Verilux Rise & Shine Natural Alarm Clock Deluxe Bedside Lamp, Ivory
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List Price: Category: Health Care See more product details |
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Customer Reviews of Verilux Rise & Shine Natural Alarm Clock Deluxe Bedside Lamp, Ivory
Customer Review: Does its job well enough, but pricey.
Summary: 4 Stars
I bought this lamp to help me with waking up in the winter mornings and to help combat my tendency to go into hibernation mode as we head into Fall. Living in Seattle the sun rises late and sets early with 16 hours of darkness at the Solstice. Then add grey skies and rain. I have noticed that I get very very tired and want to eat everything in sight starting around October. I hoped this lamp, by faking me out with an artifical, dawn would mitigate than tendency...and it has.
I chose this lamp over the others listed because I read the reviews that said those lamps seemed cheaply made for the price, and weren't all that bright. This lamp is bright enough. It fills up my room with light. The color spectrum seems like daylight when it is at full. And the lamp seems well made.
The lamp it self is larger than it looks from the picture online. It stands about 18" tall and comes with a nice lampshade. The bulb is also included, as well as a plug in speaker that you can put under your pillow, so you are less likely disturb any other occupants of your bed with the noise from the radio or nature sounds.
The backlight LCD display is a bit bright for me. It does have a dimmer switch and you can change the color of the display to almost any color, or there is a setting that will let it cycle through the spectrum. The radio works well enough and the sound quality is pretty good. There are a number of nature sounds that sound pretty good. Standard stuff. It is kind of cool to listen to the sounds through your pillow with the included pillow speaker. Really.
Here are my two biggest complaints about this lamp. One: It allows you to wake up with a combination of light and sound (or you can pick one or the other). The light starts from dim and goes to bright, but the sound comes on a whatever level you happen to set it at. I wanted it to slowly get louder as the light gets louder. What's the point of the light gently waking you up if the sound does it right away. I just wake up to the light and use my old clock radio in tandem, which does start softly and get louder.
Two: The dimmer on the light buzzes for the first two or three minutes you have it on. Then it quiets down and continues to get brighter silently. It's not super loud, but loud enough to wake you up if you are a light sleeper (which I am). My heavy sleeping bedmate doesn't move a bit.
So in conclusion this lamp has done its job in alleviating some of my hibernation tendencies. I find it easier to get up, if not any happier to go to work. My bedmate says she notices a positive difference too.
It is expensive. I was lucky and I had a gift certificate, otherwise I might have bought the less expensive brand. However, I am glad I purchased it now, and now knowing how it operates I would be willing to spend the money again if this one broke for some reason.
Customer Review: This is a great product!
Summary: 5 Stars
After reading a couple of negative reviews, I was hesitant to purchase this lamp/alarm clock. The positive reviews and the absolute need to find a method to get passed the SAD I am experiencing this winter convinced me to give it a try. I do not regret that decision at all.
I carefully read the well written and easy to follow instructions and had my lamp/alarm clock set up in no time. Waking up with this thing is a wonderful experience. You feel refreshed and ready to go!!! (I also recommend keeping a fresh bottle of water next to your bed and take just a few sips upon waking. Finish the bottle as you get dressed in the morning. Re-hydrating after sleep assists in getting the blood flowing well and gives you energy.)
What may be just as good as the LIGHT feature is the SOUND feature. The lamp gives you several natural sound options that can be used for waking up and going to sleep. Even better - you can have different sounds for waking and sleep. I found some of the sounds are better for sleeping than for waking, for instance, I find that it is better for me to sleep to the sounds of the Rain or Forrest and to wake up to the sounds of the Birds or Town (more of an old fashion town with the distance chiming of the town clock and horse-drawn carriages going by).
The NEXT step for this lamp is aromatherapy. Wouldn't it be nice to fall asleep with a lovely scent of lavender and then wake up with the scent of spiced orange blossoms - or fresh brewed coffee???
There is one important bit of information that I want to point out from the instructions:
***This product is SENSITIVE to power surges. USE a surge protector to plug this lamp through.***
I would not be surprised if users with negative experiences had a surge problem that they were unaware of occurring. Also make sure to install the back-up batteries so that your alarm will go off in the event of a surge or loss of power. The batteries are 4 AAs and are NOT included. I was particularly happy to see that it did not require one of those silly 9V batteries that most alarm clocks require.
The only down side to this product is that the replacement bulbs range from $10 to $20 - a bit on the costly side. The materials say the bulbs are good for 2000 hours. That is still to be seen. I will try to remember to revisit this review if I experience early burn-out.
If you make the decision to purchase this product, I hope that you have the same positive experience that I had.
Good luck!
