Sleep Spa Wake Up Sunrise Clock

This is a difficult product to like. In fact, I can't. The way it works is just too stupid.Where to begin?The display has three brightness settings (plus "off").I call them "supernova", "solar flare" and "bright".Even the lowest setting illuminates the entire room in red, so I had to turn off the display completely.One might think that a modern $130 clock would have an auto-dimming feature. You know, like on a $2 night light. Nope, one would be wrong.Since auto-dimming is apparently too much to expect, one might hope that there would be a switch or button provided to control the display brightness.Wrong again. The display brightness is controlled by - wait for it - the "snooze" button.This means that if either the alarm or the "sunrise" feature is active, the display brightness cannot be changed.In my case, the blindingly-bright display cannot be turned on to see what the alarm settings might be.This is important because of the idiotic way the alarm and sunrise functions are implemented.Problems arose the very first day. I programmed the alarm for 7AM and activated the sunrise feature.Sure enough, I was awakened by the light at about 6:45. I pressed the "set" button twice per the user guide, and sure enough the light shut off.When I came out of the shower at about 7:05, the light was on and the alarm was sounding.I foolishly tried to activate the display. Nope, not possible. The clock went into snooze mode instead.A press of the "alarm" button disabled the alarm, and allowed the display to be activated by the "snooze" button.Turns out that the sunrise feature is not actually part of the alarm. Turning off the light does not turn off the imminent alarm.What's worse, once the sunrise has been turned off, it cannot be reactivated without resetting the alarm.Not merely reactivating the alarm - no, a complete reprogramming of the alarm is required before the sunrise feature can be reactivated.This means that to use the sunrise feature, the alarm must be completely reprogrammed every day.So, to turn off the alarm, I had to (immediately upon awakening) do the following:press "alarm" to turn off the lightpress "snooze" to activate the supernova displaypress "snooze" again to reduce the display brightness to solar flare levelpress "snooze" yet again to reduce the display brightness to merely dazzlingpress "alarm" again to deactivate the imminent alarmNot being inclined to endure this every morning, I decided to plug in another alarm clock and use only the sunrise feature of the stupid "Soleil Sleep Spa".So already the thing is mostly useless.That night I reprogrammed the alarm and reactivated the sunrise feature, then turned off the alarm, leaving the sunrise feature active.The next morning, the Soleil did nothing at all. Apparently the sunrise feature isn't part of the alarm, but won't work without it.I was awakened by my other clock instead.Next attempt - during the full reprogramming of the alarm that is required to activate the sunrise feature, I selected "none" for the alarm sound.This setting is tolerable. At least the alarm doesn't sound anymore, but a full reprogramming is still required every day, and another alarm clock is required in case the light doesn't wake me.The Soleil user manual mentions a "flash" setting that will cause the light to flash at the end of the alarm cycle, so I activated that feature.No joy - that setting doesn't work at all. The device's behavior was completely unchanged.To add insult to injury, there's the "sunset" function. Essentially the opposite of "sunrise", and on this clock it's EXACTLY the opposite of "sunrise".The trouble here is that the sunset sound is identical with the sunrise (alarm) sound, and cannot be changed independently.I don't know about you, but the sound that wakes me isn't the sound I want to lull me to sleep.Since my alarm sound is "none" the sunset feature is silent. OK, I guess, but really it's another "feature" made useless by stupid design decisions.In the end, all the Soleil does for me is light up ever-brighter, beginning 30 minutes before my OTHER alarm sounds.Yes, it usually wakes me, but that's not much functionality for $130.Is there anything I like about it? Well, it looks nice and is larger than I expected, satisfyingly substantial in appearance if not weight.The sunrise has at least 60 brightness levels, but in my opinion it starts out too bright.It has a USB charger pass-through that I can use to power my other clock.Bottom line: I regret this purchase, but it's too late to return it for a refund.DON"T BUY THIS.I avoided the Philips units because they have no battery backup, but since I have to use another clock anyway, that wouldn't have mattered.My other clock is a  Moshi Interactive Voice Responsive Alarm Clock , and while it's not perfect, it's not STUPID.

I have been using the Sleep Spa Wake Up Sunrise Clock about five months. The buttons across the top are tiny, and you need to find the second button from the left (Set button) and click it to turn off the clock alarm/sunrise feature, in a way that it will do the same thing 24 hours later. If you hit the far left button, it turns off the alarm and you have to reset it (about a 5-punch process) for the next morning. Needless to say, half awake and possibly in the dark, hitting the right button is a challenge. I've tried the clock alarm with no sound but sunrise (15 min/30 min/1 hour) that starts up BEFORE the alarm time with an ever-brightening white light. That doesn't wake me up. The "nature" sounds are on a very short loop, so you hear the same bird cheeping every five seconds. The rushing-water sound when you're just waking up is probably effective in getting you out of bed and to your bathroom. For reliable wake-ups, I suggest an old fashioned alarm clock at probably 10-20% of this price. Didn't like the go-to-sleep light getting darker or the "relaxing brook sounds," so don't use it. Sounded like a good idea, but I'm back to needing a straight-up alarm clock. This is fairly large 4 x 7 x 9 and takes up quite a bit of room on your bedside table. The good part? Once the alarm goes off, don't hit the off button and use the light to turn on another light first.

I received this clock yesterday and was so disappointed. I chose this one over another similar product made by a much more well known company because this one allows for the display to be turned off, leaving you to sleep in complete darkness, which is preferable to me. However, the product is just cheaply made. When I opened the box, I realized, based on craftsmanship, the cheap plastic and giant "Made in China" sticker that I had just spent almost a hundred dollars for something that should go for about ten in a discount store. Nonetheless, I tried to give it a chance. My husband and I spent quite some time trouble-shooting to even get the thing to turn on. Then, we tested the sunrise alarm feature and it didn't work. We tested it again, still didn't work. After multiple tests, all done the same way, it worked only once. That is clearly not consistent enough to be used as an alarm, so we're returning it. There's another review where someone goes on and on about how ridiculous the settings and controls are. I discounted that review when I decided to buy this clock because the person just seemed really angry, but the fact is that reviewer is correct, the settings and controls are truly ridiculous. We did figure them out with the help of the manual, but they are just silly and limiting. So beyond the fact that there are quality control issues with this company sending out products that don't even work properly, the product itself is subpar, especially for what they are trying to charge, even if it did work properly.

My main issue with this product is that it lasted only about 10 months! I tried to contact the company and received no response. I really liked the sunrise alarm feature and that it was possible to dim the time display or turn it off completely because I like to sleep in a dark room. The sunrise really made it easier to wake up in the winter. One problem with the product is that there are so many buttons and all but the snooze are the same, so it was hard to determine which to press if I just wanted to turn off the alarm without snoozing. Also needed to keep the directions right by the alarm. Even though I had it for almost a year I still couldn't remember which sequence of buttons to press for each feature.