aren't roused by its primary feature. For extra-heavy sleepers or those with stuffed noses who don't register the scent, there's a backup audio alarm that's triggered to go off if the aroma hasn't woken you up within 3 minutes.
氣味鬧鐘還爲每個沉睡者們準備了保險措施，避免他們出現醒不來的情況。對於那些酣睡者或聞不到氣味的鼻塞者，如果氣味鬧鐘在3分鐘內還沒有叫醒你，那麼備用的聲音鬧鐘就會被觸發。
Vocabulary
croissant: 羊角麪包
Espresso: 濃縮咖啡
monoi: 摩諾伊油
tiare flower: 提亞蕾花
citrus: 柑橘，檸檬
