Waking up to the smell of bacon is a beloved fantasy. It’s partly appealing because it implies that you slept late enough for someone else in your life (a family member, a friend, an invasive Paula Deen neighbor) to take responsibility for cooking breakfast. But most of the hype comes from the bacon itself. So why not be woken up this way every day? Oscar Mayer is going to make it happen.
The Oscar Mayer bacon alarm clock has two components: the Wake Up and Smell the Bacon iOS app and the iPhone scent dongle. You set the alarm on the app and plug the dongle into the headphone jack on your smartphone. When your alarm goes off, the app produces the sound of bacon sizzling, and the dongle works like a Glade PlugIn that draws some power from your phone to release some bacon-rific scent.
The dongle is only available to winners of an Oscar Mayer contest (you can enter on the Wake Up and Smell the Bacon website), but the iOS app is free to download. Honestly, Slate testers agree that the bacon sound leaves something to be desired. It sounds more like a rain track than bacon in a skillet. Also, the voice from the promotional video (below) says dramatic things about bacon—“baconisms”—as part of the alarm sound, which is kind of disconcerting. Luckily you can turn the talking off.
The Oscar Mayer dongle isn’t the only device to bring bacon scent to a smartphone, but you can’t beat the endorsement of being manufactured by a major bacon player. The main concern here is that the magic and wonder of waking up to bacon will be lost if you can have it every day. Sure, there are fewer calories this way, but there’s also less excitement and pure joy.
