Advanced Rise & Shine Alarm Clock

Every now and again, something will crop up in our daily life that really highlights the different mentalities of the Brits (me !) and the French (Mike). It can be telling the kids who comes to collect their baby teeth (the tooth fairy or the little mouse ?), whether the kids get to open their Christmas presents on the evening of the 24th or the morning of the 25th, whether snails should live in the garden or be found on your plate ! Another one is ... shutters ! Whenever we're in England, Mike always complains about the sunlight waking him up too early, whereas I love it. There's nothing I hate more than waking up in the pitch black of a French room with shutters then opening them and flooding the room (and your eyes) with blinding bright daylight. It always gives me a headache and a feeling like I've had an overtly abrupt, brutal cold-bucket-of-water start to the day.

People in France - who presumably have shutters because almost everyone does - have now discovered SAD (seasonal affective disorder) and are paying a fortune to go into a room with a special blue lamp. I always want to yell at them, Just leave your shutters open ! Not that it would do them much good at this time of year as it's still dark when it's time to get up anyway. And that's where this brilliant Advanced Rise & Shine Alarm Clock that I was sent to review comes in.

As they say on the website : "It's no secret that most people feel energised and happy when they get lots of natural light during the long sunny days of spring and summer. But the short, dark days of winter can have the reverse effect. When natural light is reduced, many people have trouble getting out of bed in the morning, and can also feel lazy and grumpy. Nature intended you to wake up with the effect of a gradual sunrise in order to set your bodyclock and this is certainly not the effect from a loud and penetrating standard beeping alarm clock. The abrupt change from deep sleep to being awake can be rather unpleasant. One way of attempting to cure this is with a Sunrise Light Up Alarm Clock and there is no better way to do this than with our super advanced Dawn Simulator Model that has just been released in the UK (October 2010). "

What is really lovely is that you don't just get the daylight option, you also have a range of natural sounds that you can use to wake yourself up gently. Waking up to gentle birdsong or the sound of a bubbling stream or crashing waves  is absolutely worlds apart from being startled awake by a horrible buzzing or grating electronic bleeping ! If you can't manage to wake up with the gentle natural sounds - you have a choice of Birds, Brooks, Nightingale, Waves on the Beach, Waterfall & birds, or Rain - you can also opt for a ringing tone or standard alarm.

I also love the fact that you can personalise pretty much everything - not only the sounds but also the brightness (four levels) and the length of time your artificial dawn will take (up to 60 minutes). How cool is that ? You can programme the length and brightness as well as the time of your artificial sunrise !

An added advantage that I hadn't thought of is that these natural sounds are very soothing so they are ideal for helping baby drift off to sleep. The sounds, particularly the breaking waves, remind me of those teddy bears that you can buy with sounds designed to imitate the sounds that baby hears inside the womb. It's especially good as the sounds turn off automatically after half an hour.

As well as waking you up with light, the clock also has a digital alarm clock and calendar with a large display and a temperature feature. It runs on three AA batteries or with a mains adapter, neither of which are included, which is a bit of a shame. It looks really pretty with a silver-and-white colour scheme and lovely rounded forms but it does seem incredibly light when you pick it up !

I love it and I definitely feel more energised and relaxed and less stressed in the morning. I'm always a bit worried that I'll be too relaxed so I do still set the normal alarm on Mike's side just in case I don't wake up but I haven't needed it so far ! Juliette loves it too because she thinks it's exactly the same as her Gro Clock !

star rating : 4.5/5 (half a point off because I would have like a mains adapter in there !)

RRP : £39.99 but currently £22.99

Other reviews you may be interested in :

Gro-clock

JML Colour Touch Alarm Clock

Goodnight Friend Igglepiggle