Wake Up Light, White, 5 Natural Alarm Sounds, Sunrise Simulation, Midnight Light, HF3519/01

I've been putting off writing a review because I wanted to be sure of my opinion. My previous alarm clock was a bog standard £25 Philips one. It was a no frills item and did the job. However I HATE getting out of bed on a morning. I'm one of these people that has 8 alarms set on my mobile phone (that is hidden across the bedroom so I have to physically get out of bed to silence it) along with alarms set on my alarm clock. I'd recently managed to kill my old alarm clock when vacuuming behind the bed (the vacuum ate the wire) so figured I'd check out amazon since I'm a prime member and get the free delivery. I'd set out with a £30 budget but once browsing amazon I discovered the wonders and promises of these wake up light alarm clocks and the £30 budget went out of the window. So. First impressions. It is nicely constructed and has a reasonable weight to it. As another reviewer has said it wouldn't look out of place in an Apple showroom. In terms of build quality I don't see any issues. For me (I'm 28 and quite into tech) it is very easy to use and operate. Although I did have to sit for 10 minutes with the user manual to figure out how to change the alarm sound effects, alarm volume and wake up light brightness. When it comes to the wake up light alarm feature. It really does work! I don't spring out of bed on a morning full of beans. But I no longer need multiple alarms and I no longer fall back asleep after the alarm has sounded. There have been a few days where I wasn't quite sure if the wakeup light had woken me up before the alarm had sounded or if I'd been woken by family members clattering about the house. I have mine set so that the gradual sunrise effect starts 30 mins before the alarm sounds... by the time the 30 minutes is up the sunrise has completed, the sound effects start and the light is burning a hole in your eyelids if you have it set to its brightest setting and on a bedside unit. There was one day where the wake up light feature didn't really work because I'd slept facing away from it... however once the alarm itself started to sound I woke up and stayed awake because the bedroom was light from the wake up light feature. This morning confirmed it for me. At first I thought I was dreaming. It was one of those weird half dreams where you're half asleep and half awake. I was dreaming I was stood on a hill watching the sun rise, but then I mentally woke up a bit more and realised it wasn't a dream and what I was seeing was the light from the alarm clock, through my eyelids, nearing its brightest setting prior to the alarm sounding. I opened my eyes and woke up properly just as the alarm started with the sound of birds tweeting. I felt refreshed and properly awake.... something that never usually happens for me at 5am! In a nutshell.... For me it does work and I'm very happy with it. Yes it is expensive at £120 but it makes waking up on a dark winters morning much easier. It is nicely constructed and knowing what I know now, if I was to go back in time I'd have no hesitations in buying this item again.

I love my wake up light!! It took a long time for me to choose which one to get and to finally purchase one due to the price. Very glad I did!!!! I now wake up before the alarm and have been able to put a stop to the 5 alarms I used to use. Admittedly I still struggle to get out of bed though I am now wide awake and in a much better mood. I did read some reviews about the sound quality of the radio which did give me some concerns, though having had the unit for a couple of weeks I now find myself using it as just a radio. If you are expecting the type of sound quality you'd get from a stand alone stereo then yes you may be disappointed. It is by no means has a "tinny" sound or "echos". I was also pleasantly surprised at how easy it is to change the settings as many reviews make it seem really complicated. Setting times for the alarm is really easy to do and if you are using the same time each day you just press the alarm button on the side and select twice. The snooze is a little too long at 9 minutes thought I do tend to use the touch snooze to just turn off the birds and not actually as a snooze function. I particularly like the sunset feature and have found it really does help you drift off into a good sleep. The digital display does stay lit up all the time though the brightness of this changes with the light i.e it dims in the dark. It is not a harsh light and have not had any issues with it keeping me awake or waking me up and I am highly sensitive to outside lights.

