Best Buy alarm clock dual alarm auto set

Just got it – for the price it can’t be beat, January 24, 2009

By 

C. Fougerat – See all my reviews

  

Since I just got it, I’ll try to post a followup review in a few weeks.

There seems to be only 1 review on this product (everywhere, believe me I looked) and I have been tracking this for a long while to see if more review would come but alas. The price was down to $49 and since I had a 10% coupon I thought the time was perfect. I was so dubious I had to download and read the entire manual online before visiting the store to check it out. The manual made it even better than I first thought – it just doesn’t make sense that the price was so low.

To be honest I guess the biggest hesitation I had about buying this was the fact that, being a gadget freak, a brand like Emerson isn’t exactly one that gets me excited to covet said product. I have never owned anything with this brand.

Having said that – these are the features that changed my mind (ranked by importance):

- projection clock – the one that I had really been coveting was an Oregon Scientific one that projects during the day as well, looks really sleek, when it alarms you wave at it and it stops. It does the 180 to reverse display in case needed. And yes, atomic time was cool too for all the obvious reasons – but guess what, it costs $119. It didn’t matter how much I told myself that I was ‘worth it’ – I just couldn’t justify spending that much for something that does just one thing. No radio, no dual alarm (I think), no in/out jack. THIS ONE has all that, the projection is bright compared to my old one (I did a side by side) and the focus adjust works great. I am visually impaired so this was important. But wait, theres more!

- IPOD mode – a lot of the made for IPOD products out there do not have a projection clock. That’s a deal breaker for me – so that starts to narrow the selection even further. This one has adapters for the various generation ipods and for added measure it has a line in (for shuffle or other mp3 players). So what made me give it 4 instead of 5 stars is the fact that the dock is not made for IPHONE. And I knew that when I bought it. Having said that, if you don’t care to miss calls while charging, then just put it in airplane mode. Ah, but this is where the line in comes handy for me – I can’t miss phone calls (because of work), so if I don’t care about charging my IPhone, I connect it to the line in and voila! no more interference (the wire I use is long enough to keep the phone away from the clock). SO for IPhone, to charge – put in the ipod dock, to use – connect to line in. Its like, whoever designed this product read my mind or was in the exact predicament I was in – I really feel that ( in case (s)he happens to read this review. p.s. this product better be reliable! )

- The sound quality is decent – I mean for the price, its not really fair to compare it to the Logitach 5.1 surround setup that I have on my laptop with a Creative Audigy sound card. Like the previous reviewer, I listened to a couple of other made for IPOD gadgets and they were all pretty awful and the one that sounded decent was in the $150 – 300 range. This one to me sounded better when it was louder. The bass could be better BUT again its really not that bad. If you are such an audiophile, you probably won’t feel bad spending a few hundred dollars but I bet you probably will not get all the features this $45 has.

- The dual alarms, the weekend, weekday, 7 day alarm mode, the Smart Set, Sleep Mode, headphone jack and backup battery got thrown in too and it still $45! Depending on who you are, these could be nice to haves or absolute musts. I’ll take ‘em – all of them! I heard horror stories about atomic clocks being iffy on the receiver’s strength or the signal’s strength relative to your location – so this Smart Set fixes that issue. Lets just hope that the president doesn’t change the DST again in a long while – but given that this contraption is already a swiss army knife masquerading as a bedside clock I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a way to adjust for future changes like that as well ,like the way Iphone does firmware updates…ok maybe not.

- Can’t wait to try the hand wave snooze thing tomorrow when the ‘weekend mode’ on Alarm2 goes off at 9. Whee!

So the biggest gamble for me is gong with a brand I haven’t used before. I am hoping to be lucky, my last projection clock radio is a no name brand JWIN and it has always been reliable since I got it as an elephant gift 6 or 7 years ago. I am so hesitant to replace it – but the lure of smart set, ipod and the ‘wave’ upgrade (not to mention the price point) caused me to cave. I guess once you use a projection clock you can never go back – so my little girl will get the old one in her room. (unless they can develop one that tells you the time when you want without you having to open your eyelids – kekeke, yes I am lazy, but apparently not lazy enough to write a short review).

Heck I’m on a roll, I’ll…

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Just got it, 12/08, but very pleased so far!, December 19, 2008

I must admit I JUST got this and have only had it one day. But, rest assured I literally have gone to at least 7-8 stores, pulled out of their boxes at least 15-18 diff. radios and played, prodded and looked and finally selected this one when coming across it. (I actually bought it at Target for $59.99, same as above, but no shipping of course.) I’m very happy with it as of right now. Time setting was so easy – 10 seconds, incl. changing it to my PST zone and it was done. One primary necessity, among some others, was having a HEADPHONE JACK!! The majority of clock radios do NOT have this anymore! I like to listen to the radio sometimes at night with headphones and use the slumber switch – this way I don’t disturb my DH. Another was having GOOD, STEREO sound on the FM band. A real nicety is that in addition to having a traditional snooze alarm bar, you can just “wave your hand” in front of the radio face instead of having to find/reach the snooze bar and it will reactivate repeatedly, if you like, in 9 min. increments (body heat from hand activates the snooze bar). Also, the time can be projected onto your wall or ceiling, visible only during the dark, however, without being intrusive. For those that are sensitive to the brightness of the face display, it has two levels of brightness or off – I don’t find the std. setting too bright for me, however. Numerals are large and easily seen with my nearsighted eyes – numerals are in red. Alarms can be auto-set to activate only during the week or only on weekends or singly, of course. Has dual alarms with multiple choices of how you’d like to be awakened and an IPOD dock – not important to me at the moment as I don’t have one but I did want the other choices so that’s fine; I’ll buy one later. Footprint isn’t too big, could be worse. Looks nice and contemporary. I’m just real pleased with the decent sound; nice bass relatively speaking and 100% better than almost all the other ones I plugged in and listened to. I’m very fussy so keep that in mind if you don’t like doing all the leg work.

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Not quite there, February 15, 2009

The features and functionality of this unit are pretty complete overall. The combination of iPod dock and time projection at this price makes it attractive, if that’s what you are seeking, especially considering the lack of alarm volume control reported on the Excalibur 134BK Soundmaster and the host of issues associated with the HoMedics SS-7000.

However, the Emerson has its share of notable nits.

1) The sensor function used for snoozing is very cool but dangerous if you wish to avoid oversleeping. The range is too far and if the unit “senses” you within 2 feet, it will immediately snooze at the designated alarm time before the iPod can even turn on and wake you. The sensitivity can be moderated with a piece of Scotch tape placed half way over the sensor, but this is a bit unreliable as well.

2) The buttons for setting alarms, etc. are loud. If your partner goes to bed before you and you need to adjust the alarm setting, you risk waking him/her with the loud clicking noises.

3) On the particular unit I bought (and returned) the time projection was faulty. I would hope this to be an anomaly but it’s certainly a concern regarding quality.

If you can get past the sensor issue and loud buttons, then you might be happy with this unit. I ultimately splurged and invested a few more coins for the equivalent but far superior Gigaware product, which can be found at the Radio Shack website.

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