Review Details

USB Charging Alarm Clock Radio

Product Rating:

Product Review (submitted on September 11, 2016):

I was looking for a clock that could do more than one alarm, without too many other extras. Most of the other alarm clocks I looked at only provided a second alarm in addition to the first alarm, on the same day (every day). This feature is for couples I presume, where one gets up earlier than the other. This clock allows you to set two completely independent alarms. So I can set one on the weekday for an earlier time, and one on the weekend or even just Sunday, for a later time. I really like this feature a lot. I also wanted battery backup in case the power went out, but I didn't care about the USB charger capabilities - I don't want portable electronics in my room, I leave them to charge on my desk in my office. PROS:
- Display can be turned all the way off. If you don't care about the time, not having any light at all is nice, though there is still one small LED that shines fairly brightly for how small it is.
- Dual alarms. I set one for weekdays and one for Sunday. Saturday I don't have to worry about an alarm usually ;-)
- Clock auto-sets and has a coin-battery for battery backup. It doesn't keep the clock on if there is a power outage, it just keeps all of your settings until the power comes on. I prefer the wall-plug plus battery backup setup so that I don't have to worry about changing batteries, even if this means if the power goes out, I may not have an alarm go off. (If the power goes out I probably won't be making it out the door on time any way, no matter when I wake up.)

CONS:
- BRIGHT DISPLAY. I cannot believe how bright this is even on the dimmest setting. I thought other reviewers were exaggerating and they were not. I have yet to get some sort of film I can apply to darken things more. I got the blue LED thinking it would be less bright than the white, and it did not help.
- Buzzer volume is not adjustable. You can only adjust the alarm volume if you select radio. Also, the volume settings are digital, so you can't go quieter than the quietest setting of "1", which is still a little louder than I'd like (I try to keep it as low as possible to not wake my wife).
- You can't turn the alarm off when the display is not showing. So if it is early in the morning and you happen to wake up before the alarm, you have to turn the display on (which we've already said is blinding) before you can turn off the alarm so it won't trip at it's normal time.

I wavered between a 3 and 4 star review and ultimately settled on 4 because it did have the dual alarm feature that is hard to find. The brightness is something that can be fixed, albeit at an additional small cost. The digital volume control is the major ding, if that were analog I could give this clock 5 stars. Also, I have seen other reviews complain about how difficult it is to set the alarm, but if you read the instructions the first time, you should not have any problem setting it in the future, unless you can't remember what number is what day of the week - Verified Store