You can check the time with a button and press a separate one to turn off the alarm but leave it set for the same time the next day. It has a backup battery, if you have a power outage. A simple indicator shows the alarm is armed. It's a simple alarm clock, but Travelwey made sure all of the basics were implemented well. You can switch between a two-volume alarm setting if you prefer a soft or loud alarm, but you can't change the tone or have it play music or the FM radio. You can't adjust the snooze time - it's 9 minutes. Other than the night-light, Travelwey's alarm doesn't have many features. The Travelwey Home LED Alarm Clock also has a separate night-light feature if you don't want your room to be pitch black while you sleep. At all levels, the numbers are large enough that they're easy to read from across a dark room and they don't cast a glow that could disrupt your sleep. You can adjust the brightness of the numbers with a slider on the back. The big red numbers dominate the LED display, and the snooze button is easy to find and smack when you want to shut up the alarm in the morning. It only has a handful of buttons, all of which are easy to understand and use. It's $20, which is a little more than other competent models I tested, but still easily affordable for a bedside alarm clock you'll use every day. Travelwey's alarm clock excels at simplicity. Read more: 4 Sunrise Alarm Clocks That Will Wake You Up Gently I've added my thoughts on each below and I'll keep updating this list as I test more products. That said, the recent Lenovo Smart Clock 2, Smart Clock Essential and Amazon Echo Show 5 all feel like worthwhile upgrades. Extras and customizability were nice, especially at higher prices, but I generally preferred those that got the basics right for an affordable price. I let each alarm wake me up for at least two nights, making notes about the experience as I went, and I was surprised to find big differences in usability even when it came to such a simple task. I compiled the common denominators into my list and purchased them for testing. I checked the recommended products on other sites, and looked at top-rated models and top sellers on Best Buy, Amazon, Bed Bath & Beyond, Target and Walmart. In pursuit of a more refreshing morning, I tested 10 alarm clocks over a couple of months to find the best one on the market. Nevertheless, alarm clocks still have their place, and I understand the appeal over an app or smart device - I like turning my smartphone off at night and having a clock I can check at a glance if I wake up from sleep and it's still dark. Multiple volume and tone settings, multiple alarmsĬomplicating matters even further, you likely have a smartphone alarm clock app and possibly a smart display or smart speaker, which can wake you up and render a separate alarm clock redundant. But for now I am pleasantly satisfied that I got what I wanted.Sunrise light, a variety of tones, streaming musicĪmazon's Alexa for voice commands, touchscreen display for videos, shortcuts for smart home controls If I were to use more features built in to the clock and of course, pay for them if need be, then my rating might be better or worse we may never find out. So this app is doing everything I asked it to do, which wasn’t much, and doing it very well. I honestly don’t remembering paying to remove the ads, but I am not getting them. As soon as you tap any key the clock retreats to its normal position, behind everything. The caveat * is that when I step away from the computer for just a few minutes, the clock pulls itself forward of all the layers of open apps and what-have-you on the screen and hovers on top of everything else. Using “Style 15” in the upper left corner of my desktop, it’s never intrusive* and always available. I would love that.Īll I needed was an analog clock face to be on my desktop, readily available to glance at.

I would love to be able to fully customize the face of the clock, to include the numbers and the tick marks, the background image, the hands, etc.

I have some suggestions for improvements in future versions. This bug shoudl be fixed, but it's not a show-stopper for me. The only way to make them work again is to quit the Clock app, and then bring up the Force Quit menu and restart Finder. On the opposite side of the screen from these menu items, where I have the menu bar icons and the date and so forth, all of those work. When this happens, I cannot click on any of the Finder menu options at the top of my screen (The apple logo, the application menu, File, Edit, View, etc). This seems to happen particularly after the clock has been covered up for an extended period of time. What I don't love is the fact that it will, at times, cause my Finder menu to become unresponsive. I love that I can customize it to some extent. I love that I can size the clock face to any size I want. I love that it can be placed on the desktop and be unobtrusive.

Big weather clock face