Russell Beattie

About a month or so ago, I bought a new LED alarm clock for our new bedroom. I was sick of the travel alarm clock we've had since Spain and I wanted something I could see without my glasses from across the room. So the next time I was in Fry's I wandered over to the "miscellaneous" section and picked up a clock with big numbers. That's all I was really looking for. What I got instead, was the greatest clock ever.

First, it does indeed have a display that I can see from across the room at night, and they're not so bright that they cast a glow or anything. It's just like a faint timestamp floating in the darkness. But after that, the clock *sets itself*. This is amazing. I never really knew it was possible, but I guess it tunes into the WWVB signal from the U.S. Atomic Clock in Colorado and never needs setting. You just plug it in, and it tells you the time. Incredible. This is even better for me because I can't "play" with the time any more - I always set my watch five minutes ahead so I arrive early, etc. It never works and I eventually end up having no idea of the real time. This clock fixes that for good - you can't mess with the time even if you wanted to.

But there's more! The clock is completely user-friendly. It's the first clock that I've used with both a plus and minus sign for setting the alarm. You know how most clocks as you're setting the alarm and you go past your wake-up time by accident, you have to continue around the horn again to get back to where you were before. Sometimes it doesn't even separate the minutes from the hour so you have to go all the way through the day? This clock isn't like that. It chooses the hour first, then the minutes, and you can go up or down. Awesome. It's effortless to set the clock and you don't get it wrong.

This device is a perfect example of doing only one thing, and doing it well. You buy this clock, and you plug it in. You then choose one of the four American timezones (sorry everyone else, it's a U.S.-only clock). Then you click the alarm button and go up or down to your time and you're done. How user friendly is that?

The best part? It changes the hour on Daylight Savings Time by itself. We forgot this year, yet didn't have to worry about it. We woke up and knew exactly the time. Even my computer isn't as reliable (as I always worry if I have it set right or not) and my cable system *still* hasn't changed. Now I have a "standard" clock in the house where I can go to find the right time and set the others by (there's only a few clocks anyways).

Very neat... I'll have to scratch that excuse off the list of why I'm late for work now.

:-)

-Russ