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Why You’d Want a Sunrise Alarm
Easier Mornings
Best Overall
Homelabs Sunrise Alarm Clock
A Nice Upgrade
Philips SmartSleep Wake-Up Light (HF3520)
Most Intuitive Design
Casper Glow Light
Alarms clocks and I have a damaged relationship. Friends notice me wince every time I’m watching a movie and a character’s alarm blares them awake with all of the subtlety and gentleness of an aircraft carrier slamming into the sun. And don’t get me started about how, when I was a kid, my dad would wake me up for school by thrusting the window curtains open as if he were opening the Ark of the Covenant right in my face. Waking up to a sunrise alarm is, by stark contrast, downright pleasant. And if you’re like most of us, you need more sleep.
Sunrise alarms simulate gradual sunsets at night and gradual sunrises in the morning to help you fall asleep and wake up more naturally by tricking your biological hardware. I’ve tested the best sunrise alarm clocks, and a few of the worst. These are my favorites.
Check out our many other sleep-related buying guides, such as the Best Mattresses, the Best Weighted Blankets, and the Best Sound Machines, all of which could help you get a better night’s sleep.
Updated October 2023: We’ve added the Lexon Mina and the WiiM Wake-Up Light, as well as updated pricing and availability.
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Photograph: Getty Images
Why You’d Want a Sunrise Alarm
Easier Mornings
Your body is built to wake naturally with the sunrise and feel sleepy as it sets. The sun rises at a deeply orange 2,000 kelvin and transitions to a rich, golden 3,500 K on its way to a bluer midday sun around 5,500 K. Sunsets do the reverse.
My apartment was the perfect lab for testing these alarms. In my bedroom, I hang blackout curtains because I live on a busy city street that’s somehow brighter at night than during the day. I’m a heavy sleeper who doesn’t have a problem waking up, but that doesn’t mean I enjoy it. Every morning I lurch out of bed like a crash-test dummy flying through an invisible windshield and run for coffee. When I woke up with (most of) these sunrise alarms, I had an easier transition into consciousness.
If you don’t have access to a window in your bedroom, or maybe you use blackout curtains like me, a sunrise alarm could make your mornings or nights a little easier.
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Photograph: Amazon
Best Overall
Homelabs Sunrise Alarm Clock
Yanking it out of the box, the build quality of this thing smacked me right upside the head. A solid metal stand and touch-sensitive buttons for $40!? Hell yes. It’s simple to use, and the light on the sunset setting was warm and relaxing. The artificial sunrise was enough to rouse me out of bed, but it wasn’t too bright. There are nature sounds, like birds and ocean waves, to help you wake up too.
It did a good job of casting enough light when it was the only lamp in my otherwise dark bedroom, but it’s a bit on the small side, and because of its headlamp-like shape it shines most in a particular direction. The light is also not as diffused as the higher-end alarms on this list—certainly enough to read by before bed, but not quite as able to bathe the whole room in light. It’s still plenty bright to help wake you up, though.
You can dim or turn off the LED display. For people like me, who have always hated seeing glowing numbers in an otherwise dark room, the latter is a great option. I’ll never understand why more alarms don’t offer it. It’s a steal at $40, especially with the extras like multicolor mood lighting, access to an FM radio, and a center Snooze button that’s easy to hit.
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Photograph: Philips
A Nice Upgrade
Philips SmartSleep Wake-Up Light (HF3520)
Why is this so heavy? And big? Those were my first thoughts when I took Philips’ alarm out of the box. It reminded me of my college job at a hot rod shop, lugging around headlights from old 1950s Mercurys and Chevys. That’s a good thing. The Philips HF3520 oozes build quality and is easily the nicest alarm in this guide. It has the usual features, such as an audible alarm, five natural wake-up sounds, and an FM radio.
The lens is convex, and some light shines through the back of the casing, so it casts light in more directions than other headlight-shaped sunrise clocks I reviewed, like the Homelabs and Totobay. Light is beautifully diffused, which keeps the rays from being blinding—that’s especially nice in a dark room when your pupils are enlarged and particularly susceptible to harsh light. The more upscale Philips SmartSleep model (below) barely beats it out in the quality of light, but the HF3520 has the second-nicest light quality in this roundup. The clock display and touch controls are a cut above the cheaper alarms.
