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Product Details
- Binding
- Health and Beauty
- Brand
- BioBrite
- Feature
- Gradual sunrise wakes you up gently and naturally
- Label
- Northern Light Technology
- Publisher
- Northern Light Technology
- Studio
- Northern Light Technology
- ItemDimensions
- Height:700
Length:950
Weight:353
Width:700 - PackageDimensions
- Height:830
Length:1120
Weight:430
Width:910
Editorial Reviews
The Charcoal SunRise Clock is derived from medical research on light and human behavior. In the early morning, the biological clock is sensitive to low intensity light. So, waking to a slowly increasing light can result in a smoother, more natural transition to wakefulness. It features an audible back-up alarm, the ability to set dawn and dusk cycles of 15, 30, 60, or 90 minutes, fade to nightlight, adjustable display brightness and more. Comes with hand made opal glass globe. One year manufacturer�s warranty.
I contacted customer service and the woman asked me (in a rude manner) if I had held in the Program button while I was plugging in the light. I told her of course not. She told me I should have. This was not in the manual anywhere! I tried doing that and was woken up again the next day at 4:30am to immediate full light. I waited 3 days to hear back from the company via email about what to do with this product. They said I could ship it to them (at my expense) and have it serviced.
Thankfully, we bought it from Amazon, and not the company, or we would have had difficulty returning it for a working model. We have since received a new one, and this one works fine. As long as you don't get a defective clock, it is a nice thing to have, but save yourself the hassle and buy it from Amazon, rather than Biobrite.
Besides the price part, it works fine and really does help the person I gave it to sleep earlier and better.
Another potential issue might be that the bulb does not have a standard socket size- not sure how much Biobrite will charge to replace it, or if it will be available in a regular store.
What I like:
1. I actually don't even need my alarm most mornings! With the BioBrite I wake up naturally, and my wife doesn't complain (I think she just doesn't want to admit it since she's been against this)
2. If I do have to wake up from my alarm I don't feel groggy because the light has been waking up my brain slowly and naturally.
3. If you give the quick manual a read it is easy to use.
4. Supposedly it takes a regular bulb you can buy at the store. Some others require special bulbs.
5. See #1 and #2
What I don't like:
1. The cost, but really I think it's so worth the money now.
2. Styling. It isn't pretty.
3. Size. it is bigger than it needs to be, might not fit well on a night-stand (read review for why it works for me) - but, it isn't un-wieldly by any means.
Some notes:
1. It would work on the bedside table, but I prefer mine behind a plant at the end of my bed so the light is more like the sun filtering through the blinds.
2. Play with the wake periods and start time. I've found I set it for 45 minutes after I need to be up, and have it on the 90 minute cycle. That way the light is enough to wake me but not too bright to wake up to (see #1)
3. Setting it - Understand how the alarm settings work, if you set it to 30 minute cycle and set the alarm for 0600, it'll start coming on at 0530. I thought it didn't work at first because I thought the light would start coming on at the alarm time, instead it is designed to be full brightness at the alarm time.
Overall:
I'm happy I spent the money. This ranks high on the list of things in the last several years that have allowed me to put my life back to normal. If the price were lower, it was smaller, and the product looked more modern this would definitely be 5 stars or more if they allowed it.
As for the product itself, it works just as I hoped it would. The light and clock are a lot bigger than I imagined; it'll take up a good amount of space, width-wise (about 10 inches?) on your nightstand, but it isn't that deep. But it appears and feels well-made; the light globe is heavy-duty frosted glass, not flimsy plastic, which is good, because it gets hot when the light is on full-power.
When I use its "sunset" feature, it sometimes abruptly lowers the light dramatically. I think I've resolved that problem by turning on the light while the alarm is off, and letting the light stay on for a minute or so before activating the alarm.
One thing that does bother me, however, is that there doesn't appear to be a dim option for the time display if you do not have the alarm set. The display rather too bright w/o it. To resolve this, I turn the clock away from me. I don't use the alarm on the weekends, so it isn't so imperative that I know what the time is, anyway!
Overall, I rate this product high. I love waking up to light rather than noise!
Night Light - If I read in bed, it's really nice to have a light that I don't have to worry about turning off.
