The clock radio I had been using for over two decades finally died (a drink was spilled on top of it). I needed to find a replacement fast, preferably without spending an arm and a leg. This is the model I selected; and although I think there is a lot of room for improvement, I am happy with it overall.
What I Like:
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It's electric. Plug it in and don't worry about ever changing batteries.
It has a battery backup (2 AA batteries req'd, not included). In the event power is lost, the batteries allow the unit to retain all its settings and continue functioning.
It has two separate alarms, allowing me to keep my 'primary' always set at the same time while using a 'secondary' as required. Each alarm may be independently enabled/disabled, and the type of alarm sound (beeper or radio) may be individually set on each. [Note the product description says "buzzer", but it's really a beeper.]
The display is easily readable, even with my less-than-youthful eyes.
The unit's footprint is about 1/3 that of my old clock radio. Very compact. Of course, that means the speaker is smaller too (worse sound quality), but big deal. It's an alarm clock, not a home entertainment system.
It has the ability to adjust the display brightness (although limited in its options).
Digital radio tuner.
WHAT I DON'T LIKE:
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NO INSTRUCTION MANUAL!!!!! What you get in the box is a clock radio and a "Quick-Start Guide", which does not cover everything you need to know about the unit. For example, the Quick-Start Guide tells you how to set your alarm when you first take it out of the box, but it does _NOT_ tell you how to stop the alarm once it goes off, or how to disable it after it is set. The Quick-Start Guide refers you to a manual on the company website ("for more product information, go to <website> and refer to the user manual"). So off to the website I go; but the joke's on me... the "manual" on the website is the same stupid Quick-Start Guide that came in the box! A lot of good that does.
No option for 24-hour time display.
When setting the time, you can only cycle through the hours/minutes in one direction. So, for example, at the end of daylight savings time when you want to set the time back one hour, you have to go forward 23 hours rather than just going back one.
Likewise, when setting the time, if you hold a button down, the rate at which the numbers change does not increase. You have to sit there holding the dang button for about 1 second per number change.
Once you have your alarm time(s) set, enabling/disabling the alarm is not a straightforward nor intuitive process.
All the buttons are the same; i.e. there is no way to distinguish tactilely which button to press to turn off the alarm after it sounds off in the dark when you're half groggy.
Snooze time is NINE minutes! Five is ideal, seven is pushing it, but nine???
This unit is too digital. There are two features that would be better served with an analog control (or a much MUCH finer granularity in their digital intervals): the volume control and the display brightness.
Volume setting '1' (out of 10) is still too loud for my purposes.
No atomic clock automatic update feature.
OTHER OBSERVATIONS:
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To the best of my knowledge (I could be mistaken), there is no "low battery" indication for the battery backup. If that is true, then you will need to continually monitor the battery level via some sort of manual method; and if you don't, then that renders the backup feature rather useless (i.e. the power going out with dead batteries is the same as the power going out with no backup system at all).
There are 20 radio station presets that can be programmed; but they aren't "universal". That is, there are 10 FM presets and 10 AM presets, not 20 mix-and-match. Either way, that's probably more than enough for 99.9% of people.
The alarm is constant volume, not a crescendo alarm.
There is a 'sleep' timer that allows you to listen to the radio up to 90 minutes (in 10-min increments) before automatically shutting off.
HELPFUL INSTRUCTIONS:
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As I said, there are no instructions supplied with this unit. Here is what I've been able to figure out on my own, whether from the Quick-Start Guide or through trial-and-error. I do not know if this covers all the features of the unit or not, since obviously there's no way to know what all the features are w/o a manual to explain them! :-)
For purposes of terminology... there is a row of six buttons on the top of the unit. From left to right I'll call those: 'H' (hours), 'M' (minutes), 'SET', 'RADIO', ALM1 (Alarm 1), and ALM2 (alarm 2). Also, there is one additional (much larger) button in front of the row of six, which I'll refer to as the 'Sleep/Snooze' button (it's a left/right rocker type button).