I was uncertain about this, but bought it after a lot of research. I needed a clock that could go on the floor as my fiancee doesn't have a bedside table but wants to have a clock that she can see in the night. With this being angled, it can easily be read on the floor from the bed. I also wanted something that wouldn't keep us awake with bright glowing LEDs. The fact that this has a sensor that can tell how dark the room is and adjust the LED accordingly is great. It works well. As for the alarm itself. It wakes my lass fine. She tends to wake when the birds tweet rather than with the light, but she doesn't jump with shock at least. The light doesnt wake me at all from my side of the bed either. Maybe it only works well if its on the same level as the bed. The light is more than enough for us to use in the room in the dark mornings too. I also leave the light on for her at a low setting if I go to bed early. She can see to get into bed and it doesnt keep me awake. The clock is a little unintuitive though and my partner has not set it right once and that means I am setting the old alarm daily as a just incase. lack of battery backup also is a concern. The clock looks nice - hence it being sold on the Apple website now - and the glow as it comes on slowly or turns off is nice. You can set the duration of sunrise or set and you can set the volume of the alarm. There are 5 different alarms and you can also select radio which works fine with the attached aerial. The attached aerial is a "wire" though and this detracts a bit from the look and cheapens it a bit. As has been said, its FM only. The alarm has two alarms that can be set at different times obviously and with different alarms. Its got a simple to use snooze. The buttons are small on the side and a little bit of a pain as you can't easily see them - nor initially remember which ones are which. So, pretty good, but not perfect.

I'm so happy I shelled out the money for this. It's really nice quality and it looks nice on my bedside table. The built in radio is a major bonus because I don't like waking up to alarm sounds so it just slowly turns on the radio instead, a lovely way to wake up. The light turns on slowly up to half an hour before you've set the alarm and I can honestly say I've never found it this easy to wake up on cold, dark winter mornings but I've managed this whole winter very well and I really think it's because of the help form this alarm clock. I often use it as just a lamp when I'm preparing for bed or doing something in the bedroom, the light is adjustable so you can have it either really bright or really dim. The numbers are lit up all the time but it's really not bright at all so it won't disturb you whilst you're trying to get to sleep. I'm really really happy with this item, I recommend it to all my friends and family. If you have even a little bit of trouble waking up on time or getting up when it's dark outside then this clock will really help your body wake up naturally rather than getting a shock every morning from a sudden beeping next to your head.

I've had this for about a week and for the first time in years I'm not finding it a struggle to get out of bed! First world problem, I know - but it sets your mood up for the rest of the day. For those looking to buy, and who may be confused by some posts, there are 3 key things you need to know: 1. It has a lamp which can increase its brightness levels over 20 steps. As a wake-up lamp, you choose how bright you want it to go up to. I have mine set to the maximum of 20. 2. The lamp has a timer which you set between 20 and 40 minutes. This is the time scale over which the lamp will step-up in brightness, up to your maximum level set in 1. above. I have mine set to the default of 30 minutes. 3. It has a sound alarm: any one of 5 built-in sounds; or the FM radio station which you pre-set. You set the alarm time for the sound alarm **NOT THE LAMP**. The lamp will come on before the sound alarm in the time scale you have set in 2. So, as an example, I want to wake-up to the 0700 news headlines on the radio, so I set the sound alarm to 0659. Why not 0700? Because.the sound starts off quietly and increases, so as not to startle you. So you would miss the first 30 seconds of news! So set it a minute before. Because I have the lamp set to the 30 minutes time scale, the lamp comes on at 0629. And over the 30 minutes, it gradually increases its brightness from a low orangey-red, to brighter red, to brighter yellow, to brighter white, to the brightest white set at the 20 level. Then at 0659 the radio comes on. What I've found is that I tend to nod off several times over the time that the lamp is on. But the step change in light levels pulls me back out of it, stopping me crashing into a deep sleep. And so I need the radio to gently snap me out of sleep mode. But when the radio comes on, I don't feel groggy or tired - just "chilled" and ready to get up. Quite remarkable. Another bonus is that the clock itself is a nice orange coloured LED which is clear to read at night but doesn't keep you awake (and I have it at its highest brightness level). The unit seems overpriced in that my 10 year old radio alarm clock has DAB and 5 alarms which can be set to a day, weekdays or weekends. The Philips only has two and they can't be set to a specific day. But thinking about it, you should try and get into a consistent sleep routine, so one alarm (or maybe two for a weekend lie in) should be enough. Overall, very pleased I bought it as we roll into late Autumn and Winter.

