beep beep beep

October 25, 2009 7:28 PM

Where can I find an alarm clock like the one I've had and loved for years? (General Electric Clock Radio 7-4837C) Required features are inside.

I've searched ebay, amazon, and the GE website, they probably don't even make this model anymore because I've had it for so many years. Probably the reason that the only image I found was so tiny.

Here are the features I need in an alarm clock that this one had:

Must be able to adjust time (on both clock and alarm) both up and down
Adjustable snooze time
Nap feature - really easy to use, can adjust for 10 min - 2 hour nap
Easy to hit snooze button, and easy to hit off button
Not a switch between the off/on button (I always seem to set that the wrong way) but an actual off/cancel button
Choosing between beep and radio for the alarm
For the beep alarm, must start out at low volume and gradually increase
Must turn off by itself after a reasonable amount of time (say, if I'm not home, so no one has to listen to it all day - I hated those people in college)
~$20 - I think this one was even cheaper. I don't need anything fancy like automatic daylight savings time or iPod hook ups, I just want all the convenient features I listed.

Does anyone know where I can buy the same one I had? Or maybe a newer model that has the same features? If not, who can recommend one that does all of the things above that they currently use and love?

I've tried searching online but the descriptions and specs just don't list all this in detail. Next step would be to go to stores and look at them in person and try to figure out if they would work for me, but I just don't have time at all this week, so I wanted to ask here. Thanks!

posted by KateHasQuestions to technology (4 comments total)

I have an older RCA alarm clock that has all of those features, except perhaps for turning off by itself, which I've never noticed one way or the other. Of course, they don't make this one any more.

However, they make this one, which also seems to have all the features you're looking for, with the same exception of not mentioning if it turns off by itself or not. The gradual increase in alarm volume isn't mentioned on the product page, but it is in the PDF manual for this model.
posted by FishBike at 8:04 PM on October 25

Well, you might call Thompson Consumer Electronics. They bought GE's home electronics division back in the late '80s and would have made this model. But if I recall correctly, this model's been discontinued for a while.


There's this similar one, on eBay, refurbished. Beyond that, you'll have to shop around for a current model that meets your need.
posted by magstheaxe at 8:08 PM on October 25

The adjustable snooze time is going to be the tough feature to find. On the other hand, I do really enjoy my Emerson SmartSet alarm, and it has most of what you want. It gets the time from a radio broadcast (you just need to tell it what time zone you're in). (You can also have it run a few minutes fast or slow if you like, and it will remember this when setting the time from the radio signal.) It does DST automatically. It knows what day of the week it is and you can set either of the two alarms to go off on weekdays only, weekends only, or every day. It projects the time on the ceiling, and you can select one of three colors for this. It has the incremental alarm volume and you can adjust alarm time forward or backward. Best of all, it was $17 at Target. I think it turns off the alarm after an hour or something. It does have a switch for turning on the alarms (each can be activated separately) but since you can set it not to go off on weekends, you will rarely fiddle with this anyway. It is, hands down, the best alarm clock I've ever owned.
posted by kindall at 9:45 PM on October 25

I bought one like this (not sure if same brand) at Family Dollar or Dollar General last year. Do you have those stores? It also has two alarms, if you and someone else have different wake-up times. It was about $10.
posted by bunny hugger at 8:27 AM on October 26