The display area consists of the usual digits plus five LED lights; three of the lights are aligned vertically on the left edge of the display and two are on the right. The ones on the left are (from top to bottom): PM (to differentiate between 4:00am & 4:00pm), 'alarm 1 beeper', and 'alarm 1 radio'. The two on the right side are 'alarm 2 beeper' and 'alarm 2 radio'. Okay...
SETTING THE TIME:
When you first plug in the unit, the display begins flashing and you can set the time immediately. If your unit is not flashing, you need to enter the time setting mode first. To do so, press and hold (for about two seconds) the 'SET' button until the display begins flashing. While your display is flashing, use the 'H' button to adjust the hours and the 'M' button to adjust the minutes. Sorry, the hours/minutes only adjust in one direction. When the correct time is displayed, hit 'SET' again. WARNING: Make sure you take the 'PM' LED into consideration when setting the time. The 'PM' LED is _not_ illuminated for times in the range 12:00 midnight to 11:59am; the LED _is_ illuminated for 12:00 noon through 11:59pm.
SETTING THE ALARM:
SELECTING THE ALARM SOUND (beeper/radio/off):
These two specific functions are actually part of a more general alarm setting function that encompasses both. To change either, you need to first put the unit into the alarm setting mode. To set alarm #1, press the 'ALM1' button once, then immediately press it again and hold it (about 2 seconds) until the display begins flashing. You are now in alarm setting mode.
Note: If alarm #1 was disabled before you entered alarm setting mode (neither the 'alarm 1 beeper' or 'alarm 1 radio' LED was illuminated), then entering alarm setting mode automatically enables the alarm in beeper mode, as indicated by the 'alarm 1 beeper' LED illuminating; but if alarm #1 was already enabled before entering the alarm setting mode, it remains in whatever mode it was already in.
Once in alarm setting mode (flashing display), the buttons available to you are 'H', 'M', and 'ALM1'. Use the 'H' and 'M' buttons to set the alarm time. Again, make sure you take the 'PM' LED into consideration when setting the alarm time. Use the 'ALM1' button to cycle through the sound options beeper/radio/off (press once for each change)... but see the note further below about the quirky behavior when cycling through the options. The alarm 1 LEDs will indicate which alarm sound is active (one or the other LED will be illuminated, or neither if the alarm is disabled).
When the correct alarm time & sound type are entered, do nothing. The unit will exit alarm setting mode and revert to normal timekeeping display after a few seconds.
Setting alarm #2 is identical to the procedure described above, except you will use the 'ALM2' button instead of 'ALM1'.
Note: When selecting the alarm sound (beeper/radio/off), going from 'radio' to 'off' IMMEDIATELY exits the alarm setting mode and reverts back to normal timekeeping display. This is awkward and non-intuitive (IMO); that is, changing from 'beeper' to 'radio' keeps you in alarm setting mode, but changing from 'radio' to 'off' kicks you out of alarm setting mode. This is a bit quirky. So if you wanted to change from 'radio' to 'beeper' you would need to enter the alarm setting mode twice: (1) Enter alarm setting mode. (2) Press 'ALM1' to change from 'radio' to 'off'. The unit reverts to normal timekeeping display. (3) Enter alarm setting mode again. Because the alarm was disabled before you entered alarm setting mode the second time, beeper mode is automatically selected for you. (4) Do nothing; alarm setting mode will exit after a few seconds. It would have been much simpler to have just kept the beeper/radio/off selection cyclic without kicking you out of alarm setting mode.
CHECKING THE ALARM TIME:
If you want to check an alarm time without actually changing it (or the sound type), simply hit ALM1 or ALM2 once. The currently set alarm time is displayed. The display reverts back to timekeeping mode after a few seconds.
