Alarm clocks remind me of referees — they’re often necessary, but I tend to get angry at them just for doing their jobs. You want to be reliably woken up on time, but it’s still annoying to be roused from a by a repeated buzzing sound next to your ear. With the right alarm clock, you’ll hopefully be less irritated and less inclined to smash your helpful gadget into pieces in the morning.
Finding the best alarm clock for you can make the process of easier. As with other smart home products, search any major US electronics retailer and you’ll find a slew of options from a variety of brands, at prices ranging from $10 to over $100. Sorting through the crowd can feel like splitting hairs, given that they all mainly serve a single purpose.
For more like this
Subscribe to the Smart Home newsletter, receive notifications and see related stories on CNET.
Read more:
Complicating 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. 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.
In pursuit of a more refreshing morning, I tested 10 alarms over a couple of months to find the best alarm clock on the market. 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. I compiled the common denominators into my list and purchased them for testing.
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 at such a simple task. Extras and customizability were nice, especially at higher prices, but I generally preferred those that got the basics right for an affordable price. That said, the recent , and the , all feel like worthwhile upgrades. I’ve added my thoughts on each below and I’ll keep updating this list as I test more products.
Read more:
Tips to know when buying an alarm clock
Travelwey’s alarm clock excels at simplicity. It’s $14, 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. It only has a handful of buttons, all of which are easy to understand and use. 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.
You can adjust the brightness of the numbers with a slider on the back. 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. The Travelwey Home LED Alarm Clock also has a separate nightlight feature if you don’t want your room to be pitch black while you sleep.
Other than the nightlight, Travelwey’s alarm doesn’t have much to feature. You can’t adjust the snooze time — it’s 9 minutes. You can’t set a second alarm. You can switch between a two-volume alarm setting if you prefer a soft or loud alarm clock, but you can’t change the tone or have it play music or the radio.
It’s a simple alarm clock, but Travelwey made sure all of the basics were implemented well. A simple indicator shows the alarm is armed. It has a backup battery, if you have a power outage. 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. There’s not much to the Travelwey Home LED Alarm Clock, but what’s there works well.
The Show 5 has a lot of the trappings I look for in a good alarm clock. You can set different alarms and have them repeat on various days of the week. The alarm can wake you up with a customizable tone or your own music. You can have the alarm ramp up the volume loud to ease you out of your sleep. Along the same line, the screen can gradually get brighter starting 15 minutes before the alarm to wake you from sleep.
When you’re not sleeping, you can issue voice commands to the Show 5 thanks to the built-in Alexa voice assistant. You can also use the touchscreen to make video calls, check the weather, control your smart home and other things. The Show 5 is a smart display similar to the original Echo Show, but trimmed for your nightstand.
Even with adaptive brightness enabled, the screen still casts a little glow, and you can’t customize the snooze time, but it otherwise offers all of the customization and any feature you’d want if you’re willing to pay more for a smart alarm. Its list price is $90, but it’s currently on sale on Amazon for $70.
Read our Echo Show 5 review.
The Sony ICFC-1 costs $18, a little more than the Travelwey Home LED. It has an alarm clock radio built in so you can wake up to your favorite station or a more traditional alarm clock buzzing. You can set a sleep timer so you can fall asleep to the radio as it plays. It adjusts the time automatically for daylight saving time. Even the buzzing alarm gently ramps up to ease you out of your sleep, and the snooze function button is easy to find if you need more time.
You’ll want to keep the manual handy when first setting up the Sony ICFC-1. Even setting and checking your alarm time is counterintuitive at first. There’s no button for it — you hit the plus or minus on top to see the time then keep hitting one or the other to set the alarm time. Once you know what to press, using the ICFC-1 is simple enough, it’s just not quite as brainless as the Travelwey alarm.
