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When was the snooze button invented?

Last updated: October 15, 2026

Snooze alarm clocks date back to the 1950s. General Electric–Telechron was one of the first to sell one: its Snooz-Alarm is commonly dated to 1956. The roughly 9-minute interval is popularly blamed on the clock's gearing, but that story is not documented.

Mechanical origins

GE-Telechron's Snooz-Alarm (model 7H241) is usually dated to 1956, and Telechron was one of the first companies to sell a snooze alarm. The most common explanation for the 9-minute interval is mechanical: the gears could not be set to exactly 10 minutes, so the snooze landed just under it. That story is widely repeated but not documented: the Snooz-Alarm was advertised as giving "about ten minutes", and a collector who tested several measured 16 to 17 minutes (SlashGear, 2025).

Sleep science came later

The first systematic studies of sleep architecture (Dement and Kleitman) were just beginning in the same decade. The snooze interval was set decades before researchers started studying snoozing itself in the lab (see Sundelin et al., 2024).

Why it stuck

Once a default is set, it propagates. For years the iPhone's Clock app used a fixed 9-minute snooze; only iOS 26 finally lets you pick anywhere from 1 to 15 minutes (MacRumors, 2025). ByeBed simply has no snooze button.

Sources

1. Wikipedia. Telechron
2. Wikipedia. Alarm clock
3. Emma Street, SlashGear, 2025. Why Is Snooze 9 Minutes? Everyone's Been Getting It Wrong, And Here's Why
4. MacRumors, August 2025. iOS 26: Customize iPhone Alarm Snooze Duration (Finally!)
5. Sundelin et al., Journal of Sleep Research, 2024. Is snoozing losing? Why intermittent morning alarms are used and how they affect sleep, cognition, cortisol, and mood