This would be my top pick if it wasn’t so expensive; It’s five times the price of the Homelabs, but it’s not five times the alarm. Perhaps it’s worth it if you have a particularly large bedroom and want the extra light for reading as you settle into bed. It is nicer to look at, though.
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Photograph: LANDON SPEERS/Casper
Most Intuitive Design
Casper Glow Light
You’ve got to hand it to Casper for intuitive design. To start the sunset program before bed, just flip the alarm over. There’s a button on top to pause and unpause it, and when it’s sitting on the charging pad, just turn it to adjust the brightness. Everything else, like setting wake-up schedules and adjusting the length of the sunsets and sunrises in 15-minute increments (up to 90 minutes), is controlled through the app.
It has only one shade of light, and while you can adjust the brightness, you can’t make it warmer (yellower) or cooler (bluer). But it’s a gorgeously warm yellow light. You can pair several together, and they’ll sync so you can have one in the living room and another in the bedroom, which will ease your whole apartment into a sunset as you near bedtime. Or just have two on both nightstands. They recharge on a pad the size of a coaster.
Of all the sunrise alarms I tested, this was the best at evenly lighting up a dark room. It’s also the only wireless model I tested, so I could start a sunset in the living room and bring it with me into the bedroom later. But it’s $130 and doesn’t have a clock, a radio, or an audible wake-up buzzer. If you ban your phone from your nightstand every night and need an alarm that can be programmed to scream at you precisely at 6:30 am, you’ll need a different sunrise alarm.
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Photograph: Amazon
Most Connected
WiiM Wake-Up Light
The WiiM is the easiest alarm I’ve used. There is very little learning curve: Just load the Light app onto your smartphone, and plug the lamp into an outlet. As soon as you open the app it’ll automatically discover the lamp. Well-designed screens walk you through the setup. The WiiM’s app explains everything clearly, and there are physical buttons for snooze, brightness, volume, light modes, and mute.
Some sunrise alarms have too few buttons, making you go into the app for every little action. Some have too many buttons, making it feel cluttered. The WiiM has all the necessary buttons and leaves the rarely touched settings for the app, unlike the Casper above.
Via the WiiM app, you can link your phone and wake up to your own favorite music or use any of the preprogrammed sleep sounds. None can match a dedicated sleep machine. The WiiM’s light could get quite bright—almost on the threshold of hurting my eyes if I lay on my bed facing it with the brightness all the way up. Obviously, just dial back the brightness if it’s too much for you. But bright is good. The digital clock and settings display is bright and clear, one of the best on any sunrise alarm. It also comes with Amazon’s Alexa virtual assistant built into it, which you can enable or disable at will.
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Photograph: Philips
The Super-Premium Pick
Philips SmartSleep Connected Sleep and Wake-Up Light Therapy Lamp
After testing some of the more affordable options on this list, I was ready to say I couldn’t recommend a $270 alarm clock. But the SmartSleep, formerly known as the Somneo, nailed the basics of what a sunrise alarm should be, then piled on a bunch of customizable features you won’t find on other devices. First off, the light spreads over the walls like warm butter. It’s somewhat directional, but the hole in the middle and convex shape casts light at wider angles than other directional alarms. The light quality is slightly ahead of the other premium alarms on this list, and you can select from four light profiles.
Setting it up was simple. As soon as I plugged it in, the alarm lit up with directions to download the Philips app on my phone. You can control it through the touch-sensitive controls on the alarm’s face, but the best way to operate all its features is through the app, (Don’t bother with the non-Wi-Fi model.) You can even follow a guided breathing exercise through the light to relax before bed, and the wake-up sounds aren’t gimmicky—I loved waking up to the gentle chirping of birds. Still, it’s $200. That’s some expensive sleep.
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Photograph: Bed Bath & Beyond
Best for Sounds
iHome Zenergy
The Zenergy has the most relaxing sounds before bed and when waking up in the morning. There are 15(!) of them. Some sounds, like those they call Heartbeat and Trance, remind me of science fiction films like Event Horizon, but most of them are more natural and offer a very calming effect. Storm, Chimes, and River are my favorites. There’s also a guided breathing exercise where a voice instructs you when to take in breaths, hold them, and release them over a soothing track in the background, and it gets me in the mood for bed every time. The see-through cloth cover allows the digital clock and menu items to shine through while hiding unlit display settings that aren’t in use. A premium touch.