The cube design is also a little hard to get used to, and the orange numbers aren’t as easily visible from across the room as those on the Travelwey alarm. That said, you can cycle through three levels of brightness by tapping snooze, none of which creates an unwanted glow. The ICFC-1 also has a button to turn off the alarm that keeps it set for the same time. It has a battery backup and a clear indicator when the alarm is armed.
I liked Travelwey’s alarm slightly more as it’s easier to set up, and its clock is easier to see from across a darkened room, but Sony’s alarm makes a strong case for itself by doing more for the same price and it could easily be the better choice for you if you value those extras.
If you’re willing to spend more than $40 for an alarm, you can look for all kinds of different features. Of all of the potential alarm upgrades, the sunrise alarm on the $50 Philips HF3500 is the only one that actually makes it easier to wake up in the morning. Shaped a bit like a UFO with a kickstand, the HF3500 has a simple circular orange clock face surrounded by a couple of buttons and a wide light ring. At 30 minutes before the scheduled alarm time, the light gradually starts increasing in brightness until it reaches a customizable max at the scheduled time and starts beeping with increasing intensity to finish the task of waking sleepers up.
The light is supposed to gently ease sleepers awake. On both mornings of my testing, I had a good night’s sleep and a relatively easy time getting out of bed. Aside from the light, the Philips HF3500 is easy to operate with minimal buttons. You can use the light as a lamp and it has 10 levels of brightness. You can cycle through three levels for the clock face, but the orange numbers do a good job of not casting much of a glow even at their brightest, so sleep won’t be disturbed.
Snoozing the alarm is counterintuitive, as you need to whack the upper half of the light — there’s no button. I’d worry that I’d accidentally break my fancy alarm on a particularly grouchy morning. For its price, the HF3500 surprisingly lacks any extras other than the wake-up light, and I doubt that will be much help for heavy sleepers, or those with rooms that already get bright when day breaks.
Nevertheless, the HF3500 keeps things simple and elegant while still innovating on the basic concept of waking up from sleep in the morning. Splurging on the HF3500 could be a worthwhile experiment if you’re looking for a more peaceful way to wake up.
The RCD30 has a lot in common with my favorite of the bunch, the Travelwey. The RCD30 is simple, with only a couple of buttons. It has a large, red display with two levels of brightness — neither glows and you can easily see either from across a dark room. The snooze button is easy to find, but double-checking your alarm time and resetting it for the next day aren’t as easy on the RCD30 as on the Travelwey. Also, unlike the Travelwey, the RCD30 doesn’t have a nightlight, which some prefer for sleep. Given that it’s only about $13, it’s a good alternative if you want something cheap and simple.
I hated the Sonic Bomb bed shaker alarm — but that’s a good thing if you’re a semicomatose sleeper and it’s difficult for you to wake up. To be clear, I didn’t hate the $33 clock because of poor design or poor performance, I hated it because I woke up to my pillow shaking and I thought the world was ending. The bed shaker alarm has an incredibly loud buzzer and a vibrating alarm clock attachment you can place on your bed in case the buzzer itself isn’t enough. The clock offers two alarms and plenty of customization. The controls are easy enough to figure out. It’s worth your consideration for heavy sleepers, and it deserves to be mentioned alongside the Philips HF3500 as a good implementation of a novelty alarm concept. But unless you truly know very deep sleepers, the Philips makes for a much more pleasing morning routine.
Other options
The following alarm clocks do some things well but have flaws that make them tougher to recommend.
The Lenovo Smart Clock uses Google Assistant to respond to your voice commands, so you can use it as a smart speaker like the Google Home Mini. It has a 4-inch touchscreen and you can swipe between pages showing the weather, your commute and your calendar — handy info when you’re heading to bed or first waking up. It’s similar to a smart display, but not as robust, in that you can’t watch videos or access a smart home control panel. The touchscreen is meant specifically for your bedside.