SNOOZING:
When an alarm goes off, the beeper or radio (as appropriate) begins sounding and the corresponding LED begins flashing. Hit the Sleep/Snooze button to snooze. As far as I know, it makes no difference whether you rock the button to the left or right; either way pauses the alarm. The alarm's LED continues flashing to indicate the alarm is still active. Snooze time is nine minutes, after which the beeper/radio sounds off again. Repeat as necessary. I do not know how many times you can continue doing this; but an educated guess would be six times (so as not to exceed an hour total).
TURNING OFF THE ALARM:
After an alarm sounds, turn it off by pressing the 'RADIO' button. Note: This only turns off the alarm sound, it does not disable the alarm; so it will go off again at the same time the next day. See "Selecting the Alarm Sound" above if you actually want to disable it.
ADJUSTING THE DISPLAY BRIGHTNESS:
Press-and-hold the Sleep/Snooze button until the display brightness changes. Repeat again if desired. There are three different brightness settings available (product description says two, but there are three). It does not matter which way you rock the Sleep/Snooze button, the progression is always in a downward circle (i.e. Hi->Med, Med->Low, Low->Hi).
PLAYING THE RADIO:
Hit the 'RADIO' button. The frequency is displayed and the radio begins playing. There is no AM/FM indicator; the displayed frequency is your indicator. To turn off the radio, press-and-hold the 'RADIO' button until the radio shuts off.
ADJUSTING THE VOLUME:
While the radio is playing, use the 'ALM1' and 'ALM2' buttons to adjust the volume. 'ALM1' decreases it, 'ALM2' increases it. NOTE: The same volume setting is used for the radio, alarm #1, and alarm #2; so whatever value you set here is also the value assigned to the alarm volumes.
CHANGING FREQUENCY BANDS:
While the radio is playing, press the 'RADIO' button to switch from AM to FM or vice versa. The appropriate frequency is displayed as you do so.
TUNING TO A STATION:
Turn the radio on. Use the 'H' button to decrease the frequency. Use the 'M' button to increase the frequency. Pressing and holding a button performs a scan in the appropriate direction.
SELECTING A PRESET RADIO STATION:
With the radio turned on (and the appropriate AM/FM frequency band selected), press the 'SET' button. "Pxx" is displayed (where "xx" is the 2-digit preset number, from 01 to 10) and the preset station begins playing. If that's the station you want, do nothing; otherwise hit 'SET' again and the next highest number is displayed and begins playing (10 recycles back to 01). When the desired preset station is found, do nothing. The display reverts back to the frequency after a few seconds.
HOW TO SET A PRESET RADIO STATION:
Turn on the radio, select the appropriate band (AM/FM), and tune to the desired station's frequency. Press-and-hold the 'SET' button until "Pxx" is displayed and begins flashing (where "xx" is the 2-digit preset number, from 01 to 10). Use the 'H' and 'M' buttons to select the desired preset number ('H' decreases it and 'M' increases it). Press the 'SET' button to assign the frequency to that preset and lock it in.
SLEEP TIMER:
With the unit in its normal timekeeping mode, press the Sleep/Snooze button once. "90" is displayed and the radio begins playing. Press the Sleep/Snooze button again and "80" is displayed. Press again, "70" is displayed. Etc. This is how long (in minutes) the radio will play before automatically shutting off. Note: Once again, it doesn't matter if you rock the Sleep/Snooze button to the left or right; the time duration can only be updated in one direction, from 90 down to "off" (in 10-minute increments).
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I hope the above instructions are helpful. You're welcome, Electrohome. I just did your job for you.
I debated long and hard about how many stars to rate this product. Once you know how to operate this thing, it's really not a bad unit, so I'm tempted to give it four stars; but in the end I gave it only three stars instead. Products lacking a decent well-written instruction manual is a pet peave of mine, plus there are a lot of improvements that can be made to this product to make it more user-friendly and intuitive, plus a few "missing" features that I would like to see. For a $15 clock-radio, though, you really can't go wrong with this product.
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