Philips Wake-up Light HF3505/60

TLDR -> Only had it for one night but it seems to work. Pros: Very bright. Alarm noises are pleasant and not too jarring. Extremely easy to use interface. Did wake up without feeling exhausted. Cons: Felt a bit cheap (again, light electronics don't feel sturdy to me so it's strictly personal preference here). Setting brightness for night lamp use seems to affect alarm brightness. Only one night of testing so far. Full Review ------------- I tend to be up pretty late in, usually asleep between 12 - 1 in the morning. I have tried setting multiple alarms on my phone and smart watch to wake me up but it seems like I turn them off in my sleep. Most of the time I wake up with enough time to get ready for work but one recent evening I couldn't fall asleep until 3:30 in the morning and missed a morning meeting. Enter this alarm clock. When I first opened the package and pulled out the device it honestly felt a little cheap. The plastic didn't seem high enough quality and it felt very light (I tend to think lighter things feel less sturdy than heavier so take this with a grain of salt). I turned on the device and configured it and ran it through the demo mode. Much to my enjoyment, it was a very easy setup and the demonstration mode gave me a good idea of what to expect. Set it up on the bed stand, approximately 24 inches away from me and prepped for sleep. I turned down the brightness to use it as a room light while I was brushing my teeth and went to bed around 12:30 in the morning. Surprisingly, I woke up right as the alarm went off at 7 AM, just 6.5 hours later. The brightness was a bit unimpressive but that appears to be because the brightness the device was using when I had it on as a lamp appears to be the brightness the device maxes out at when using the alarm. Suffice it to say I will be turning up the brightness for the next night. At the end of the day, I did wake up feeling a bit more refreshed in my dark room (winter here now so the mornings are a bit dark when I wake up) but I can't say for sure if that's because this is a new device and I'm excited to test it or if this is because the device is actually good. More to come in the following weeks.

I had a Philips a long, long time ago. It's actually for sale on Amazon for $299.00. While tempted, I chose this one instead. No regrets. I've used for a week so far. I am waking up happier and ON TIME. For once in my life. I know there are a lot of other ones out there that have this, that and the other thing, but I'm a simple girl with simple needs. Easy to program. No battery back up, but I'm okay with that. My cats love it too! The first bird chirping sound is really nice, second one, not sure it's for me, but still pretty. I actually wake up to K-Love the Christian radio station. It's not bad for reading at night. If you stare into it you see halo's just so you know. I can read at night, yet it's soft enough to tell me it's time to go to bed. My other lamp was super bright so I kept on reading instead of shutting it off. It fits nice enough on the bedside table. I have a small one. I still have my phone there too just in case. Good purchase. :)

The price premium over the older model is justified. Every issue I've seen in reviews of similar products have all been addressed. Sound and light are independently toggleable. Both can be set at 10 levels of intensity. The nature sounds fooled me the first morning, I thought it was real birds. The time display is bright by default but can be dimmed significantly or turned off if it disturbs your sleep. The product is very elegant. The buttons work like a touch screen. This alarm clock has genuinely had a great impact on my sleep. I used to wake up tired and feel tired all day. Now I wake up refreshed and with more energy throughout the day. I love the alarm clock, but there are some cons. It is quite bright but it doesn't exactly light up the room, so it's recommended to place the clock near your head on a nightstand. This alarm clock more prepares you for waking up rather than actually and abruptly waking you up, so use a secondary traditional alarm clock if you must wake up at a certain time.