Cons:
Expensive - For what you get it is way over priced. Another review said it was worth about 60% less than you pay and I agree with that.
Brightness - I am a heavy sleeper and it's not sufficient to wake me up in the morning. Usually the beeper wakes me, but it does pull me from a deep sleep to a very light one. I've tried adjusting it to longer and shorter periods, but I still have to rely on the audio. I hope this will get better as my body gets used to waking up with a light.
Besides that, the unit seems to be well made, with a solid-feeling base unit and globe. My unit came with no instructions, but the controls are so simple you really don't need any.
The time display is bright when the alarm is not set - bright enough so that I have to cover it if I'm going to sleep without setting the alarm. There is no way to dim the display without setting the alarm, and this is annoying.
At $120, the unit is a bit pricey for its functionality, but if the unit lasts for a long time, it will be well worth the price.
Now when I wake up its with a nice warm sunrise and if the light coming through my eyelids doesnt wake me up, the nice subtle beeping alarm does. I have never been startled out of bed with a blaring alarm after purchasing this.
You can also set it to a sunset so it will slowly go from light to dark over a given time. Also there is a feature that will turn it on and off sporadically so it looks like someone is home while you are away on vacation or out of town for a few days. So far I love it.
The only downside is the light is not extremely bright but it will defiantly light up a room. Also its a little pricey.
Now I am not going to say that this clock cured my insomnia because it certainly didn't. But it actually helped re-set my sleep patterns and I consider it an integral part of my overall successful treatment. When I use it, I wake up slowly, and STAY awake. When my insomnia creeps back in, I use the Sunset feature to go to sleep more consistently.
Yep I still have bouts of insomnia but they are much easier to treat now. I highly recommend this to anybody who simply can't get out of bed in the morning. It will help you so much. Nope I don't work for these people and this isn't the only product I have reviewed. I am a real person who found this clock helpful. (I do think it's big n'ugly though!)
Settings: The instructions are very clear, and the settings are very easy to handle. I had my clock programmed in minutes.
Light: This uses a 110V 60W candle bulb, which doesn't quite match the intensity of many of the other Light Boxes or SAD lights out there. However, it is sufficient light to brighten a room, and if used per the instructions on basically all SAD lights - 12-18 inches from the face, then it is definitely bright enough to wake someone from their sleep. Because it is not a high powered fluorescent bulb, it is allowed to slowly increase in luminosity for 90, 60, 30, or 15 minutes before the alarm is set.
Aesthetics: This modern looking clock comes in the charcoal color, which is almost black and matches my furniture. I'm happy I don't have to have some silver space pod sitting there attracting attention.
What this model does NOT have: Since this is the lower line, it has no radio, which I don't use anyway. But also does not have the White Noise feature that the lighter color model is offered with at the same price. Since I don't have trouble falling asleep, I don't mind, but for those who do that may be something to consider.
The Alarm: This has a beeping alarm that goes off after the light reaches 100% intensity, at the time you set your alarm for. This beep can be disabled.
NightLight: I found that this device is very easy to control the intensity of the light for reading at night, so that it is not a very bright light. This also has the built in function of dimming to either a 0% light or 5% nightlight setting. The nightlight is very dim and provides just enough to see where you are going in a dark room. This was a little more involved to set....ie you have to press two buttons simultaneously, but once you figure it out, it's easy.
Security: THere is a security feature that, when set, the clock will engage the lamp at random times between 4pm and 11pm. That's just nifty! ;)
That's about all I can say about this. The glass isn't too thin, the plastic parts aren't flimsy and cheap... I love it!
PS: If you use the 30 minute sunrise sequence, it will start a half hour before your get-up time. So if you set it for 6am, it will start lighting up at 5:30. I normally wake up fairly early in the sequence, so I end up with an extra 20 minutes or so in the morning to relax with. You can adjust accordingly.
Also, the frosted glass domed cover DOES heat up, so be careful not to drape anything on it.
As for service, I wasn't impressed. I waited pretty much a month for the clock, which never arrived, and then I had to contact the seller to ask where it was. To their credit, they reshipped it to me immediately, but they sent me the white clock instead of the charcoal colored one I ordered. I just don't feel like hassling with it anymore, so I'm keeping the white one.
