PHILIPSSmartSleep Wake-up Light, Colored Sunrise and Sunset Simulation, 5 Natural Sounds, FM Radio & Reading Lamp, Tap Snooze, HF3520/60

Originally purchased my Philips SmartSleep, years ago, in order to awaken with light and it does a great job of this. However, the true bonus turned out to be the pleasant efficacy of its sunset simulator go-to-sleep feature. Imagine a light that not only dims over time but also reddens as it dims, and goes through the sort of pinkish-orangish red reminiscent of beautiful sunsets, providing a pre-sleep ambience whose gradually diminishing intensity and simultaneously increasingly red hue does indeed physiologically prepare you to go to sleep.Another Philips SmartSleep plus is that it has intuitive integral controls, ideal for simply winding down without needing to use a screen and/or app in order to set it. While app-based products may offer more proverbial bells and whistles, they also inevitably lengthen the time required to get to sleep... sometimes even defeating the purpose via temptation for just one more text/email message, just one more social.media refresh, just one more news scroll-through, and so on, for however many minutes or hours.The only thing that could be better about the Philips SmartSleep would be if it had a touch-to-activitate nightlight mode, whereby touching anywhere (or, at least, a very large and centrally located button) would either provide a dim reddish light or turn it off.Although easy enough to turn on and off using small buttons while one is awake, this isn't necessarily ideal human factors engineering for the semi-awake, semi-coordinated.Finally, other than this potential improvement, the Philips SmartSleep is well-designed, effective, well-made, and well worth the nightstand real estate it elegantly occupies. While initially shopping, opted for this based on its features, design, and manufacturer -- a decision that has thus far resulted in several years of reliable usage. And, as mentioned, purchased to enable waking-to-light, and soon found that its *sunset* simulation sleep feature was just as pleasant, if not perhaps more so, than the sunrise simulation wake-up. Dividing its cost by the number of days in use, and considering the value of waking up to light, plus being able to add sunset simulation as a pre-sleep cue, Originally purchased my Philips SmartSleep, years ago, in order to awaken with light and it does a great job of this. However, the true bonus turned out to be the pleasant efficacy of its sunset simulator go-to-sleep feature. Imagine a light that not only dims over time but also reddens as it dims, and goes through the sort of pinkish-orangish red reminiscent of beautiful sunsets, providing perfect ambiance for one's journey into restful sleep.Another Philips SmartSleep plus is that it has integral controls, ideal for just winding down without having to use a screen and/or app in order to set it.The only thing that could be better about the Philips SmartSleep would be if it had a touch-to-activitate nightlight mode, whereby touching anywhere (or, at least, a very large and centrally located button) would either provide a dim reddish light or turn it off.Although easy enough to turn on and off using small buttons while one is awake, this isn't ideal human factors engineering for the semi-awake.Other than this potential improvement, the Philips SmartSleep is well-designed, effective, well-made, and well worth the nightstand real estate it elegantly occupies. Since it's used daily, this product's cost became rather negligible over time (price divided by number of days over however many years), and its reliability has proved positively priceless.

I am very frugal and don't care about fancy tech so I hemmed and hawed over this purchase for a while. I also did my research on sunrise clocks before going with the Philips, this one was very highly rated. One of the selling points for me was that it started with a natural red light that eased into orange then yellow, whereas other cheaper lamps just do a low yellow light before getting brighter. I actually have a sun lamp, tied to my Alexa, that turns on when my alarm goes off. But that's just no light to on immediately, no graduality, and it's not nearly as bright. It doesn't have anything near the effect/benefits this one did, so I think quality here matters. Initial set up isn't too complicated but it is a bit lengthy. You can set up two alarm "profiles" so you can set a weekend and weekday alarm profile. I'll also note - information is saved when unplugged, up to 8 hours. You can also use it just as a lamp when needed, which I like for reading/writing in bed.I was frustrated during set up because I set the natural sounds (as opposed to FM) as my wake up noise. When I would test the alarm (there's a 90sec preview feature) it would play FM static. I went back and checked my selections multiple times, even tried setting the noise as FM thinking they were reversed, nothing worked. I googled it to find a solution and apparently there were a lot of people with the same problem! Well, I went to bed and left the alarm set and set a back up alarm on my phone. Color me pleasantly surprised, but when the alarm went off it did in fact use the natural noises I had selected. Must just be a bug with the preview alarm feature.I also woke up immediately to the natural noises (bird song). Now, I am a relatively light sleeper, but I always use the harsh beeps on my alarms and often hit snooze and cycle through a couple before I'm willing to physically get up. I woke up to this alarm immediately and felt great. If you tap the top, it snoozes (light but no noise) for 10 minutes, you can press menu to stop the alarm noises without snoozing.Despite sleeping 7 1/2 hours as opposed to my preferred 9, I woke up feeling ready to go and my eyes didnt hurt the way they always do when I wake up. I am a frugal person but waking up every morning refreshed is worth the $115. I may actually be able to go back to sleeping just 8 hours.I also tried the sunset feature to fall asleep, I set it to just 10 minutes. Falling asleep for me is hit or miss, sometimes its quick sometimes I lie awake for hours. I fell asleep before the 10 minutes was up, but whether that's because of the sunset feature or because the night before had been NYE so I didn't get much sleep, I can't really say. But it doesnt hurt to have the option and I like that it's putting my body back to a more natural rhythm.Summary:The preview feature may not play the correct noise, but at least for me the regular alarm did correctly use the noise option I selected. I like that it starts with a natural red -> orange -> yellow light, as opposed to the cheap-o models that just used yellow light. Upon use- I woke up immediately to the alarm. I immediately felt awake, as opposed to super groggy and grumpy like I normally do. I had less sleep than I normally do but still felt more refreshed and awake than I usually do. Overall, I consider this a huge win and absolutely worth the $115.

Although I had to knock off one star for the clunky controls and settings for this wake up light, I have to say that I really love using it. I got tired of waking up to annoying cell phone alarms for years, and wanted to check out this method. It really makes a huge difference using this, because you are not jolted awake with a sense of panic or urgency. You just have the light, which slowly turns on and begins brightening over the course of 30 minutes before the time you set it to wake you. Usually, this is enough to wake me up on its own and I turn it off before the auditory part of the alarm even goes off. But if you wait until it does go off, you wake to the peaceful sound of birds chirping and it feels like you are in nature. You have other options for the audio but that one is my favorite.This was $89.95 when I bought it (it's gone up since then to $108.95 at the time of writing this review), which I still consider expensive for an alarm clock with a light. But I absolutely love it and would buy it again.