At the risk of further thread drift ...
what works for me is an app on my smartphone. Wakes me up gradually (not jarringly) but gets increasingly louder until it's loud enough to definitely wake me.

In terms of electronic compasses as the OP asked about --- I have little experience, I tend to pull out a light analog compass if I need one. I too have fallen out of love with altitude watches, and now prefer just the cheapest Casio I can find. It's lighter, it keeps fine time, and it's one less thing to worry or stress over.

If I really want to know my altitude and can't derive it from a map, the GPS app on my smartphone will tell me this to within all the accuracy I care about (generally by looking at topo lines rather than GPS-calculated).