Fortunately, it’s an effective alarm. You can set different alarms at once and customize each to a wide degree. You can set your preferred snooze length, choose an alarm tone and set any alarm to repeat on a daily schedule. The Lenovo Smart Clock also doubles as a sunrise alarm, with the screen getting brighter 30 minutes before your scheduled wake up time.
Plus, it can trigger a Good Morning routine when you shut it off. By default, that routine will tell you about your day and then play news podcasts, but you can customize it to your liking and have it control smart home gadgets as well. After a recent update, it can also scroll through your personal pictures as a screensaver.
The Lenovo Smart Clock isn’t perfect. You can choose from a variety of clock faces, but none strikes the perfect balance of nighttime visibility without a glow. You can’t wake up to the radio or your own music. If you want something more than a basic alarm, the smarts are well implemented, but the Amazon Echo Show 5 does more.
Read our Lenovo Smart Clock review.
Lenovo’s second smart alarm trims the features even further. It’s more of a smart speaker with a clock than a trimmed down smart display. Thankfully, the $50 price makes it an appealing option for bedside smarts even given the limited repertoire. It matches the Nest Mini and is $10 less than the Echo Dot with Clock.
The display on the Essential isn’t interactive. It shows the time, the weather, and has indicators when an alarm is set. Even the physical buttons don’t do much other than allowing some basics like muting the microphone or controlling the volume. However, it still includes Google Assistant for all of the same voice enabled tricks of Google’s other smart speakers.
You can still smack the top to snooze and it replicates a sunrise alarm with a charming nightlight that circles the back panel. The limited display still casts a glow, which is unfortunate, and the default snooze length is too long at 10 minutes, but the sound quality and mics are good for its size. The Smart Clock Essential is a good option if you want a Google smart speaker with a clock on your nightstand.
Read our Lenovo Smart Clock Essential review..
Amazon Echo Dot with Clock
The LED display on this smart speaker shows the time and weather. It’s a minor upgrade over an ordinary Echo Dot, but the visible clock makes it easier to recommend as an alarm. The brightness of the display adapts to the light in the room and the numbers do a good job of not casting a glow when dim. I was surprised the Dot with Clock did well on this test, since the numbers are white and you can’t change the color to orange or red — which are typically better at being visible in the dark without casting a glow.
The Dot with a Clock responds to your voice commands through Alexa, and shows an indicator when an alarm is set. Plus, you can smack the top to snooze for a set nine minutes. While still a smart speaker first and foremost, the Dot with Clock now warrants consideration as an effective alarm clock.
Read our Amazon Echo Dot with Clock review.
I was torn about the American Lifetime Day Clock, because the large-print design struck my fancy and could come in handy if you have impaired vision. The clock even spells out the day and date, and you can program alarms with a reminder message such as “Take your medicine” to help relatives with memory trouble. That said, I’m primarily judging alarm clocks here, and it isn’t a good alarm clock. You can’t snooze, the display casts a glow even at its dimmest, and setting alarms is a pain. You have to scroll through a menu that could easily be confusing for an elderly relative — so you’d be stuck with all the setup and even maintenance when a setting needs to be changed. The $41 American Lifetime Day Clock might be worth considering if you need a time display capable of reminders, but you can find better options if you just want an alarm with big numbers.
iHome iBT29BC
If you want features, the $50-ish iHome iBT29BC likely has you covered. This smart alarm clock has a built-in radio and two alarms, doubles as a Bluetooth speaker and even comes with an auxiliary cable. It has a battery backup, and it can double as a speakerphone and communicate with your phone’s digital assistant. It has a light that changes colors and lots of customization for what to play when you wake up. The light won’t fade up like the Philips HF3500, but it can turn on when your alarm sounds. Plus, the sound quality is surprisingly good. The snooze button is a little too small and you’ll want to keep the instruction manual handy when you first start using it. The clock face shines too brightly when turned up and it’s hard to see from across the room when dim. The iHome iBT29BC does a little bit of everything, but it’s not great at any one thing, and for the price, if you want a built-in speaker to wake you up, you might as well get a smart speaker.
