Great for people who can't wake up in winter! (Lumie Bodyclock Advanced)

Member Name: FairyG

Product:	Lumie Bodyclock Advanced
Date:	21/09/08 (486 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Creates a bright daylight effect to wake up to.

Disadvantages: Buttons hard to find in the dark.

I'm one of those people who hates dark winter mornings and finds it difficult to wake up. I really miss the daylight! Last winter I started looking for something to make winter mornings a bit brighter and did my research on the web. Lumie came up as the best makers of sunrise alarm clocks and I chose this one as having the most useful features. It also looks quite funky and modern, and the frosted glass shade is nice, although be warned the silvery base is only plastic.

I've got to say, it's absolutely great and just what I needed. I can use it as a reading light at night. There's a plus button and a minus button that I can press to select a brighter or dimmer light so it's comfortable for reading.

I've got the sunrise set to start 30 minutes before wake up time. It will gently start increasing the light until after half an hour it's at full brightness. If I haven't woken up and switched it off by then, it will start to beep. Believe me, it always wakes me up before the beep, usually about ten minutes before full brightness! It's a much more gentle way to wake up as it wakes you gradually and naturally like the sun shining in on a summer morning. I definitely feel more alert and ready to start the day.
It has fade up speeds of 15, 60 or 90 minutes so you can choose the one that suits you best. It also has a nine minute snooze function, although I find I rarely use it. If you find you don't want the beeper function at all you can disable it altogether, which is useful if it's likely to disturb someone else in the room.

Another nice function this clock has, is a sunset sequence. As with the sunrise you can set this to different speeds. Mine is set at 15 minutes, which means when I press the sunrise/sunset button it will gradually dim to a lovely rosy glow before switching off altogether. It's a relaxing way to fall asleep and apparently it all helps to regulate your circadian rhythm. Another option with this is you can set it to stay on as a nightlight at 10% of its light intensity.

The clock also has a sleepsound feature, which is a white noise hiss, that masks outside noises when you want to sleep. It's not a function I use, but it might be useful for shift workers who are trying to cut out noise so they can nod off during the day. You can set this to continuous, or to fade out with the sunset light.

You can also use this clock as a security light. If you enable the security setting it will switch on and off at random between 4pm and 11pm to make it look as if the house is occupied.

There are a few little things I'm not keen on with this clock. The buttons are fiddly to find in the dark. As there's a row of four buttons, it's not always easy to find the right one the first time. Also, although you can set the clock to automatically dim the time display to a more comfortable level at night, it still glows quite bright. On the one hand this is really good for my shortsighted vision as it means I can see the time clearly, but on the other hand it's quite disturbing. The only ways I've found around that are to make sure it's not on eye level, turn the clock away from me, or to put something in front of it.

Overall I would say these are minor things and although this is not the cheapest of a alarm clocks, it makes waking up much more pleasant. It's fairly simple to operate and the manual is user friendly. I've had my clock nearly a year, and I've had no problems. Also I'm still on the first bulb, which came with it. Bear in mind the new bulbs are around £5 each though!

Summary: An effective dawn alarm that wakes you up gently.