Customer Review: Great idea, poor execution
Summary: 2 Stars
I recently bought the Verilux Rise & Shine lamp because it is already so dark up here in Seattle (I just moved from SF this summer) that the sun is a good hour away from rising when I wake up to go to work. The idea behind the lamp (with a full-spectrum bulb that imitates light from the sun) is that it turns on gradually over an extended period of time, helping you wake up.
I've been so groggy over the past three weeks that I was willing to cough up $150 for a lamp & alarm clock. This product is a GREAT idea, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired.
* The lamp itself stopped working after one day. Probably needs a new, $10 bulb.
* The alarm lets you choose whether you want sound, light or both to wake you up. I thought this product would be fantastic if the light started to turn on gradually about 15 minutes before the radio turned on. It doesn't work that way. The radio turns on the same time the light turns on, and this problem is exacerbated by the next complaint.
* There are only four volume settings for the radio. The lowest setting is perfectly clear and louder than I need to wake up. Of course, since the product is supposed to gradually increase the volume of sound, it ramps all the way up to the loudest setting. To add insult to injury, you can't turn down the volume when it's in the alarm cycle.
* The light itself turns on rather abruptly. Mind you, I only got to experience this on one morning before the bulb or lamp was broken, but the light went from zero to about 20% in a fraction of a second, which is more than enough to wake me up.
* The radio has unbelievably horrible reception. The local NPR station, KUOW, comes in crystal-clear on my stereo and cheap shower radio. No matter how long I spent tuning the lamp radio, I got a lot of static. No matter where in the apartment I put the lamp, I got a substantial amount of static.
* The radio tuner is contextless. That is, the dial has no numbers whatsoever, so you can't tell whether you're in the 101s or the 92s. Finding your favorite channel takes about 10 minutes of listening to every channel that sort of sounds like what you're looking for.
* I like the soothing sounds, and I can imagine it would help me get back to sleep on those occasions when I wake up in the middle of the night. I found the "extra" sounds a bit distracting, though. For example, the "surf" sound includes whale calls, while the "forest" sound--rhythmic insect chirping--has an an owl cooing in your year.
Customer Review: Great idea, horrible execution...
Summary: 1 Stars
I just got one of these, and I must say I'm terribly disappointed, and the reviews here have reinforced that my problems were not unique to me. Here are my beefs, after just one night of use:
1) The display, even in dimmed mode, is too bright, it lights up the room more than some night lights I've seen.
2) It hums audibly just from having the lamp turned on, the dimmer the light the more the hum, it seems, so as soon as it lights it makes the most hum. So much for a nice easy wake up.
3) The sound feature is worthless, either using the radio or supplied sounds, since the pitiful sound system amplifies the aforementioned hum so as to drown out anything else coming over the speaker. It is irritating to the point of making any sounds for wake-up unusable.
4) The radio reception is horrible, and doesn't even display the radio frequency on the lit display. The old $12 alarm clock that this was going to (but alas, will not) replace has a better tuner.
5) The gradual turning-on of the light begins too bright, it woke me up as soon as it came on.
6) Overall, it seems rather flimsy in terms of construction.
Since I live in Canada, between the exchange rate and shipping, I spent nearly as much on this thing as I did on my 80GB iPod. I chose this model because it seemed to the best on the market, and I was horrified to see something so conceptually simple that could cost this much and be so poorly designed and manufactured. Wish I could recommend a better model, but I would definitely not recommend this one.
Customer Review: I LOVE this thing!
Summary: 5 Stars
6 months out of the year, I have a horrible time waking up in the morning because it's DARK. The Rise & Shine has been a godsend.
I start waking up gently and gradually. I use the bird sounds or the harbor sound (seagulls) to wake up. It is so natural, and I am ready to get up at 6:00 a.m. rather than being jarred awake and feeling depressed and wanting to stay asleep.
The full-spectrum light is beautiful! It's like real daylight.
I have not had any of the problems some of the other reviewers have reported. Everything works correctly, although I did have to spend some time reading the instructions at first to figure out how to do everything.
In the evening, I use the "forest" sounds to go to sleep, or sometimes the radio. It works like a charm. The radio tuning dial does indeed have numbers on it -- you just have to LOOK. I have had no trouble with reception. It's not some Bose stereo or anything, but the sound quality is good enough.
The Amazon price is a lot lower than suggested retail, and I feel it was well worth the investment to be able to wake up in the morning and actually feel like getting up, rather than feeling depressed and groggy.
In addition to this product, I bought an Apollo Go-Lite P2, which I use for light therapy in the morning for 15-20 minutes. The combination of these 2 products has pretty much cured my SADD! I can actually function during the dark months now!