I am looking for a wrist watch with a loud enough alarm to wake me up in the mornings. My hearing still tests fine, so that is not the issue. I do take the watch off at night and lay it on the tent floor close by; obviously I'm not going to hear anything when the watch is down in the sleeping bag! My results, so far, are the following:

Timex--can't even hear the alarm when I'm wide awake unless I put the watch right against my ear.

Casio (men's)--I can hear it when awake, but about 2/3 of the time it won't wake me up in the morning. If I put it in my cooking pot to produce an echo, it wakes me up about 50% of the time.

High Gear Axio (with altimeter and thermometer)--the alarm is even fainter than Timex's, so that feature is completely useless. This watch is a good deal at Campmor if you don't care when you get up!

I really don't want to haul the weight of a loud travel alarm unless I absolutely have to! There are some days when I need to get on the trail early, and those are invariably the days that the watch doesn't wake me up!