I've searched american innovative, hammacher schlemmer, brookstone, and other types of vendors with creative products to help me wake up gradually. I truly hate the beeping alarm clock standard and think it's too jarring and unnatural. Most of the ones I've tried have terrible, canned nature sounds and the 'low' volume of the progression is already too loud.

This clock is easily the best i've tested. To the user above who can't figure out how to make the lamp come on dimly at first, read my comment on that review - there's a simple switch on the back. When it's off, the lamp comes on full blast, but when you turn it on, it's a very gradual brightening.

This is one of the clock's best features - other clocks have a built-in bulb, but with this you get to use your own light instead of some gaudy towering clock next to your bed. I've got mine plugged into a lamp 20 feet away from the bed and it works perfectly. Another nice feature is that while in bed, if I forgot something, i can just press a button on the clock and turn the lamp on remotely, with fully dimmer controls. And at night, you can set it to gradually get quieter and dimmer until it shuts off at a preset time.

If you want a peaceful way to wake up, with either progressive nature sounds or slowly-increasing radio, plus a natural brightening of the room over 15 or 30 minutes, this is the right clock.

The only feature I wish they included is an iPod dock. For some reason you can't have progressive volume, light control, AND mp3 control in one clock. The ceiling projection is kind of cool, but I still don't see a reason to buy that feature alone. The one other reviewer who said the blue is too bright - this is true. Despite a dimmer control on the display, even the dim setting is far too bright.

Other than that, this is a great product. Just the remote lamp feature alone is cool enough to buy it and give it a try

-K. Moynehan

8/20/10