My alarm clock is showing its age; it slips about two minutes per day, and the alarm setting periodically activates the PM bit. So I’m going to replace the clock.
I would like to know about Dopers’ experiences with dawn simulators – a combined clock, lamp, and dimmer, where the lamp gradually increases in luminosity towards the wakeup time, simulating the increasing light of dawn.
I found a series of dawn simulators on BioBright, and I’m curious what other brands exist, as well as how good they work.
I can’t remember the brand I have; it cost about $80 and was one of the cheaper ones. What I got was a timer and a couple of full-spectrum bulbs. You take a bedside lamp and attach it to the timer. The timer is programmed so that you switch it on 8 hours before you want it to start the dawning sequence. I just have it set so that it starts brightening at about 5.50 am every day but Saturday.
I have the lamp set up so that it shines right in my face every morning. I really like it. For the past couple of years, I’ve found it nearly impossible to wake up without light, so in winter I would sleep until 8am and still have a hard time dragging myself out of bed. (In summer I pop up at 6.15 and feel great.) This lamp gets me up and feeling awake. For example, it’s now 7am and I just got back from my morning walk of 2 miles. Very helpful for me, I love it.
I have the Peaceful Progression clock by Hammacher Schlemmer. It also has an aromatherapy feature (that is activated by the heat from the glowing light through scent beads) and optional sounds that get louder over the course of the alarm cycle. You can also set it in reverse for light, sound, or light and sound to fall asleep. I heart my peaceful progression clock!
You can get a lamp timer in the security section of your hardware store for about $10. Just attach it to the lamp cord, and it will turn the lamp on/off at the times you specify. I actually got two (years ago when I was having sleep problems) and set them about 30 minutes apart.
Just be sure to get the digital ones. the mechanical type make a ticking/clicking that is counterproductive. . .
I’d be a little dubious about those particular products, since I’m not sure they’d really be bright enough.
I use the SunUp dawn simulator from Sunbox and like it. It’s just a programmable timer that lets you choose the time and duration of the dawn/dusk sequences, so you can decide what lamp to use.
I have the same one that Miss Violaceous has, and I’d classify it as a general bust. (I bought it for my husband, and he likes it OK, but I don’t think I’d buy another one just like it as a replacement when this one goes bust, if you know what I mean.
I wrote all about it here. It works well enough, but I think I’d look for something else.
We’ve got one that we’ve been using for probably 8 years now.
Both my SO and I found we were having trouble getting up in the morning when it was dark.
So we found a cheap version of these, and set it to start getting light about 30 minutes before we actually want to get up.
The light doesn’t actually wake us up, we still need alarms for that, but having the room start to brighten before the alarm goes off seem to make waking up easier and less abrupt. My totally armchair guess is that my body, sensing some light, is getting ready to wake up. A less deep state of sleep, maybe.
I have a version of this that I bought from LL Bean. As with the others, it starts dim and gets brighter, but instead of being steadily on, it flashes. And the flashes get shorter and closer together as the light gets brighter. At the end of the cycle, it also buzzes.
I really like it. I seem to be in a better mood when I wake up that way than with a traditional alarm. However, the buzzer is really intense, so if it gets to that, I wake up very startled and upset. But, it rarely gets that far before I’m awake.
Also, it’s really cool and retro-looking. I highly recommend it if you are relatively easy to awaken.
I’m the one who started the thread Snickers alludes to. I got the Hammacher Schlemmer clock about a week and a half ago. The first few nights, it seemed to help a little bit to have the light at wakeup time, although it still wasn’t as effective as natural sunlight.
Yesterday morning, however, the alarm (actually a bird chirping sound) rang, so I hit the snooze bar for an additional eight minutes of sleep. The clock completely failed to ring again–no birds chirping, no loud alarm, no light, no nothing. I didn’t wake up until I was an hour late. I’m going to try to return the piece of crap, although I can’t find the receipt for it anymore. :smack:
I have the same thing. I found the dawn simulator to be totally useless. It didn’t wake me up slowly at all. I simply slept through until the alarm sounded as usual. Waking up is just as hard as ever. I think it needs a more powerful light.
It is also really easy to hit the “alarm” button while hitting the snooze bar. This has the effect of shutting off the alarm entirely. This makes oversleeping really easy. I suspect this is what happened to Ponch8.