Unexpected jarring blue light at bedtime, but otherwise effective. If you can follow the instructions.
Good: this light wakes me up gently and within a few minutes of the beginning of its sunrise mode.<br /><br />Bad: I have become adept at turning off yet another form of alarm in my sleep, and this one isn't unpleasant enough to wake me up sufficiently that I remain awake for long.<br /><br />Most jarring thing: the sunset simulator goes from full daylight and fades over a half-hour. This sounds great. In practice, this means if you are using the lamp on automatic light temperature cycle mode and initiate sunset after 9pm (when the lamp switches to &#34;night&#34; warm-white mode), there's a slight delay, and then all six LEDs turn on full blast. That means a jump in illumination and a strong shot of blue light, although the ramp-down of the light is nice and smooth and helps me go to sleep a little more quickly than I otherwise might. Minus one star.<br /><br />The people who complain about the user interface are not wrong. It's amazing, and I say that with astonishment and fear. The icons are tiny. You do need the manual. This would be minus two stars on its own. There were some details in the manual that were slightly inaccurate (exact button sequences to save/escape), but I managed to puzzle through with some trial and error and button-mashing.<br /><br />You can tell that you have the feature enabled if the relevant icon is blinking. If the icon isn't blinking, go back through and try again.<br /><br />If you want to test the light alarm to see how it turns on, don't set the alarm for 1 minute from now, set it for 31+ minutes from now. It's not programmed to realize that a newly set light alarm less than 30 minutes away should turn the light on immediately and bring it quickly to full intensity, it will only activate at the 30 minutes before alarm time mark.<br /><br />The lamp will shut itself off after a while when it's turned on as an alarm.
Rating: 3 stars