Bzzzzzzzzz Help me find a alarm clock

November 17, 2008 4:11 PM

Help me find a clock radio. Here is a list of things it must have:

• digital fm tuner
• decent sounding speaker(s)
• sleep function where i can go to sleep to the radio
• alarm to wake up to a buzz or something loud

and here are the things i would like

• internet radio capability (hard wired or wifi wpa, doesn't matter)
• military or standard time

thank you oh great people of the green.

posted by DJWeezy to shopping (7 comments total)

I saw this on jr.com. I may give away my POS Henry Kloss (what crap) and buy this myself.
posted by Zambrano at 4:33 PM on November 17, 2008

Also, there is a radio that rolls off the table and around the floor. You have to chase it to turn it off and you're definitely awake afterwards. It's designed to fall off a table about three feet high. Otherwise, my guess is that most clock radios have standard speakers, fm tuner and a sleep function.
posted by CollectiveMind at 5:25 PM on November 17, 2008

CollectiveMind is referring to Clocky. I'd get one, but I'm afraid my cats would kill it before I woke up enough to save it.
posted by spinturtle at 5:38 PM on November 17, 2008

I'd like to put in my vote for chumby. It's a little pricey (~$180), but very cool. Doesn't have an FM tuner, but it does have wi-fi. So you can stream a multitude of internet radio stations, Pandora, your own MP3's off a USB stick, even Sirius/XM (with server software installed on your PC and Sirus/XM account). There's also a bunch of widgets that will display the news, latest lolcats, and lots of other stuff.

I have had mine for about a month and love it, so please consider it.
posted by explosivo2k2 at 7:06 PM on November 17, 2008

I love my Roku SoundBridge Radio. You can stream anything and everything (including FM and AM tuners) and among other things set the time format to whatever you desire. It's $300 or so, last I checked, but if you want the ultimate nerd clock radio this is it - you can telnet into it!
posted by kcm at 10:29 PM on November 17, 2008

amazing variety of radios at C. Crane online..I can't do a link right now...but I've heard about them and plan to get one for the Mums family for Christmas. (actually for mr. and mrs.mums, who enjoy listening in bed after lights-out, unless otherwise engaged).
posted by mumstheword at 12:45 AM on November 18, 2008

I recently got a Neverlate Executive Alarm Clock, and so far I'm pretty impressed. It does almost everything on your list. No native internet radio, but it does have a line in for an ipod, external internet radio device, or other auxilliary audio source. The sleep function will work for the external audio source, but it won't shut off the external device since it's just connected via a standard 3.5mm audio plug.

I've found it to be the best alarm clock I've seen, after spending some time looking at alarm clocks. That said, I'm still suprised that there isn't more innovation in the alarm clock space.

For $50 bones, it's better than wearing out my fingers on the alarm clocks I'd be buying down the road, and it's cheaper than a lot of the other alternatives (though I still want a Chumby :) ).

I did find it a bit confusing to set up at first, and had to re-read the manual regarding the "daily" alarm versus the individual alarm banks. Still, it was easier to set up than other alarm clocks I've used. The USB is apparently 1.0, and doesn't charge my devices, but it does work for a USB powered reading lamp (I'm still looking for a better one of those).
posted by hootyhoostin at 4:22 PM on December 11, 2008