Help me find the clock I want

September 12, 2011 5:19 PM

Ugh. Help me find a clock with the features I want.

Hey everyone.

All I want is a digital LED clock with the following features.

- Keeps time accurately
- A big display that I can see from 10 feet away (perhaps something in the 2 inch range)
- Dimmable, brightness adjust
- NOT COMPLETELY UGLY
- If it can auto-set time, or at least keep time during a power outage, that's a big plus

This is close to what I'm looking for, but the reviews are awful and the display seems a bit small: jWin JL355

The reviews for these are better: Sony ICFC414 or RCA RC46R. This one (Chaney Instruments) doesn't seem bad, but at least one person said they had problems with time accuracy on that clock.

Ugh someone help me, I can't find such a simple thing.

posted by Ephilation to Shopping (8 answers total)

If you can live without the dimmer, Target has that sort of thing for $5-$10. I have one a bit like this but better looking, also all the digits are the same color. I think it is Target's RE brand.
posted by carter at 5:35 PM on September 12, 2011

I don't know what you mean by not completely ugly, so I can't answer, but it sounds like you might want to limit your search to radio controlled clocks, which set themselves automatically and should pretty much always be accurate.

Here's a search for radio controlled clock, if you want to see if any of those look good to you.

And this one is not radio controlled, but I've heard good things about it.

Again, I don't know if that's ugly or not. I like it, but I also know I like some ugly things.
posted by ernielundquist at 5:43 PM on September 12, 2011

Best answer: And Radio Shack has one with dimmer for $20.
posted by carter at 5:43 PM on September 12, 2011

I have the old model of this Smartalarm by Emerson. My clock is 10+ years old and still works magnificently. Also, one of the best features is that it has 2 separate alarms on it. Setting both of those plus a couple on my phone usually gets me up :)
posted by DoubleLune at 5:46 PM on September 12, 2011

If you have an iPhone or newer iPod there are a number of clock-radios out there that have a dock that in addition to all the usual functions provides some means of getting the correct time off your phone. I won't suggest a specific model because I don't know all of them enough to know which ones best fit your needs, but it is another option for keeping your clock accurate. A number of iHome models do this as do offerings from other manufacturers.
posted by TedW at 6:08 PM on September 12, 2011

Well if you have an iphone you don't need a dock at all, just an app like 'Nightstand Central'. It's dimmable. It wakes you with music, alarm or vibe. And looks great.
posted by artdrectr at 12:03 AM on September 13, 2011

I have the older version of that RCA one, that was considerably more ugly. It works well. I like that the battery backup runs off of AA batteries. It follows the "new" trend of setting the time in the factory, shipping it with batteries, then just having switches for time zone and DST. So it doesn't update from satellites, but the time is probably right when you get it.
posted by smackfu at 6:47 AM on September 13, 2011

Same here - I got the RCA RC40 instead of the 46 because the 46 was seeming to get more negative reviews on Amazon at the time. No real complaints here, though the radio tuning does seem to drift over the course of a couple of weeks without touching the tuning knob. One day, NPR, week later, NPR with static, week later, NPR/classic rock static mess.

I think that the RC40 isn't being produced anymore and has been replaced by the RC46 (when I got mine from RCA's web store, it was one of only a handful left that they had), but it looks like Amazon has some right now.
posted by stleric at 10:49 AM on September 13, 2011