This is my third sunrise simulation clock/light and definitely the best so far. The first was a cheaper end Lumie BodyClock, the second a Philips HF3480 Wake-up Light . The Lumie got replaced because I wanted one that looked prettier on my bedside table, while the Phillips broke after a couple of year's use (the buttons stopped working). Perhaps the latter is not the best selling point for the Phillips brand, but I couldn't resist this beautiful specimen, which has several improvements over the HF3480: - Pretty! This is the most aesthetically pleasing sunrise simulation clock I have ever seen, very sleek and shiny. - No more clumsy buttons/dials. While the HF3480 is controlled by little dials on the side that double as buttons (very fiddly), this model uses a combination of buttons around the rim and a touch sensitive section beneath the clock face. The buttons control the basic functions - turn on/off and brightness (when using as a lamp), switch the alarm on, turn on the "go to sleep" function (sunrise in reverse). These are all nicely positioned with little ridges in the right places so you can use them easily in the dark. - The light itself is beautiful with a greater range than the HF3480, changing in colour from a warm red to bright white, giving a much more natural feel to the effect. - Speedy on/off for use as a lamp. The HF3480 was fiddlier in this regard, and slower to come to full brightness. - It's not a function I really use, but I've found the radio reception greatly improved. I honestly have nothing negative to say about this model, except perhaps that it's a bit pricey. But if you are thinking of buying a sunrise simulation alarm and are willing to pay for something top notch, I don't think you could do any better. NOTE: If you are also looking at the Philips HF3510/01 Sunrise Simulation Wake-up Light and wondering what the difference is, the HF3510/01 does not have a coloured light, simply a white light that gets brighter. The description for that product is currently misleading.

I should probably start by saying I'm a very heavy sleeper, but then I assume if you're paying £80+ for an alarm that you are too. This worked great for the first few months, I could set it to the time I actually wanted to be awake and I'd be not only awake but also properly awake so I actually got up instead of falling back to sleep. Unfortunately, since then the novelty seems to have worn off and I'm back to setting the alarm a couple of hours before I actually need to be up. The light isn't as bright as I expected. I wouldn't say it accurately represents a sunrise as although the light tones are there, it's nowhere near strong enough. At full brightness I can see everything in my room, but I'd still describe my room as being a bit dark, and there's a noticeable difference when I open my blinds and let the sunlight in. I feel like if this replicated that level of light then it would be perfect. The light seems very concentrated (bright to look at, but doesn't light up the room). This seems like a big flaw to me as it means if you roll over in your sleep then the light isn't going to have any effect on you. 3/5 because it worked great the first couple of months, and when I wake up facing it then it does work better than standard alarm clocks do. But it could definitely be more effective and better replicate summer morning wake-ups if the light projected more and actually lit up the room like sunlight does.

You don't have to turn off and on the alarm every day!!! I almost didn't buy this because of all the reviews saying you need to remember to turn the alarm on every day. This isn't true at all. There is a "light" button, so when your sunrise starts, if you want to turn off the sunrise, just press the light button. Similarly, if you have sound programmed in, you press the play/pause button or I think FM radio button, and then it turns off the sound. The alarm stays on. It says this in the instructions, which I suggest you spend 3 minutes of your day reading to understand it all! That being said, the clock is fantastic. I bought it for £110 as an opened box return. I love that it starts with an extremely low, deep red light and gets very bright. I had returned another sunrise alarm because the light started so bright that I woke up as if someone was flicking the light switch on in our bedroom. I love that the display auto-dims, and it goes incredibly low. It doesn't light up the room. I also thought that the unit was shiny, the front face, but it's matt. Very nice. The functions are great and having 2 different alarms to flick between dependent on the day or your mood is perfect too. Wholly recommended.