Now here’s a great idea that gave me one of those “Why didn’t I think of that?” feelings when I first saw it. It’s the Rise & Shine Deluxe Natural Alarm Clock Bedside Lamp from Verilux. This company sells a variety of illumination products. I actually reviewed their HappyLite Mini Ultra earlier this month. The Rise & Shine combines a clock, radio and lamp all in one device.
Available in Ivory and Graphite, the base of the lamp is 6.5 inches wide. The overall height with the shade installed is 20.25 inches and the shade width is 11 inches. The style of this device would probably be considered modern given the built in display and buttons. That said, it should fit reasonably well with most bedroom decoration schemes.
The main controls for the lamp are located on the front and base of the unit. The large knob in the center controls the intensity of the light. Press this button to toggle the light on and off, and twist the knob left or right to dim or brighten the output. The lamp uses a 2000hr 60w natural spectrum Xenon bulb that puts out the light equivalent to a regular 150w bulb.
Below the knob are large easy to access buttons that control power to the radio and built-in ambient sound playback. The Rise & Shine has 8 pre-programmed nature sounds (Birds, Harbor, Town, Brook, Surf, Forest, Rain, and Wind). You can wake or go to sleep to the sounds. Some are better than others though. The Town recording is pretty annoying with it’s crowing roosters and chiming clock noises ;o)
Below the Sounds and Radio buttons is the 3.5in (diagonal) screen. All the information regarding the current time, date and alarm settings are visible at all times on this screen. Another feature of the screen is that it is backlit with 7 cycling colors. You can either allow it to continually cycle or lock it into a fave color by pressing a button on the side of the lamp.
Buttons along the base control the alarm settings. The Wake button lets you choose if you want to wake up to light, sound or both. The large bar button in the middle is the Snooze button. If you hold down this button, it will reset (silence) an active alarm. To the Right of the Snooze button is the Sleep button. You can use this button as a timer for the lamp and / or sounds / radio. After 5 – 60 minutes, the light and / or sounds will turn off.
On the Right side of the lamp you find the radio tuner dial, AM/FM switch, Display brightness dim/low switch, color mode lock / unlock toggle button and the volume adjustment button.
I was a little disappointed when I found out that radio could not be digitally tuned by looking at the display. Instead you have to look at the dial where the frequencies are printed in small type. Bleh…
The AC adapter power jack, speaker jack and antenna wire are all located on the back of the Rise & Shine. Regarding the power adapter, it’s a largish sized brick with an 8ft long cord. There’s also a battery compartment built into the bottom of the base. It holds 4 AA batteries (not included) The batteries keep your time and alarm settings backed up for 48hrs in the event of a power failure. If the power is off, you can’t use the batteries to power the lamp.
A small pillow speaker is included with each Rise & Shine lamp. You can use this speaker to listen to the radio and other sounds without disturbing your bed buddy.
The whole idea behind the Rise & Shine has to do with balancing the Circadian rhythms in our bodies by simulating the rising and setting sun.
The way it works is that you program in the time you want to wake up. Say that’s 6:00am. Then you set the wake time cycle. This can be either 5, 15, 30 or 60 minutes. If you choose 30 minutes for example, the alarm would activate at 5:30am. If the alarm is set to use light and sound, the lamp will turn on at the dimmest setting and the sounds will start playing at the lowest volume. Every few minutes, the light and sound intensity and volume will increase until the light is at full bright (see the images above for light examples) and the sound / radio is at a moderate volume level.
For me, the sounds tend to wake me up before the light does. I think I sleep with my eyes closed pretty tightly. I also have a habit of pulling the covers over my head a bit. If you’re the same type of sleeper, you might not find the light feature of this lamp to be that helpful as far as aiding you in waking up. Also, if you sleep on the opposite side of the bed, you might not notice the light part of the alarm as much as the person that sleeps on that side. I did notice however, that once I was awake that it was easier for me to get out of bed with the room lit up. It helped me feel less groggy.
I did notice a couple of issues using the alarm functions. The main issue is that when the lamp first turns on at the dimmest setting, there is a noticeable humming noise. The noise slowly goes away as the intensity of the light increases.
The Rise & Shine also only allows you to set 1 alarm. Since it has date (day, month, year) settings, it seems like it would be easy to add the ability to set extra alarms based on day of the week. I’d especially like to see a weekend alarm setting.
Then there’s one more minor annoyance with alarms. If you want to silence the alarm, it takes 2 steps. You have to press and hold the Snooze bar till the sound / radio stops playing and then if you also had the light as part of the alarm, you have to manually turn it off by pressing the knob. It would be more convenient if there was a simple Off button that you could press. I don’t know about you, but on the weekends when I’m half awake and want to go back to sleep, I don’t want to have to think all that much about how to turn off the alarm.
After all is said and done, I’ve enjoyed having the Rise & Shine lamp as an addition to my bedroom. It’s nice having a bedside lamp that doubles as a clock. Add the ability to set more than one alarm and I’d like it even more.
