If a vibrating alarm clock or flashing lights aren't enough to wake you from a deep sleep, or you want to try something less conventional, a new fire alarm from Japan might drive you from your bed with hunger.

Based on Japan's spicy green horseradish - an eye-watering condiment that has a distinctive smell and cuts through all other smells - this smoke detector sprays a wasabi scent when it detects smoke. Assistant professor Makoto Imai from the Shiga University of Medical Science built this alarm in collaboration with Seems, a company that makes perfume.

He told Reuters in an email, "The proportion of the elderly among fire victims was nearly 50 percent, So, the staff at Seems...thought that the decline of hearing ability may be one of the causes for delay in noticing and getting away when a fire breaks out." He says the smoke detector may save lives among the hard of hearing.

The wasabi smoke detector was tested on 14 people, including four deaf people. Except for one person with a blocked nose, all woke up within two minutes of the smell reaching them. According to a CBS report, the people with hearing impairments were particularly quick to wake up, with one person emerging from sleep in just ten seconds.

Imai told Reuters that trial production would be completed in a year and the products would be sold in shops within two years.

One obvious drawback is pointed out by Erica Penn of Washington, DC, "I have severe spring allergies, and very often have a stuffy nose, can't breathe well, even with antihistamines, etc. Therefore, I wouldn't want to rely on an alarm system that solely goes by smell alone." It's unclear whether the smell is pungent enough to affect the eyes too, but watery eyes may not be enough to wake up someone from a deep sleep.

Penn cites another negative with this alarm system: "I love the smell of wasabi. (Huge sushi nut here.) So, even if I smelled wasabi, it wouldn't wake me up. LOL." Penn says she has a heavy-duty flashing strobe alarm for the fire alarm, and also has a husband for the front door/window security alarm, which is sound only, but is so loud that it wakes up everyone else in the family. So she's pretty secure in what she already has.

Lisa Heartney of St. Louis, MO brings up some interesting questions. "What if you cooked a delicious meal with wasabi sauce and with that smell lingering in your home, and then the fire alarm goes off in the middle of the night, would you wake up? Or, [what] if you live near a Japanese restaurant? No, I would NOT buy this. However, I have been woken up from deep sleep to burnt toast or melting tea kettle thanks to my husband leaving things burning. The sense of smell is amazingly strong in deaf people."

A good compromise is suggested by Jay Wyant of Minneapolis, MN. "Ideally, it would be part of a system - either vibrate or strobe. That way, you are not dependent on one stimuli. Say you have a set of toggles like you do with the Shake Awake: audio, vibrate, strobe, and wasabi. Select one, two, three, or all."

You know what they say - when you lose a sense, the other ones are enhanced. But if the smell of wasabi wakes you up, will you be craving sushi as you flee?

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