Accessories

Sunrise Lamp
Good product. Very bright. The bulb is a DC halogen capsule just like a headlight on a car and the brightness is comperable to having a car's highbeam inside a lampshade. The incandesent 'bulb' is tinted to adjust the color slightly, but otherwise purely aestetic.

Good features, particularly the timer that gently increases the brightness for some time in the morning.

Build quality could be better. I'd much prefer the dimmer knob to be an actual knob. Instead you turn it 45deg left/right and it presses a button to dim/brighten. Also it requires more force than it should to turn on/off and I've knocked the lamp over a few times because you need to support it from behind to activate the switch.

Everything else (radio, alarm timer, clock, lamp, et.al.) works exactly as you would expect it to.

Overall I'm very pleased with the lamp and the effect. I can't stand waking up before dawn and the lamp removes the startling irritating response that my alarm clock creates. Instead of being angry and resistant and snoozing I am already alert and aware when the alarm goes off and just roll right out of bed.

As Promised Though Not As Good
Something you may have heard about Seattle is many people suffer from SAD here (seasonal affective disorder). Most of those sufferers don't have an official diagnoses, but they know when winter time comes and the days are short and the clouds hang out a little too much, something in their stamina and mood changes.

We purchased the graphite version of this lamp a little over a year ago, hoping it would boost my husband's energy in the mornings over the winter.

The promise of simulated sun-light and chirping birds sounded delightful.

While the lamp and alarm-clock do as promised, it's effects aren't very good.

When the light is on any setting other than sun-ray bright it makes a low buzz, which makes it an irritating reading light. And honestly, the light doesn't seem all that different than my CF bulb bedside lamp.

BTW, when we first ordered this item we got a faulty one. The sounds and music were all staticky unless turned up to high. We had to exchange it.

Overall, this is an o-kay alarm clock slash lamp. If you're looking for real sunlight type exposure I'd suggest looking elsewhere. If you want something that turns on slowly and buzzes a bit, then this will work just fine, however, it's rather over-priced for that purpose alone.

Great idea, horrible execution...
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.

Quality????
I know I need to contact the manufacturer for Verilux Rise & Shine Natural Alarm Clock Deluxe Bedside Lamp. This item only worked for one week before the light and the time readout display stopped working. Hmmmm. The alarm still functions. Without the light it has become the biggest, most expensive, alarm clock without actually ever knowing what time it is?

This lamp is an ugly piece of junk - and probably will arrive broken
I bought one of these and thought it was a neat idea. When it arrived and I plugged it in, it started to scream!! I called Verilux and they said that a lot of them came from the factory that way -- they didn't stop selling them, they just shipped replacements when the bad ones turned up. Don't take a chance with this garbage.