Every morning I wake up in such a gentle manner that I've even been using it on weekends (when I used to sleep in). The sunset setting helps me fall asleep, and I actually look forward to the peaceful, gradual sleepiness that overtakes me when I use this clock.
The volume of the alarm is perfect for me. Most mornings I wake up before the alarm goes off anyway. I did have to cover the display because there's enough brightness that I find it disturbing; I used a couple of layers of post-its and that did the trick. But I like it really dark in the room, so others might not mind the display. The globe of the lamp is shaped like a rising moon and I like that, too; I think it makes it look more "natural."
At first I thought the settings/buttons were going to confuse me, but once I dove in and just followed the directions in the manual, it was really no problem at all to figure out.
I like this gadget so much that I'll be taking it with me whenever I sleep somewhere else! =)
Unfortunately it doesn't seem to wake me up as well as I thought - I think that I'm a heavy heavy sleeper - however, when I use it in combination with my old alarm clock, the fact that my room is bright helps me get up sooner (with less snooze attempts) than before. Overall I'm satisfied with the purchase and think that it will help me get up during the early morning rotations in medical school and beyond.
I purchased this clock because I have noticed over the years that I wake up with the sunlight. Getting up at 5:30 am in summertime is easy because the sun tells me when to wake up. Getting up at 6:30 am in winter is difficult because my body wants to sleep until it gets light - waking to music doesn't even help. I hoped that a sun clock would make that sleep to wake transition less painful.
Well it does. This clock does everything I wanted it to and has made my life so much better! I have recommended it to several people.
It took some concentration to learn how to use the clock, but once you have it down, it is very easy. There is a bit of functionality that I don't need, (fade-down, alarm beeper, etc.) but the functions I do use make it easy to dial in the clock to my needs. I am grateful for tips from the reviewer who mentioned that s/he wakes up about half-way through the fade-up cycle. I am the same, so I set the fade-up to 1/2 hour and make the half-way point the time I want to wake up. I.e. to wake up at 6:15 I set a 1/2 hour fade up with a 6:30 end time. The light wakes me up half way through the fade-up, right at 6:15.
The clock is heavy because the top is glass. The bottom of the clock does get very hot, but not dangerously so. I have had it sitting on a cardboard hat box for the last year, and have had no problems. It is very pleasing to look at, sort of reminiscent of the yin-yang symbol. After 14 months I have had no problems with the clock at all, and it gets used 5 days a week - so I would say that the quality is excellent.
I keep it on my bedstand, about 2 feet away from my pillow, which seems to be ideal.
Pros:
-Wakes me up very gently in the morning, and somehow doesn't up my wife
-Puts me to sleep at night
-Saves the time (and your settings) automatically if there's a power outage, or if you unplug it briefly
-Somewhat attractive design
-Easy to program
-BioBrite has amazing customer service (I have an entire story on this that I won't add)
-Security feauture for when you're on vacation
-A Friday Night Mode, that puts you to sleep with the sounds, but doesn't wake you up the next morning
-It's a night light and reading lamp, uses bulbs that you can buy almost anywhere
Cons:
-Not cheap, but well worth it
-I purchased from Amazon, and the glass globe came shattered in a million pieces, I called BioBrite and they shipped me a new globe for free
Sundown and Sunrise features.
Optional beep is not obnoxious.
Bad:
Huge; the dimensions don't lie.
Hard to put the glass top on; not sure how I will get it off when bulb needs to be changed.
Very bright display. I had to put blue painter's tape over it so I can sleep at night (ironic). I lift part of the tape to check time or alarm settings or to program.
A reviewer complained that the sunrise alarm feature stopped working. It thought the same, but after these actions it continues to work as expected: 1) unplugged, plugged back in, and reset it, and 2) got used to the fact that when fumbling to turn off the alarm I might press the wrong button so I had to be sure to check the settings if I thought I pressed the wrong button.
Despite the clock failing, Biobrite's customer service department is -very- responsive, communicative and helpful and has sent me a replacement model, with which I haven't had any problems yet.
The product itself is great when it worked and have my fingers crossed this one will hold - if not I know I'll have Biobrite's excellent customer service there to help.