A quick note on “lux” unit, in case you’re not familiar with it: it refers to the amount of light hitting a surface, and will be specified at a certain distance directly in front of the light. If you are twice as far away, the lux hitting your eye will be reduced by a quarter. Depending on how tight of a beam the light is focused into, the lux hitting your eye will be reduced by a huge fraction if you move ~15-30 degrees off center. The upshot is that most light therapy lamps work best if you can sit very still next to them for a good chunk of time.
The light you linked to iss 10,000 lux at 15". How far are your eyes from where you would put an alarm clock, and can you point this at where your head will be when you sleep? I’m guessing that it won’t be the best dawn simulator, since it won’t effectively put light where you need it. And if it’s staying on a bedside table it won’t be the best light therapy device since you’d have to sit up next to it in bed for 30-60 minutes. I find it’s much more useful to have a light therapy lamp somewhere that fits in your natural morning routine; maybe your desk or the breakfast table.
To my own experience. If left naturally to my own devices I would happily spring out of bed at 5 AM on the summer solstice and be annoyingly cheerful and productive until going to sleep at 12 PM. In the depths of winter, however, I’d get up after dawn at ~8 AM but then I 'd crawl back to bed after sunset at 4 PM. My first few winters away from home were… ugly.
Up until this year I used this dawn simulator alarm clock. By my estimate, it only puts out ~300 lux to where my pillow is. It also puts out a very yellowish light, which is very ineffective for setting your internal clock. It was a little better than a normal alarm clock but it didn’t help a ton.
To get any actual therapeutic effect I use this blue light on my desk while I check the Dope and drink my coffee every morning. I also use it in the evenings some time. It’s not 10,000 lux, but there’s a substantial body of research showing that it’s the blue part of the spectrum that’s most important for setting your internal clock.
From ddsun’s recommendations in the previous thread, this winter I replaced my previous alarm clock/dawn simulator with a set of five “smart lights” in a floor lamp next to the bed. Specifically, I’ve got the Philips Hue starter set with three color-changing bulbs controlled by a wireless bridge, plus a pair of GE Link PAR38 flood lights (which are compatible wit the Hue bridge). I use an app on my phone to program a dawn simulation: over the course of an hour it goes from a dark blue twilight to a warm orange dawn to a bright white sunrise. The floodlights are pointed right at my face and come on last. By my estimates, the light anywhere near my pillow is 2000-4000 lux at full brightness. This setup is probably overly elaborate, and the expensive Hue color changing lights could be replaced with the much cheaper white lights.
Overall this has been far more effective than my previous dawn simulator alarm clock. I’ve been waking up without an alarm (just the lights) at 6:30-7 AM, ready to be a useful human being.
I have a few other tricks to make sure light is at appropriate levels in the evening. At night most rooms in my apartment are only lit with a few small table lamps with warm yellow lights. My computers all have f.lux installed, which is a program that gradually shifts the color temperature of your monitor from bright blue during the day to warm yellow at night. This is all to minimize the amount of blue light that I’m exposed to after sunset, which can screw with the internal clock. This helps me fall asleep regularly and without the insomnia I’d have in the past from being up late at night at my computer.
I also rely on moderate regular exercise and medication, but that can be the topic for another post.
TL;DR: Super bright “smart light” dawn simulator and careful control of light in my life helps me be a normal human being in the winter.