This Outlandish Shark Tank Invention Lets You Wake Up To The Smell Of Bacon

Who doesn't like the smell of crispy bacon in the early morning? As a key player in the classic American breakfast, this cured pork product never goes out of style. In 2024, retail bacon sales reached $5.9 million. In the same year, foodservice operator Smithfield Culinary found that 57% of its surveys respondents would eat bacon every day if they could, while 71% said everything tastes better with bacon. This just shows there's a big market for bacon lovers out there.

So, when Matty Sallin decided to bank on bacon as an alarm clock, you'd think such a novel idea would be guaranteed to succeed. However, there's a big difference between novelty and straight-up outlandishness. What Sallin came up with fell under the latter. He didn't just create an alarm clock shaped like bacon. Instead, he developed an alarm clock-oven hybrid that heats up real bacon 10 minutes before the alarm goes off so the smell of the cured pork spreads throughout the room by the time the clock starts ringing, resulting in full stimulation of senses to set you off for the day.

Determined that his invention had enough merit to attract customers, Sallin presented his alarm clock, dubbed "Wake n' Bacon," on "Shark Tank." Initially, his goal was to secure $40,000 from the sharks, but let's say he got more than that when the cameras started rolling.

Matty Sallin entered the tank seeking $40,000 in exchange for a 20% stake in his business. During his pitch, he revealed that he got the idea for his bacon alarm clock while attending an electronics class at NYU. After surveying students about their ideal way to wake up, he learned that many preferred to wake up to the smell of bacon. This led him to create a wooden Wake n' Bake prototype, which he brought to the studio for his pitch. Sallin said that using the alarm clock required putting pre-cooked bacon strips inside the device. By the time an alarm rings, the bacon is reheated and cooked to perfection inside, so its aroma can fill the room.

While Sallin got the best way to cook a seamless, splatterless bacon breakfast right, the concept was too bizarre and far-fetched for the sharks, especially after learning he'd be using the $40,000 to develop a better prototype, which he would then use to pitch the idea to potential investors and partners. Robert Herjavec, Daymond John, and Barbara Corcoran did not offer a deal, believing the product did not have potential. Kevin O'Leary laughed it off, but not after pointing out how dangerous it was to put an oven next to a bed. Mark Cuban expressed interest, but eventually decided to bow out, leaving Sallin without an offer but with a fat reality check in hand.

For more than a decade, "Shark Tank" has been gracing the small screen with numerous ingenious products. Some found success with or without a deal from the sharks, while others went on to become the biggest flops in "Shark Tank" history. Wake n' Bacon, from the moment it was presented on the show, didn't have a chance to see the light of day for obvious reasons. One of them, as Kevin O'Leary pointed out, was the safety risk that comes with having a working oven next to the bed. Standard mattresses and bedding materials are made of highly flammable materials like foam and fabric. If the oven malfunctions or overheats, there's a good chance it'll cause a fire in the bedroom.

There's also something to be said about hygiene and potential health issues when storing bacon inside the alarm clock overnight, only to eat it sometime the next day. While the heat in the oven would kill some percentage of the bacteria which multiplied overnight, there's no guarantee the food is 100% safe for consumption, especially since the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service has warned against eating food left out of the refrigerator for more than two hours. The grease the bacon will leave on the alarm clock's tray when not cleaned properly can also promote contamination. Given all these, plus the manufacturing challenges and lack of a clear direction, Wake n' Bacon was clearly bound to fail.