Read more.
Given that the Home Sunrise Alarm Clock performs ostensibly the same trick as the Philips HF3500 for a fraction of the price — $29 for the Home Clock as opposed to $37 for the HF3500 — I was excited to try it out. This light alarm clock even has a few more features: The light changes colors, and you can customize which color turns on and how long it fades up before your chosen alarm time. It has a radio and you can pick from a variety of wake-up sounds, including classical music and nature sounds such as waves crashing. On paper, the clock offers everything you could want in a light alarm clock at a great price. It also proves that you get what you pay for. The touch buttons on the front aren’t very responsive — setting the time, setting an alarm and turning off the alarm from your bedside table are all more difficult than they need to be. Using the radio is surprisingly tedious. The sunrise simulation brightness ramps up too quickly in the morning and the white numbers showing the time cast too much light at night. If you can get around the tedium, the clock does offer many a feature for the price.
Not recommended
I don’t recommend the following alarms to anyone.
Sharp LCD Digital Alarm Clock: This compact, $15 digital clock takes two AA batteries and is fully portable, but you can’t see the time in a darkened room without turning on a backlight that will hurt your eyes because you’re in a darkened room. The snooze button and the backlight button are the same. When the alarm sounds, that backlight turns on automatically, but turns off again after a couple of seconds. If you take a moment to wake up you won’t be able to check the time when deciding whether or not to snooze. If you need an alarm for your home, use a different one. If you need a portable alarm, you’re better off using your phone.
Brandstand BPECT CubieTime: This ugly $59 alarm costs too much, has a clock face that glows, lacks any meaningful feature and gets a lot of the basics wrong. It’s hard to find snooze in the dark. Setting the alarm is relatively tedious, and the alarm resets to 6 a.m. every time you turn it off, so you’ll need to put it back to your preferred time every day if you happen to wake up at any other time.
What to look for in an alarm clock
If you’re out shopping and don’t see any of the above, you can find a good option for your nightstand by keeping a couple of things in mind.
Red and orange numbers are less likely to cast a glow. That might not matter to you if a glow won’t bother you or if you actually want a glow, but if you don’t like a bright sleeping environment, the color of the numbers is a bigger deal than you’d expect. That’s one thing you can learn about the alarm just by looking at the display.
Focus on the basics. Alarms that perform a bunch of extra tricks are nice, but you probably have something else in your house that’s better at playing music or that has a charging port for your phone. Look for an alarm that’s easy to set, easy to check, has an indicator so you can see that it’s armed and has a big snooze button that you can find when you’re half asleep.
Get the extras you want. After you find a couple of options that get the basics right, find the one with extras that appeal to you. Do you want a nightlight? Do you want several alarms? Do you want to customize the length of the timer? Do you want a radio? The great thing about the breadth of the alarm category is that you can find a model that fits all of your desired criteria. And yes, if you really want to go crazy with a charging port or even wireless phone charging built in, those models exist too.
Gentle wakeups are great. If you don’t know what features to prioritize, look for an alarm that gradually increases in volume or slowly raises the light level to ease you out of your sleep. That was my favorite feature of the bunch and I generally felt less grumpy with alarms that didn’t shock me awake.
“Smart” alarm clocks are here. Finally, keep in mind that if you want an alarm with smarts — something that’s compatible with Amazon’s Alexa, Google Assistant or Apple’s Siri — you have options other than the Lenovo Smart Clock and the Echo Show 5. iHome offers smart alarms with either Alexa or Google Assistant. And is a good option if you can snag it when it’s .
More ways to get better sleep
- The 10 best pillows in 2020, according to the internet
- Shopping for the best mattress? 7 questions to ask yourself before you shop
- 12 meditation apps to help you destress
- How to get better sleep in 2020
The information contained in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as health or medical advice. Always consult a physician or other qualified health provider regarding any questions you may have about a medical condition or health objectives.