Morning Sunrise System Dawn Dusk Sun Alarm Clock SRS100US

I am not a morning person. When our old alarm would go off in morning, I would always get startled, and could not believe it is time to get up again. I would feel awfully drowsy and could go back to sleep in a second if I wanted to. It doesn't help that it is still pretty dark at 6:30 in the morning.We used to have a Remington sunrise alarm about 4-5 years ago, which is just like those sunrise alarms with a light attach to it. We stopped using it after a short while because of 3 reasons. You could not control the time of sunrise. The light was a tiny light bulb and it would be too bright as soon as the sunrise turned on causing you to wake up almost right way/too early, and finally, the location and the features of all the buttons were poorly designed. After years of miserable mornings, I did some research and decided on this clock; there were 4 features I really liked (and now like since I now own it):1. You can use your own light, not some week tiny little bulb attach to the clock. That means that you can use a full spectrum light if you want to (one that is close to actual sunlight) 2. You can set the sunrise time to suit you, from a 15 minute sunrise to a 90 minute sunrise. 3. You can change the brightness and the contrast of the display. I personally severely dislike bright displays because our room is very dark and the bright displays seem to shine right in my eyes making it even harder for me to fall asleep (I have insomnia) 4. I love that I can set the alarm for a different time every day of the week. Another reviewer did not like it, but I do. There is no way I am getting up early on the weekend if I don't have to. If you need to get up the same time every day, you can just set all days the same time once and that's it.I thought the set up was easy and intuitive. You press the set button once, and set the time; you press it again and set the something else, press again and set the 3rd feature. Simple. Basically, the very first time you set it up, you will go through 15 features (7 of them being the alarm time for each day). After everything is set, you only need to do it once, there is an alarm on/off bottom that you need to use to turn the alarm on (or off). There is also a snooze button, but I have never used snooze in my life, so I have no idea if it is a good feature or not. There are other features such as sunset, night light, reading light etc. but we have not used them. There is also a backup alarm (sound) to make sure you are awake, but we have not needed it. I tested the sunrise the night before and was pleased to find out that the light was very, very, faint when the sunrise started. That was a big issue with the old sunrise alarm clock (it would be to bright at the beginning of the cycle) and the main reason why we quit using it.We have the sunrise set for 6:30 and a 15 minute cycle. The very first morning, I (and my husband) woke up by myself around 6:25 and felt refreshed. It was a weird feeling because I am not used to feeling refreshed at 6:30 in the morning. The second day, we woke up at about 6:20. We use a lamp across the room that is pretty bright (it is actually made of 3 lights that you can adjust/tilt, and we have all 3 pointed towards the bed).Cons:-The plug and cord that you are supposed to plug the light in is very short (they assume you will used the light on your bed stand), but you can solve it by using an extension chord.-The way you turn off the sunrise alarm after you get up. There is a "+" and "-" button (because you can use your lamp as a reading lamp and adjust the brightness with those buttons) but you turn also turn off the sunrise by pressing the "-" button until the light completely dims. I think there should be one simple off button for that purpose.UPDATE 2/19/09:2 years after using the alarm, we bought a new lamp. I tired to set the new lamp up with the clock, however, the new lamp literately fried the alarm (electric burning/smoke), and the alarm is no longer usable/dead. I don't have the original instructions anymore, but I recall reading that you have to be quite careful what type of lamp you use. Just a word of caution that the sun alarm does not work with all lights, and the wrong light can damage the alarm, so be careful when hook your light up (check wattage etc according to the instructions). Also, from experience, the alarm does not work with touch lamps.... So, unfortunately I have to buy a new one. I did my due diligence and took a look at reviews of other sunrise alarms again to if there was anything new/improved/better on the market, but could not find anything, so I am buying another one of these (plus I really like this one).

The clock "works" that is it's able to turn on and off a lamp at schedule times. The user interface and physical packing however are terrible.The cord for the unit projects from the back of the clock which is unfortunate as it prevents you from putting the clock on a shelf and causes it to move around and be very awkward on a bed stand. You can forget about picking it up to look at it or operate the buttons without your glasses. Firstly, you'll drag the cord and the lamp along with the clock knocking anything else on the stand onto the floor. Secondly, the controls are quite cramped, poorly placed and marked and invisible in dim light or without your glasses- more on that.The user interface, if it can be called that, is literally the worst I've encountered. Each day's alarm needs to be set individually and if you want to change an alarm time or anything else about clock (or you have a power outage) you need to cycle serially through EVERY SINGLE SETTING to do anything. If you make a mistake because you're impatient and cycle past what you want to set- tough luck you have to go all the way around again. The alarm must be turned on and off each day because if you don't it won't turn off the light- just assume that when you hit the large ZZZ button on the front that you want to snooze. Also, if the alarm is set you can't adjust anything in the clock. Unfortunately if you forget to rearm the alarm that night then you won't be getting up in the morning. There is no way to turn off the light in the morning without running this risk. There needs to be a button which turns off the light in the morning without affecting the alarm settings. Also the up/down buttons are on the front of the unit but the set and change mode units are on the top of the unit and not easily distinguished from one another.Some of the other features, like the night light, are well, poorly implemented. The contrast and brightness of the unit can be adjusted but those adjustments seem to have no actual effect on the display. It looks just as glaringly bright regardless. Perhaps it's a why the cord extends awkwardly out of the back of the unit so you end up placing it's face against the wall where you can't even see the display- the unit is NOT useful as a clock for this reason.The physical packaging and user interface of this unit is TERRIBLE- the worst. So the clock works, but that's it.As far as waking up to a light rather than a sound alarm- well it made a small difference in my mood but not a huge one. I'm not sure it's worth the trouble of using this awkward device or it's rather ridiculous cost.

Preferred the original version - much easier to set up.