3yr warranty
Replacement 2000hr 60w Xenon bulbs – $19.95
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Love this product, but disappointed that verilux does not keep replacement parts except the bulb. I am looking for the 8ft brick style power cord, if anyone know where to locate one please let me know. Thank you
A question I’ve been wondering on this lamp/clock: Can you turn the backlight for the clock part off? (Or does it go off after a certain amount of time?)
I like the rest of it, but I’ve never liked the idea of a glowing panel by my bed.
The switch on the side allows you to dim the backlight. I need to test that switch to see how low the backlight is in the dim setting. I can’t recall off the top of my head.
Update 3/17: yikes… I forgot to get back to you with the info… On the dim setting, the light is still noticeable in a dark room. There isn’t an OFF setting for the backlight.
If you are considering the purchase of this product, please consider my outrageous 😡 experience with the Verilux Rise & Shine lamp, made worse by the fact that the company refused to back their warranty.
It took three tries on this lamp to get one that was “less defective” than all the rest. About the only problem I did NOT experience in what I am about to relate is the commonly reported issue wherein the light bulb buzzes when set to a low output level. I read on one site that screwing it in tighter helps. Maybe that’s why it has yet to surface.
The first lamp I purchased, via The Sharper Image, had a DOA internal speaker (and since it is mono there was no sound except when bypassing the internal speaker using the included pillow speaker). In addition, there was a pretty obvious nick in the plastic housing right next to the LCD display. Finally, the upper and lower halves of the lamp body were not neatly joined. As a result, the edges felt a bit rough and uneven.
The second lamp I received in exchange seemingly came out of the mold wrong. The lamp shade wouldn’t sit straight on the little lip that juts out below the socket. Not only did the lip appear somewhat off, but the shade itself was cockeyed. As if that wasn’t enough, the bright white shade also had a beige stain or blemish on it. The light bulb leaned at an angle because the socket was skewed. As for the cosmetic appearance, the edges you see illustrated in the photo show a plastic “face” in which the LCD panel is mounted. Those edges were rippled and pitted as if they ran one too many through the mold without cleaning it out (or it didn’t come out of the mold cleanly, in any event). There was also a scratch — once again straight out of the retail packaging. And since the lampshade is not the standard configuration, I had no choice but to put up the misalignment, call Verilux directly to inquire about a new shade/lamp, or make the 40-mile trip back to the store to return the lamp — again.
As per the instruction manual, I called to report the problem to Verilux. Since Verilux offers an impressive three-year warranty covering defects in workmanship and materials, I expected a sympathetic response. No such luck. I might have been able to ignore the misaligned bulb if they had simply sent me a new shade, but Verilux refused, and in contradiction to their own user manual, suggested I make a third trip to the retailer.
The third lamp — yeah, I know, you’re wondering why I didn’t just get my money back…. Well, I suppose it became a challenge of the “mission impossible” type. So back to the store I went. The third lamp looks much better constructed. However, in contrast to the first two, it took 20 minutes to get a nearby station to come in clearly since the antenna continually picked up static. Finally I picked up the Verilux Rise & Shine power adapter off the floor, and there I found my static culprit. The adapter is apparently leaking RF despite the use of a high-end Belkin surge protector! Oddly, walking in front of the lamp or pressing the lamp’s buttons seemed to trigger this static reaction in the FM tuner, as well. I’m not sure if the tuner card is just not quite as good or if there is a slight grounding fault, but on a lark I unplugged the lamp for 30 seconds as suggested by the user manual to “reset” the electronics and I have had less problem in the 18 or so hours since them — although I still had to reposition the FM antenna again today. By comparison, other clock radios in the same spot, which is located near a window, do not even require their antennas extended.
At this point, I am debating whether the issue is evidence of an impending failure, or just cause to request a new power adapter from Verilux. As for overall build quality, this third lamp doesn’t have any scratches, pits or ripples in the plastic — but it wobbles on level surfaces! In other words, it won’t sit flat. I had to put museum putty beneath it to keep it from rocking when I use the buttons.
Is this ridiculous, or what?
What is even more ridiculous is that Verilux offers a three year warranty. However, four days into my ownership experience they have already refused to remedy defects in the materials and workmanship, which the warranty card states the company will guarantee for three years! Translation? Don’t expect Verilux to help you if any aspect of this all-eggs-in-one-basket product fails.
Supposedly, the third time is the charm. As such, I doubt continuing to exchange it will result in a better product as I will just trade one problem for another, for another, for another. Poor quality control is apparently par for the course — which is sad because this is otherwise a fantastic, space-saving concept.
