When your tough-love moment arrives, the device flashes urgently like hazard lights and emits a sound like a car that won’t start—right next to your bed. We also like that you can set multiple alarms during the week and that the sunset component comes with the option of several “wind down” routines. The perfect novelty funny gift for heavy sleepers, college student, bedrooms, graduation, and back-to-school. In our most recent round of testing in 2023, we evaluated three models from Lumie: the Bodyclock Rise 100, the Glow 150, and the Bodyclock Shine 300. After nine minutes, the Loftie follows up the first alarm with an ever-so-slightly more-insistent “get up” chime.

To represent time, most digital clocks use a seven-segment LED, VFD, or LCD for each of the four digits. Previously, as an industrial designer, I designed children’s toys and furniture, and this allowed me to learn the ins and outs of mass-market product design—from conception to manufacturing. It’s the least expensive alarm we’ve found that offers a realistic, red-tinted dawn and dusk simulation, which feels more natural and may work better than white light at helping you feel less groggy.If you’re bothered by ambient light glowing from your clock, the Oct17 has three brightness settings. After an assignment forced her to sleep eight hours a day for a month, she realized that she is, in fact, a smarter, nicer person when she isn’t sleep-deprived. You can also do all this directly with the buttons on the clock, but that’s a lot of settings and a lot of buttons, which can get frustrating. Our tester enjoyed its portability and its gentle ambient lighting, which can be adjusted with a simple twist.

It’s also the least expensive model we tested, making it a good choice when you need something cheap and dependable, like for a guest room or a vacation rental. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products.Backup power and alarms: We favored options with power back-up capabilities in the event your power blows. A lot of people have already extolled the value of using an actual alarm clock instead of the alarm clock on your phone.

We also preferred clocks with a companion app that allows you to set your alarms and customize sunrises and sunsets through your phone. The DreamSky was the only clock we tested that had such a wide range of customization options—it’s simple to literally dial in your personal preferences. RAVE to the kind women who, instead of laughing at my ludicrous situation of getting my hand caught in the mail slot at the post office, offered encouragement, lotion, advice on turning my ring and calming words. Besides three extra alarm sounds (think wind chimes and yoga music), higher maximum brightness (315 instead of just 310 lux), and the added amber nuances in the light, you can choose from four sun “themes,” such as a pink “Caribbean” sunrise versus the frostier “Nordic” one.

By the time the alarm sounds again the device is in a place unknown to the user, who is forced to determine where it is, and possibly walk to that location to press the snooze button again. Something that really stood out with this model, versus other clocks we tested: The DreamSky has an enormous digital display (each number is 2 inches tall) that stretches across the entire front of the clock. But you do need to use the Loftie app on your phone to get the clock online during setup; this allows the clock to receive regular updates.