Sharp SPC364 Atomic LCD Bedside Alarm Clock (Silver)

Price: $12.99
Manufacturer: Sharp


The Sharp Technology Atomic 0.5" LCD bedside alarmFeatures month,date and day of week It also has snooze.

Information

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9166 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Sharp
• Model: SPC364

• 0.5-inch LCD display
• Silver-color case
• Accurate radio-controlled time adjusts automatically each day
• 3.25 x 1.75 x 3.5 inches (W x D x H)
• Two year limited warranty

Product Reviews

The Sharp SPC364 Atomic LCD Bedside Alarm Clock will give you the most accurate times available anywhere. An easy-to-read 0.5-inch LCD display, with a back light for nighttime viewing, ensures that you'll always know exactly what time it is. In addition to the time, which is updated automatically every day, the SPC364 displays the month, date and day of week. A snooze feature means that you can catch a few extra winks in the morning before starting your day. This clock requires one AA battery (not included) and comes with Sharp's two-year limited warranty.

Need manual to use
Clock itself is decent, except very hard to figure out w/o manual. For those who have lost manual, below may be helpful:

SETTING THE TIME ZONE
* In the Normal Time Display, press the [MODE] key to enter
the Alarm Time Mode.
* Press the [SET] key to set the desired time zone.
* Press the [MODE] to return to the time mode position.

SETTING THE ALARM
* While in the normal time display mode, press [MODE]
button to enter the alarm time mode, the letters "AL" will
appear on the display.
* Hold the [SET] hotton for 2 seconds until the hour digit
flashes, then release the [SET] button.
* Press the [ADJUST] button to set the desired hour.
* Press the [SET] button again. The minute digits will begin
to flash.
* Press the [ADJUST] button key to change the minutes.
* Press the mode button once.
* To activate the alarm, press the [ADJUST] button and the
bell indicator will appear.
* Press the [ADJUST] button again to activate the snooze
and the snooze indicator will appear.
* To deactivate the alarm and snooze, press the [ADJUST]
button until both indicators disappear.
Press the [MODE] button to exit the alarm setting mode.

This personal atomic clock works great for me
I have read other reviews, but to the contrary, I now have 3 of them around various places in my home, ie. bathroom, desk & now the laundry room. They all were able to sync up with the appropriate time, however gettting out of daylight saving time, one did not shift the time zone. Which brought me to buy this 3rd one with instructions. Which said to change the zone you hit mode, set (change the zone), and then mode again. Pretty easy. Then I hit recieve and we're all good. It's nice to have accuracy if that's what you're into. Nice personal clock.

Soft alarm, not good for heavy sleepers
The alarm on this clock is a medium-soft beeping. It is not quite loud enough to wake a deep sleeper. If I'm on the end of a sleep cycle or ready to wake up, it's just barely enough to alert me. Also, the "light" function is grossly inadequate, so don't expect to check the time in the middle of the night without an additional light source. Only the far right edge of the clock face is illuminated by the tiny, tiny light.

It's nice not to be blasted out of bed in the morning, but don't count on the soft alarm if you're a habitual oversleeper. Also, it took a couple turns with the instructions to figure out how to make the alarm turn off after just one cycle of beeping. You EITHER get to have a snooze function OR have the alarm turn off immediately, but not both. You have to choose ahead of time what you want your morning experience to be like.

After knocking this little clock off my bedside table one night, I discovered that the alarm turns itself off after 60 seconds of beeping. Although I'm sure that feature was engineered to conserve battery power, it's also convenient if you're a little too lazy to jump out of bed first thing to fetch it off the floor.

This item takes one alkaline AA battery, which is good if you are subject to periodic power outages or brownouts, since there is no resetting required in those instances. AAs are also cheaper and easier to find than button batteries if your clock lives long enough to need a replacement.

My clock does not pick up the time-setting signal in northern Indiana. This is a big disappointment, because never having to set the time again was the main reason I picked out this alarm clock over the other ones in the store. Given the lack of the major advertised function and the non-intuitive layout for adjustments (keep those instructions!) I would probably not buy the same clock again.