Dear AT,
None of those alarm clocks, pretty as they were, were clock radios. Do you know of any not-hideous alarm clocks that have radios? The psychic pain of waking up to that horrible beeping is almost worse than the visual pain of an uglier clock.
Thanks, Sally
Actually the psychic pain of realizing that we may be alone in hating clock radios and enjoying the piercing chirp of the small Braun clocks had us turn a deep red when we received this question, AND we aren't going to be much good answering it, are we? Forced to answer, we would choose this one from Lexon for $88.
Therefore, we are opening up our TOP 10 to clock radio proposals. Go for it. (Thanks, Sally!) MGR
The Tivoli clock radio is nice to look and listen to... but for the life of me I can't figure out what this submission form thinks is a good way to include URLs in a comment. Suffice to say, go to the Tivoli Audio site, you'll find it.
Why on earth would anyone want the first sound they hear to be a hideous beeping?
I don't mind the beeping, so much as the fact that 99% start LOUD and get LOUDER *really fast*.
A nice quiet beep or chirp that *slowly* gets louder (say over 10minutes), and closer together to a max sound set would be quite fine.
A much of clock radio's aren't much better, they have a speaker "burp" as they come on that's far louder than the radio/CD volume. Big help *that* is!
I want to wake, I just don't want to wake as if I'm a fighter pilot having to scramble my jet to 40,000 ft in 2 minutes to save civilization.
Easy does it.
I wonder if one could program a PDA for this?
If it eases your pain, you are not alone in your aversion to clock radios. To my mind, they suffer the same tragic flaw as toaster ovens. Objects trying to be two things at once are almost invariably ugly, and their functionality as either is usually compromised. I'd love to be shown some brilliant exceptions, though, and wish Sally all luck in her quest. (My current alarm is a three year old whispering "Mama, can we have breakfast?" into my ear at 6 30 am.)
How about these?
www.bizrate.com/buy/products__att259--222471-,att259818--42001353-9840446,cat_id--11510700.html
I am a fan of my Zen alarm clock. While it sounds sort of hippy in theory, it's a lovely way to wake up. A single tone from a single chime rings every few minutes, gradually shortening in time between dings. You can choose the type of stain and the design on the clockface.
www.now-zen.com
I have a multi prog aproch to waking up.
1st I bought a JVS-DS8 I loved it so much i bought a 2nd for the Kitchen. (wall mounted in kitchen , flat in bedroom, the display changes based upon how you position it)
they are hard to come by as they are discontinued
(I had to scour ebay for my 2nd unit)
The sound is pretty decent when you have the speakers positioned right and they sound more in line with the bose wave.
It emits a light(which you can choose a color) a few seconds prior to turning on in the morning which soemtimes is enough to wake me up..then it clicks over to the cd.
I also have a elctric blanket which I love.
What I did was backwards engineer the clock a bit and build in a mechenism so that 10 minutes prior to the alarm going off the elctric blanket shuts off, which soemtimes is also enough to get me out of bed (the loss of heat)
If I ever have something important in the morning I have the pc downstairs call my cell phone and tell me to wake up...seeing as how I only get bad important news on my cell phone, I always answer it.
I have a multi prog aproch to waking up.
1st I bought a JVS-DS8 I loved it so much i bought a 2nd for the Kitchen. (wall mounted in kitchen , flat in bedroom, the display changes based upon how you position it)
they are hard to come by as they are discontinued
(I had to scour ebay for my 2nd unit)
The sound is pretty decent when you have the speakers positioned right and they sound more in line with the bose wave.
It emits a light(which you can choose a color) a few seconds prior to turning on in the morning which soemtimes is enough to wake me up..then it clicks over to the cd.
I also have a elctric blanket which I love.
What I did was backwards engineer the clock a bit and build in a mechenism so that 10 minutes prior to the alarm going off the elctric blanket shuts off, which soemtimes is also enough to get me out of bed (the loss of heat)
If I ever have something important in the morning I have the pc downstairs call my cell phone and tell me to wake up...seeing as how I only get bad important news on my cell phone, I always answer it.
PDA's have a wonderful varrity of alarm clock programs. I rarly use mine however I have seen quite a few.
me of me inc, could you tell me how to program my PC to call my cell? I have cable internet service, you think it will work.
Thank you
If you have the option to wake to a CD (or iPod for that matter) you can wake to any sound you want! I believe, althought overpriced, BOSE's 'Wave' radio will let you wake to AM/FM/CD.
Look for (a 'real') hi-end speaker manufacturer, Paradigm (http://www.paradigm.com/) to release a dual-alarm, AM/FM, iPod dockable, atomic-clock sync (sweet!), DVD/CD drive alarmclock in 2007. ;)
On the DVD capability... Think how nice it is to have your DVD player at bedside even when your monitor is not!
I think the Teac R2W would be perfect, except for the display which is one of those crappy LCD displays that has no contrast and has a backlight that even at dim is ridiculously bright. If they put a nice dim LED display it would literally be perfect...
Now this Paradigm radio... Haven't seen any news about it anywhere, sounds like the Polk I-Sonic...
There should be a Top 10 for this... I would probably just about kill for a nice looking alarm clock.