which SAD alarm clock?

the one where the light comes on, not some silly ones!

Thanks.

I had a look at them, but they are way overpriced. I just bought a timer plug and have a lamp in the corner of the room to come on half an hour before my alarm goes off.

ps: the theory works great, I wake up much better this way, 99% of the time I am up before the alarm goes off.

pps: If you use ikea energy saving bulbs, they take a few mins to warm up and emit the full amount of light, for anything else they are crap, but for this application they are perfect.

My Mrs has a lumie, from a sunrise perspective it does a great job. It doesn’t keep great time though. Probably a few minutes out per month. Not a deal breaker, just worth noting.

we looked at them but felt they were very overpriced when you consider, they’re ugly looking and cheaply made. Went with a timer plug and an Ikea Lamp.

If a timer plug works for you then great but the point of a sunrise alarm is that it gradually comes on so you don’t wake up suddenly. Waking up suddenly can be a bad start to the day. I’ve got a Naturebright LED one that does the job well but is 6 years old so things have probably moved on.

10000 Lux SAD Light from Maplin (£30) and £2 timer plug from Tesco. I replaced my Lumie with this set up as it’s 10x brighter. Sold my Lumie on STW – just too dim to make any difference.

I have a Lumie too and as my alarm goes off at 5:30 it does mean in the winter I don’t wake up thinking its the middle of the night still.

As Sam said its a terrible time keeper, but that’s not the end of the world.

If mine died I would buy another one as I do think it works.

We currently have This oneby philips which is behaving itself, I probably would not have chosen it for its looks but once in the room strangle inoffensive.
We have had a lumie before and that really was ugly – it only took a small knock for that to die.
One of the smarter ones was a SAD light without a light just an alarm clock type screen that sat on the table with a mains cable coming back out of the light with a female plug that you plugged your own light into, probably the least offensive way to get a SAD light into your room and unlike a simple timer does fade up nicely and can be set for weekends and has an audible alarm. That one stopped operating the light after a while, the clock and alarm still worked.

So thats how we ended up with the Philips, a name brand that should hopefully last more than two years.

haha, MSP those where my exact same thoughts (too pricey, so thought about a timer plug and slow energy daylight bulb). Might still do that but that Maplin offer looks like a good compromise.

Good. Consensus seems to be that they work and are worth getting though.

I have a lumie, that I dont use anymore.

Its not very well built, and the clock and radio are kind of 1980s style even though its only a few years old. Cant bit cutting edge UK technology can you 😉

I only used it to turn the lamp on and that did work OK. But I wouldnt think of it as a bedside clock and radio.

The problem with the daylight lamps and timer route is that you dont get the fade up of the proper lamps. Just having the light turn on will wake you with a start, the idea of the fade up is to slowly rouse you as if by dawn.

EDIT, this one.
bit pants by design, but the lamp works OK

We have a Lumie one and we’ve had it for about 6 years now, we’ve had no problems with it during this time and it has been knocked off the table at least twice. It does lose time as suggested by others but it’s not a massive amount and is easily changed.

It is ugly but you don’t really notice it tucked in the corner of the bedside table. It made a massive difference to us, you don’t realise how much until you stay away in winter and the alarm clock goes off in the dark leaving you bleary eyed and groggy. I would take it everywhere with me if it was smaller!

I have a Lumie Bodyclock Advanced 200, bought via the refurb shop so it cost £59 rather than £100. Their customer service is pretty good so if it does break (the first one they sent me flickered a lot) they are good at fixing it. Waking up is still horrible though – I’m not convinced yet that it’s helping so their 30-day trial is a plus.

If you’re looking for a SAD lamp as well, I can recommend the Brightspark. It fits into a corner on my desk at work & is pretty unobtrusive.

If a timer plug works for you then great but the point of a sunrise alarm is that it gradually comes on

Timer plug + energy saving bulb?

If mine are anything to go by then they take at least an hour to light up.

My 2 year old has this 😉

+1 for Lumie’s effectiveness.. -1 for price (does it really cost that much for a fade up/down light function!?), -1 for time slippage…

simonm what is that? I could do with one of those for my kids room.

I’ve just ordered a £19.99 one off ebay (£25 all in and reduced from £50 allegedly) so I’ll see how that goes. It has 15 and 30 minute wake up option and can be used for light therapy.

simonm what is that? I could do with one of those for my kids room.

Gro-Clock: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B002APJCNE

Singletracksurfer -google image search (using the image URL) works wonders – I love google’s tech.

http://tinyurl.com/667p3bl

Or, you know, just read it off the logo on the clock 😀

the one on the right doesn’t look too happy:

We have one of the Phillips ones that Doh1Nut linked to. Ours has gone completely loopy (just outside the 1 year warrenty, irritatingly) with the radio randomly switching itself on and off at all hours for a few seconds. Irritating to say the least. I need to take it apart and see if I can disconnect the radio without completely destroying the thing.

I saw some reviews about a high return rate, but thought I’d take the risk while Boots had them at half price.

couldn’t make out the logo. Ah didn’t know the power of google (image search). Must stop going out on my bike so much 😉 Thanks.

I’ve used a Lumie bodyclock as am alarm for last few years.. Muchn prefer it toa regular alarm clock and like the sleep (fading) light function too..
For an actual ‘sunshine subsitute’ you need another lamp too (I use a lumie zip)
Cheers
Mark

Our lad loved the Gro-Clock. Shame he couldn’t wait for the sun to come up to get out of bed though :O(

We did start him late on it though so for a youngster it might work (he was 3.5-4 IIRC)

Tim

are you selling yours then stoner?

dont forget to put the key guard on, took me 3 nights of someone getting up and changing it to sunshine before I read the manual and found the key guard.

not at the moment STS. We’re using it as an adjustable night light in jrs room (you can “tune” brightness manually and leave it on over night).

Been using the Philips one for over 2 years. No problems with it.
Use with blackout curtains in the summer.
I feel it makes a much nicer start to the day,so I’d recommend it.
Ours is set so the light gradually brightens, over about a half hour, then starts a dawn chorus.
Other themes and light/radio settings are available on this device too.

Or, you know, just read it off the logo on the clock

Sod off, takes longer to squint than copy and paste!

Just bought a digital 7day timer form B&Q and a lamp. £20 all in. Set it to 30min before the alarm goes off sot he rrom is light when I wake up.

Worked perfectly.

In that it didn’t work, so I got out of bed when my alarm went off to figure out that I’d set it to off after testing it in the manual mode. Pressing manual again turns it off rather than sithcing to Auto. Which is stilly as there’s a great big “OFF” switch on the wall next to it!

MAybe I need some kind of rubics cube/problem solving alarm clock.