The History of the Snooze Button

The first alarm clock with a snooze button was produced by General Electric in 1956. More specifically, it came from General Electric-Telechron and was called the Snooz-Alarm. In keeping with the technology of the time, it was an analog clock that relied on gears. Adding a snooze button necessitated getting the gear teeth to line up in a specific way for a specific amount of time, but it wasn’t possible to allow for a snooze alarm that lasted for exactly 10 minutes. It was only possible to offer a snooze alarm that lasted for 10 minutes and a handful of seconds, or 9 minutes and a handful of seconds. G.E. leaders chose 9 minutes and a handful of seconds for the first-ever snooze button. Over time, the 9-minute snooze alarm became the default. This carried over when alarm clocks became digital but still used physical snooze buttons. It also carried over when snooze button functionality was added to smartphones and tablets. Today, the snooze button is often no longer a physical button but rather a toggle on a screen, however, the concept lives on and remains very popular, with many users hitting “snooze” more than once every morning. The default time span for the snooze button remains 9 minutes, although modern digital alarms now allow users to customize this setting.