Interesting - never knew they had such a thing. I have a manual method I guess. I have a bedside lamp that turns on when you touch it. So I set the alarm and when it goes off I hit the lamp and the snooze. Usually that's enough but if not when the alarm goes off again I hit the lamp again and it goes up a notch in brightness. It is much easier for me to get out of bed with the pre-lighting of the room. I do love this time of year because it's light early and easier to get up than in the dark of winter.

I was intrigued by the gradual brightening of the sunrise alarm. Your manual method is similar to what I'm doing now. Hitting snooze way too often though.

I happened upon this cheaper knock off version off the Philips clock you posted at Walmart. Maybe you can use it as a trial clock

I consider myself blessed that I live in the country and just sleep with the curtains and the windows open so I fall asleep to toads and crickets, and awaken to the sun and the dawn chorus. I hope you find something that works for you!

Localeater - you are truly blessed if you get to keep your windows open year round and sleep in until the sun rises in the winter. Sadly I must awaken and get on my way to work before that. Love this time of year when the sun is up before I have be and it looks like it may be warm enough this week to finally leave the windows open.

3Katz - I am revelling in Spring now and have already forgotten Old Man WInter. You are right, in winter I can not sleep until the sun rises as that is long after the day has started here in Maine.

Haha when I first read your title I thought you were going to say you were thinking of getting a rooster. I think I was influenced by someone on FB who was complaining about a neighbors rooster waking her up too early.

Haha, justerrilynn! You know, I have strong doubts a rooster would wake me.

Thank you for that link, localeater. I decided to splurge on the Philips because it's the only one backed by research. Got it yesterday and am looking forward to tomorrow's wake up. I'll report back.

DH gave me that Phillips model for Christmas. Why, I don’t know. I stuck it in a drawer and never even tried it because my decor ocd wouldn’t allow me to display a spaceship on my nightstand.

We are moving pretty soon...maybe I’ll pack it and give it a try in the new house. Let us know if you like it!

I'll send you my neighbor's dog! It never fails to wake us up in the morning barking at things or people going by ...

I did speak to the new neighbor and she does wait a bit longer to let it out in the morning, but still a bit too early for us on weekends. She has young kids. Mine are teens who now sleep in.

Our cats definitely want to be fed at sunrise, LOL. We call it "cat alarm clock with no snooze." Both of them get quite active. Then the little girl in my profile pic will start to howl quite loudly.

My Lancashire Heelers both wake me up right around 7am every day. One of them is obsessed with the birds that hang at our feeder, so I think he hears them getting going and needs to get outside to monitor the situation. So even if I want to sleep in it doesn’t happen!

I had a clock (I think it was from Hammacher Schlemmer) a few years ago that had the gradually increasing light feature, plus a choice of sounds (thunder, rain, birds chirping, surf) that were supposed to gradually increase. I did like the light alright although it often woke me up abruptly when it came on -- it needed to be not so bright at first. The sounds were mostly obnoxious. I didn't love it overall. Perhaps if I hadn't had the light on the bedside table I would have liked it better.

Well, I wish I had glowing reviews for this alarm clock but unfortunately, it's not working that well for me. It woke me on two of the five mornings I used it. This morning, neither light nor sounds registered with me and I slept two hours past the wake up times. I'll adjust the settings again (increase both brightness and volume) and keep using it for the rest of the week but it's not boding well as the key to turn me into a morning person.

Btw, we have a cat that used to meow for her food at 4h30 in the morning. I never heard her but boy did DH wake up grumpy.