Not that programmable.
Just acquired a couple of these from another vendor and unboxed it a few minutes ago.  It's... sort of pretty okay!  Especially if you can't be bothered or don't have the space for a DIY solution.  Definitely bright as a desk lamp at full.  But not as configurable as you might expect.<br /><br />The real features once you receive the lamp and the manual are:<br /><br />-Dawn simulation, something like a 30 minute brightening at a set time.<br /><br />-Noise alarm.<br /><br />-Sunset simulation, something like a 30 minute dimming when you push the off button.<br /><br />-3 user-settable color temperatures (daylight, mixed 'afternoon' light, warm white).<br /><br />-Automatic color temperature shift (toggleable):  Will adjust the color temperature at the designers' idea of what the appropriate times of day are.  Actually an abrupt flipping between color modes at 1PM and 9PM... or you could think of it as selecting the 'right' mode for the time of day when you turn it on.<br /><br />I guess you could skew the automatic adjustment by playing with the clock, but if you were hoping to automatically gradually dim the lights at _your_ bedtime without pressing a button, you're out of luck.  I was _really_ hoping for that feature, but no dice.  This makes me a sad wolverine (who stays up too late for lack of reminders).<br /><br />[My wishlist would really be something like a 7-day timer with adjustable on/color-temp-and-brightness/off times... take a look at how programmable thermostats work, most let you start from setting for 'weekdays'/'weekends' and then you can override individual days from there or leave it alone.  That's what's missing here.]<br /><br />Various observations:<br /><br />In some pictures the backlight looks like an obnoxious blue LED.  I can report that it's a not-too-obnoxious white LED with a blue cast (somewhat resembles a white-blue EL backlight), which dims when you're not operating it and apparently goes out when the lamp is off.<br /><br />The plastic/paint(?) is that rubbery matte finish that will probably show scuffs over time.  Mine seems to have come with some whitish scuffing on the 'shoulder' of the front plate but I have yet to see if it will wipe off with water.<br /><br />"You will instantly notice" quirks:<br /><br />- Holding the -/+ buttons doesn't smoothly dim the lamp.  You have a choice of something like 10 discrete settings when manually dimming.  Which are only selected when you -remove- your finger from the button.  Not exactly a dealbreaker but far more awkward than an "X10" remote control from two decades ago.<br /><br />- Mode settings are indicated by blinking the status indicators.  Which means that if blinking catches your eye, leaving the 'sunset mode' for the power switch activated will be catching your eye.  Forever.  At least it's nowhere near as bad as blinking LEDs; still from the '$1 digital wristwatch' school of design.  The curious thing is that they've got the ability to toggle the box 'circling' the indicators as an element, so they're not short on I/O lines to the LCD... 'circling' or 'uncircling' would also be less annoying than a blink.<br /><br />If this is an advance over the "Per3", I look forward to the "Per1" or "Per0" if they iron things out and make it affordable.  Give me more programmability - especially the ability to make it pull a sunset to 'dim but not off' by both timer and demand - and a slightly fancier diffuser [the one on the dumb-and-timerless "MarsLG" lamp I recently reviewed is spoiling me, but that prismatic sheet stuff has got to be what they're using in LCD monitors and must be becoming readily available by now - in comparison, this little guy makes everything throw 6 sharp shadows of 2 colors when in 'afternoon' mode] and I will not eat your fingertips.<br /><br />Edit:  Still sitting with the lamp on the desk at 9PM, I just caught it flipping into "evening" mode, so I can note that the color temperature changes are instantaneous - there is no gradual transition, disappointingly, just a timer you can't tweak except by skewing the clock.  The cool backlight becomes far more noticeable in a dark office with the lamp in warm mode and 50% dimmed, but only to 'digital clock' levels... so while I'd prefer a way to kill it, it's not too bad (it does shut off when the light's off and you're left in the dark.. so this is another lamp with a 'this light is on' indicator light of a mismatched color, great).<br /><br />It also _seems_ like the lumen output goes down accordingly (where the afternoon mode uses all 6 emitters, but morning and evening modes only use the warm or cool 3), but I don't have a light meter around and I'm a bad judge of absolute brightness across different color temperatures.  I sort of want to take this down to 3 stars for doing little better than I could do with individual warm/cool lamps and dimmers/timers, but I'll leave it at 4 for trying and convenience.  What I really need are "go home already" / "go to bed already" signals for work and home, and the fixed timing and lack of a way to tell it, say, "Okay, gradually dim to 50% and warm by 8PM, then 10% and warm by 12:30AM and stay there until I turn you off" means it doesn't quite meet my needs.  Still better than nothing - and far better than sitting under unchanging workplace lighting into the night.<br /><br />To recap from the above, the color 'auto-shift' timings are:<br /><br />5:00 AM: Morning (Cool white)<br />1:00 PM: Day (Mixed - both banks on)<br />9:00 PM: Evening (Warm white)<br /><br />So if you leave the lamp on all night, at 5AM it'll pop from warm to cool; then at 1PM it'll pop from cool to mixed - and possibly increase apparent brightness for both banks of LEDs being on; then back to warm and maybe less bright at 9PM.
Rating: 4 stars