The Clock Radio

Your clock radio is probably the least appreciated electronic in your home, until the power goes out. You want a clock that's not going to fail you in times of blackouts, especially when it happens while you are sleeping and you are relying on it to wake you up in the morning. The clock radio today comes with a backup battery supply in case this does happen. There are no shortages of styles and designs either. One thing you want to consider is readability. You want the numbers large enough to see from across the room if need be. Most are digital these days and those red LED lights will enable you to see the numbers from pretty far away. It is also helpful it has an alarm.

Functionality is the biggest reason to shop around for different clock radios. It's more than just about adjusting the time and setting your alarm for the next day. You could buy an atomic clock radio and not have to worry about correcting the time. Otherwise, this should be an easy thing to do. The buttons should be clearly marked and readable even in dim light. Your snooze button should be larger than the other buttons to make it easy to find when you are half asleep and need another seven minutes of down time. You should also be able to kill the alarm when you need to as well. Many alarm buttons slide to an on and off position and are located on the front of the clock, especially on a portable clock radio. There should be a sleep function too if you should want to fall asleep to the radio and have it cut off at a specified time.

Sometimes with an alarm clock radio it's a hard choice between getting a solid radio device and a loud alarm with a readable display. It seems that you either get one or the other and usually it's the radio that suffers. Because the signal for the radio comes through such a tiny speaker it can pick up a lot of white noise in the background. This creates a weak signal and even the thin wire that is used as an antenna is of little use as a radio. When making a selection find a dual alarm clock radio that has a nice balance between the clock and the radio. Oftentimes there are store displays available for you to test this balance. If the radio doesn't get loud enough to wake you up then you will be wasting your money. However you can employ the functions of a dual alarm clock radio which uses both the radio and the buzzer to wake you. You can even purchase a CD clock radio and bypass the radio altogether. This way you can wake to the music of your choice. An even more recent technologically advance clock is the iHome clock radio that allows you to connect your iPod and use that as the alarm. There is a video review of this product below if you want to see just what it does.

No matter what you decide on, your clock radio should also come with a backup memory system that relies on batteries so that you don’t have to worry about resetting it in the event of a power outage.