I read the other reviews pretty extensively before buying this, and almost all the drawbacks mentioned really are drawbacks. But in the end, what matters is whether it works for you, person considering buying it. I'm keeping mine, and I'll describe why by listing the shortcomings: 1) Settings remain at last adjustment: You can use the clock as a lamp whenever, and the lamp brightness is adjustable; but whatever you adjust it to while using it as a lamp, that's the maximum brightness it will come to the next time you use it as an alarm clock. So if you want maximum brightness in the morning (I do) but find that that's too bright for use as a reading lamp (it really kind of is), you'll have to readjust the brightness to alarm level before each time you turn it off as reading lamp. And the same goes for volume: if you want to use the radio independently of when you're waking up, whatever volume you adjust it to, that's the volume it'll wake you up at when your alarm next goes off. This is not ideal. You can either live with the inconvenience of constantly readjusting the settings, or you can do what I do: have a separate reading lamp next to it on your night table, and do people even listen to the radio while hanging out in their bedroom? I don't. 2) Digital clock display is too bright even on the dimmest setting: I do have mine on the dimmest setting, and while it's a bit darker than most other alarm clocks, I agree that it would be nice if there were an even dimmer setting available. Not a deal breaker. 3) It might eat away 15 minutes of sleep time: a common complaint in the negative reviews is that the light wakes you up before the sounds go off, so you lose ~15 minutes of sleep. I believed that would happen to me too, so on the first day, I set my alarm 15 minutes later than usual, assuming the light would wake me up about halfway through the 30 minute artificial sunrise. It didn't, and I was about 15 minutes late to work. But maybe you're a lighter sleeper than me; doesn't matter. Figure out when during the 30 minute sunrise you naturally wake up, and adjust the alarm time so that you're waking up when you want or need to. No big deal. The only problem is, if you're a deep sleeper like me, you don't actually see the 30 minute sunrise. By the time you wake up, you catch a brief glimpse of bright light before shutting it off because you have to go brush your teeth in the next room or whatever. I don't know if it made a difference that the light kept getting brighter while I was asleep. I know I woke up happy, but maybe that's just because the wake up sound was bird songs. I freaking love songbirds. 4) Touch display makes it difficult to find the buttons: when left alone with the lamp off, only the time displays (and a little alarm symbol if your alarm is on). When you wave your hand in front of the clock, teeny-tiny touch buttons light up around the clock, too. Are they hard to find? Not when the lamp is off. They're small, but you remember where each one is after one use anyway. However... in the morning, when the 30 minute sunrise has just ended, and you're trying to turn off the alarm but the lamp is on its brightest setting, you're kind of staring into the sun to try and find the alarm off button. That is tricky, and annoying, and hurts your eyes. I'm not a fan. But it's only one second every morning, I'll live with it. 5) The clock being unsteady: it's really not. It is, however, very lightweight--so even though it's perfectly steady just standing there, if you whack it really hard to snooze it, it would probably fall right off the table. I don't wake up full of hulk strength though, so that hasn't been a problem. I like that it's lightweight. 6) The plastic it's made of feels cheap: what? No! It feels very lightweight, but otherwise the clock feels sleek and futuristic, not cheap. I mean, yes, it's made of plastic. But so is most of my laptop, y'know? 7) The LED bulb is not replaceable, and there's no battery so if there's a brief outage you'll have to reset the time: I'm not worried about an LED bulb burning out any time soon, especially since I'm not using this clock as a lamp outside of wake up time. But yes, having to reset the time each time there's an outage will be a pain. Still not a deal breaker. 8) You really have to read the manual to know how to use it because it's not intuitive: well, I'm a manual reader by nature. The manual that came with this clock was incredibly short and sweet. Read it once, it's super easy to follow, and it'll take 5 minutes. Overall impressions: - Sunrise is missed because I sleep through it, so I'm not exactly relying on this clock to get me through winter--I got a light box, too. - Bird sounds are wonderful. - I love that the sound volume, brightness at wake up, and brightness of the clock display are all adjustable. That's way more customizable than my previous $15 alarm clocks. I don't mind that the sunrise time can't be customized. I don't mind that the dimmest clock display setting could be dimmer. - I actually love the feel of this clock, the smooth touch display, the fact that the buttons light up when you bring your hand close to it. UPDATE: I went about 2 weeks without my alarm clock, using my cell phone's alarm function instead. After the first few days I found myself regularly hitting snooze in the mornings. When I would get up and turn the light on, it would take my eyes a while to adjust. I felt groggy. Then I was reunited with my sunrise alarm clock and BOOM, no more wanting to hit snooze, and I'm waking up happy and not groggy again!

I did a fair amount of online research before buying this, and this is a life changer! I used to wake up feeling groggy each morning, snoozing my phone alarm up to four or five times. It got to the stage where I would snooze it in my sleep and end up waking up late. With the Wake Up light alarm, i wake up much more naturally (sometimes before the alarm goes off) and get up straight away, feeling fresh and well rested. The alarm clock is easy to use, has 3 different alarms including FM radio, and adjustable display light, lighting and sound. You can also use it as just a light as well. The only negatives are that the display is reasonably bright even on the lowest setting and that once the plug comes out of the wall, you have to reset the time (the alarm keeps its time, though). These I can live with, as its had such a huge impact on my life, I'm telling everyone about it! Not sure if you can buy this model in Australia, but no need for a voltage adapter.