Color patterns such as Aurora (a rainbow effect) and Pulse (a colored checkerboard pattern) are fun, but they don’t keep me relaxed or wake me up. The Zenergy doesn’t light up the room nearly as much as the other alarms, so I wouldn’t use it to wind down while reading in bed the way I used the others. It was more like a night light I’d set before climbing into bed and letting it lull me to sleep as it gradually lowered its light.
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Photograph: Philips
Custom Routine With Philips Hue
Using Smart Bulbs
Smart bulbs are one of the best aspects of the smart home concept today. With the right bulbs and a bit of tinkering, you can set up sunrise and sunset routines using your existing lamps and overhead lights. There are lots of good smart bulbs. I used Philips Hue for this article.
You’ll need a Hue Smart Hub for $5 to control your smart bulbs away from home, and also Hue bulbs that fit your light fixtures. The 60W-equivalent A19 for $24 is the most common bulb for a typical lamp. Make sure you buy the White Ambiance or Color model (not the base White) so that you can change the color temperature (measure of whiteness to yellowness).
You can set “At Sunrise” and “At Sunset” routines through the Hue app, and choose from custom scenes to vary the light quality as the lights fade in or out gradually at your preferred time. With a color temperature of 2,200 to 6,500 K, Hue bulbs give a wide range of light, from Super Walmart–white to melted-butter yellow. The downside is that if you don’t already have light fixtures in your bedroom, it’s an expensive way to build a sunrise-and-sunset system. And unlike many sunrise alarms, you won’t get sleep sounds.
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Photograph: Amazon
More Sunrise Alarms
Decent Alternatives
Lumie’s Bodyclock Active 250 for $140 looks and feels like something designed more than a decade ago because it was designed more than a decade ago. Operating it is a pain. Even with the manual in front of me, working the various controls was a headache. Yet it fills up a dark room better than the more directional lamps, although the large vents on the back of the lens cast a peacock pattern of light on the walls. It does a good job of diffusing the light, and it has the usual list of features—a loud alarm, a dimmable clock, a Snooze button, and buttons to adjust brightness and the duration of sunsets and sunrises. The Lumie isn’t bad, just expensive for what you get in a market full of newer designs.
Hatch’s Restore for $130 combines a sunrise alarm with a sound machine for soothing sounds as you fall asleep. Product reviewer Medea Giordano says that although you have to use the app to use both features, it’s fairly easy. Just tap the top of the machine to start your bedtime routine. After one free month of the Hatch Sleep Membership, you have to pay $50 per year for the full library of sounds, stories, and meditations, which makes it an expensive buy.
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Photograph: Amazon
Avoid These
Bad Sunrise Alarms
The Amazon Echo Glow is marketed specifically for kids and so it prioritizes intuitiveness over features. It’s not a hub and doesn’t have a microphone, so you need to pair it with an Echo device in order to control it with your voice, although you can control it through the Alexa app without a hub. The Echo Glow reaches a maximum brightness of 100 lumens, but it doesn’t seem to get any brighter than a Dollar Tree nightlight. It’s like jumping straight to the halfway point of a sunset.
You can set various colors and automatic color-shifting schemes, as well as custom schedules, but that’s about it. There are no other features, although it does seem durable enough to survive a toddler’s room. For $30, its value is weak. You’re better off buying your kid our top pick, the Homelabs, for the same price. Or if you want something intuitive that your kid can use without an app, spring for the Casper Glow Light.
The Lexon Mina might only cost $30, but I wish Lexon hadn’t chosen to give it a rechargeable battery rather than just let the user plug it into a wall socket. A bedside alarm clock is not something that needs to work wirelessly. It never moves, so that was a baffling design decision. It lasts for about 12 hours on a charge, which is more than enough for a night’s sleep, but it was annoying have to recharge it constantly. The included cable was a USB-C to USB-A, with the USB-C side plugging into the lamp itself, so you may need an adapter or a new cable to charge it. The lamp was also very dim on its brightest setting.
Matt Jancer is a staff writer for WIRED who focuses on reviewing outdoor gear. Previously, he spent a decade as a freelance writer covering automobiles, motorcycles, and lifestyle stories for magazines. Some of his longest gigs were at Car and Driver, Outside, Esquire, Playboy, and Popular Mechanics.