If you are still interested in this product, I’ll comment briefly on who I think will benefit most from this product. This is a lamp uses full spectrum light. People who are “night owls” and want to learn how to get their body clock readjusted to morning wake cycles will probably benefit most from this lamp (since full spectrum light will trigger hormonal changes in the brain to “reset” one’s internal clock). However, if you use it for reading at night it may do just the opposite — cue your brain to continue pumping out daytime hormones when it’s time to shut them off for the night. For this reason, you would do well to keep a conventional book light on hand, in my opinion. The second reason I mention this is because the bulbs are 12-volt proprietary “Xenon” bulbs that retail for $19.99 (and good luck trying to find them anywhere locally). They are rated at 2,000 hours, which may not last any longer than conventional bulbs (and you can’t substitute regular bulbs, either). Finally, this lamp may not grow annoyingly bright enough to wake you if you are the type who may turn away from it in your sleep. Although it is bright enough to read by — and easy on the eyes since it contains none of the usual yellow colorcast generated by incandescent lighting — the Verilux Rise & Shine lamp would probably work best in pairs (one at either side of the bed so that turning away from the lamp when set to wake is not so easy).
Despite my experience, I sincerely hope that Verilux will continue to offer this product. Having said that, I hope they read their customer reviews and take it to heart as a sort of “focus group” feedback session. This product, as it stands, requires fine tuning, to include a digital tuner, stereo speakers and, most importantly, better overall quality control. Combining so many convenient features in a single product — roughly 6.5″ wide at the base and 20″ tall — is an excellent concept, which deserves further development. I’m just not sure if the present street price of $149.99 is justified in view of the numerous quality control issues.
Well folks, this has been my first post to this site. I hope it spares someone the headache I went through. The only thing that spared me a wee bit of grief is the fact that I bought my Verilux Rise & Shine lamps locally. This is one product I would NOT buy over the Internet. As bad as three 40-mile round trips may sound, it beats paying $13 apiece to ship it back to some Internet retailer for an exchange.
NewsView:
Wow, what a pain for you. Except for the low buzzing issue with the lamp on the low light setting, I love this product and continue to use it. So far I’ve not noticed any other defects.
I’m going to tell my contact at Verliux to read your post.
Hello Julie,
I greatly appreciate your sympathetic response, and your offer to have your Verilux contact review my experience. The problem is, I really wanted another Verilux Rise & Shine lamp for the other side of the bed. I started out with one lamp just to see if I liked it. Well, I do like it — this fourth lamp at least, since it finally works without drifting off the station, etc. — but I’d hate to go through four more trips to the store just to find a second non-defective lamp for the opposite side of the bed!
Before I consider even TRYING to find another lamp, I would like an apology from Verilux. The owners’ manual states that customers should not return defective product to the store, yet that’s exactly what a Verilux customer service rep instructed me to do — knowing that his advice would require me to make a third 40-mile round trip to the store. There was no sign of sympathy whatsoever, and the response, which could have been as simple as offering to send me a replacement shade for defective lamp #2, was lacking such that it made it appear that Verilux offers no warranty support whatsoever — even though their warranty card states that they will cover defects in materials and workmanship for three years! The customer service rep also knew I was a first-time customer, but didn’t seem particularly interested in generating a good first impression, either (unfortunately, I did not write down his name).
In closing, if Verilux wishes to me to express an apology of some kind, they can do so (my user name @hotmail.com). If need be, I can provide the serial number for the first defective lamp I spoke of and the third defective lamp I returned (do not have the serial number for the second lamp, however.) I mention this only because I feel that whatever the store returns should be evaluated for the problems I indicated for the purpose of improving quality control. I sincerely hope, at least, that Verilux is committed to improving the product to spare other customers an equally poor first impression.
I’ve very excited to be receiving my lamp this week. I miss the sun, and so hopefully the full spectrum light will help make me a little happier in the morning.
Rachel
@Rachel: Let us know what you think of it. 🙂
I bought a Rise n Shine for my gfriend and she loved it for about 2 years, at which time the light bulb stopped lighting. We bought a new bulb but still no light. Called Verlix and they shipped out a new power transformer under warranty at no charge. Great service. Hasn’t arrived yet, but I expect that will do the trick.
We rarely have direct sunlight here, so I have wanted one of these for a while. There is a new version out for $100 more. Sorry, but I just can’t make myself pay $250 for an alarm clock.
My dad has had one for a few years and loves it. He really wants another one and I can’t seem to find anyone that sells this version anymore. Does anyone know where I can find one?
Hi Candice,
I just bought the updated version at Brookstone in my local mall. It is so much better than the other version, but it doesn’t look as pretty (doesn’t have the typical lamp shape and there’s no shade).
Good luck!
Does anyone know where to find the serial number on these lamps? I’m trying to fill out the registration card and I don’t see a serial number.
Thanks!
By the way, I interacted twice with Verilux customer service today, 11/10/2010, and they were extremely friendly, helpful and helped me resolve my issue quickly.
I love my new Verilux lamp!
@Gia That’s great news. Thanks for sharing!
So Gia, did you find out where the serial number is on the verilux lamps? Trying to fill out my card also.
Hi Birgitta,
When I called Verilux customer service they said there was no serial number on that model and so to leave that space blank.
5/24/12 – Is this site still used? If so, I’ve had my rise and shine lamp for about 3.5 yrs. It has always worked great until just last week. All the back lighting and the bulb don’t work. Is there some type of trouble shooting I can do to find out what happened. It is just like the one shown above.
@Mara have you tried contacting customer service at Verilux? http://www.verilux.com/