I was having a hard time waking up this winter. I get up at 5:45 and it's still dark then through the winter months. This lamp was one of many lifestyle changes I made to combat my sleepiness and, fortunately, it worked. The light is kind of magical- it's very nice to wake up to. It lit up my side of the room but it was not overwhelming. It really does feel like sunlight; sometimes it didn't register until I was fully awake that it was still pitch black outside. My husband sleeps later than I do but the light doesn't ever bother him. Waking up to NPR, however, annoys the hell out of him. Funny story about the bird alarms, though. They confuse me. I have chickens in my backyard and we're surrounded by all sorts of wild birds. I can't tell the difference between the backyard sounds and the alarms when I'm trying to wake up. For the first few weeks of using the alarm, I tried to "turn of" the real birds many, many times by tapping the alarm. I was certain it didn't work and was quite frustrated until I realized I was just dumber in the morning than I thought . That's when I switched to waking up to NPR...Lol.

I bought this clock because I was assigned a 4am-1pm work schedule but I am a natural night owl (naturally wake up between 10am-12pm). I was having a very hard time coping with the schedule, and would abuse snooze, sleep in, and would come to work in a daze when I was using my phone alarm. What had worked with my old schedule was no longer working, and my performance was suffering, so I was desperate for something that could help. My coworker recommended a similar sunrise clock from another brand that was even more overpriced than this one. After considering the multitudes of $20-30 Chinese knock-offs of this model and not being impressed with the reviews, I purchased the Philips Wake-Up Light and had it same-day delivered to me. Yes, that's how desperate I was. Let me start with the good stuff. The sunrise simulation really does work. If you dream vividly, you probably know the feeling of being woken by your alarm during a dream. If that happens to me I feel dazed for a good amount of the day. With the sunrise simulation I have definitely felt my body transition from REM to a lighter sleep in response to the gradual increase in light. I don't have the same urge to snooze that I do with regular alarms, and I feel more alert after waking. Now to the bad: The snooze only worked for me once (pretty sure it is nonfunctional or poorly designed). The buttons to turn off the alarm and the light are on the lighted part of the clock, so you either have to go by touch or stare into the bright light to turn them off. NO BATTERY BACK UP. Are you kidding me? My city is always working on our power cables, so blackouts around the time I need to wake up are pretty common. Knowing this, I still have to have my phone as a backup just in case there is an outage before I wake up. For the price, you would expect some better functionality, such as the ability to have more than one alarm or at least a way to set which days the one alarm goes off. Having to turn the alarm off on my weekends adds a danger of forgetting to set it. Bluetooth functionality should also be a given at this price. As it stands, I would have rated this alarm as a 5 star product if the price was lower or if the functionality gripes I mentioned were addressed. It does actually improve my waking experience but at the price I do expect much better engineering.

So far so good! The light range is really nice, and the design is nice and fits right on my bedside table. It helps me wake up, especially during those dark winter or rainy mornings. The light change is subtle enough to not jolt me up, but quick and bright enough to actually signal to my brain that it's wakey-wakey time. I wish I had had it when I worked the 3AM shift. A few things I wish I could change: 1. The clock display does go down in brightness and its lowest setting isn't bright enough to wake me up, but I still wish I could turn it off completely. Using electrical tape to cover it works, but shouldn't be necessary. 2. The two pre-recorded bird/nature sounds are atrocious and give me anxiety. One of the sounds stops abruptly and then starts again, and the quality is like those annoying screechy static-filled recorded birthday cards. I don't use this setting at all and can't imagine anyone but a narcoleptic or someone with hearing problems using it either. 3. The FM radio option is OK, but I wish that I could set it to a lower volume and have the alarm stay at that volume. After the 30 minutes is up, the radio turns on to the lower volume, but increases to TOP SCREAMING VOLUME which gives me that nauseating anxious feeling and jolts me a bit too hard in the morning and also wakes up the entire house and our neighbors and our neighbors dogs and probably the entire town too. You'd better hope you wake up before it turns on - I have another alarm set on my fitbit or phone that vibrates at 25 minutes, just in case. 4. I wish we could just turn off the sound settings completely without having to take apart the alarm and mutilate the speaker - the speaker is tinny and not that great quality, and I really only bought it for the light, which is primo quality (and so far I haven't seen any good light alarms that don't have sound - Philips seems like the company that would have had that by now). As it is, you have to choose between badly recorded birds 1, badly recorded birds 2, and screaming FM radio. If you need loud noises to wake you up and live alone on an isolated mountain top, this is the alarm for you.