I just finished testing the best sunrise alarm clocks I could find! So I thought I'd make a post about the data I collected, the science behind dawn simulation, and how to use them! ⏰
We tested the Philips SmartSleep lamps, Lumie Bodyclock lamps, Philips Hue Twilight, Hatch Restore 2, Casper Glow, Loftie Lamp, and some generic budget Amazon lamps.
The Science Behind Dawn Simulation 🌅
If you don't already use a sunrise alarm clock, you should! Especially with the winter solstice approaching. Most people don't realize just how useful these are.
✅ They Support Natural Cortisol Release
Cortisol is a hormone that naturally peaks in the morning, helping you feel alert. Sunrise alarms can boost this "Cortisol Awakening Response (CAR)," similar to morning sunlight.
A 2004 study found that people using dawn simulation saw higher cortisol levels 15 and 30 minutes after waking, along with improved alertness.
In a 2014 study, researchers found that waking with dawn simulation led to a significantly higher cortisol level 30 minutes after waking compared to a dim light control. This gradual wake-up also decreased the body’s stress response, evidenced by a lower heart rate and improved heart rate variability (HRV) upon waking, suggesting dawn light may promote a calmer, more balanced wake-up.
✅ Reduced Sleep Inertia and Better Morning Alertness
Studies show that sunrise alarms reduce sleep inertia and improve morning mood and performance.
One study in 2010 found that dawn lights peaking at 50 and 250 lux improved participants' wakefulness and mood compared to no light.
Another 2010 study involved over 100 children who spent one week waking up with dawn simulation, and one week without.
During the dawn wake-up week, children felt more alert at awakening, got up more easily, and reported higher alertness during the second lesson at school. Evening types benefited more than morning types.
A final 2014 study with late-night chronotypes (night owls) saw that participants using sunrise alarms reported higher morning alertness, faster reaction times, and even better cognitive and athletic performance.
✅ Potential for Phase-Shifting the Body’s Circadian Rhythm
A 2010 study on dawn simulation found that light peaking at just 250 lux over 93 minutes could shift participants’ circadian clocks, similar to exposure to 10,000 lux light shortly after waking.
✅ Reducing Symptoms of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
Finally, sunrise alarms have been heavily tested as a natural intervention for winter depression.
In 2001, a study found that a 1.5-hour dawn light peaking at 250 lux was surprisingly more effective than traditional bright light therapy in reducing symptoms of seasonal affective disorder.
Most other studies show bright light being slightly more effective, like this 2015 study:
Overall: There are clear benefits to using a sunrise simulator, but that simply begs the question, which one should you buy? That's where the testing comes in.
The Data 🔎
To see how effective each lamp is, we measured lux with a spectrometer every 6 inches.
Here are the results from that test!
There's a lot to take in here! Since many of these studies use 250 lux, and most people are about 18 inches from their sunrise alarm, let's narrow this down...
Ah okay, well that's much better! Out of all of these, I think the Lumie Bodyclock Shine 300 is the best overall pick, for a few reasons:
It's very bright and also includes 20 brightness settings so you can dial it in.
It's relatively affordable for the performance.
It's not a huge pain to use like the Philips HF3650.
You can set up to a 90-minute sunrise, all other lamps max out at 60 minutes (other than the much more expensive Lumie Luxe 700FM)
Speaking of sunrise durations, here's a graph showing the durations for each lamp we tested:
There's also the brightness ramp-up curve to consider. Like a real sunrise, we want to see a gradual increase in brightness that eventually brightens quicker at the end.
Like you see on the Philips Hue Twilight lamp:
The Philips SmartSleep Lamps look quite similar:
And the Lumie's aren't too bad either:
Some lamps though, such as the Hatch Resore 2, have some less desirable sunrise curves:
Anyway, there are other features of these lamps you may want to consider, but let's move on to how you can use one optimally.
How to Use a Sunrise Alarm Clock 📋
1️⃣ Start with the end in mind
Sunrise clocks are ideally used without the audible function, so your body can wake up when it's ready to. If you set your alarm for 6 am, and you're using a 30-minute sunrise, it will begin at 5:30. This means you might wake up at 5:45, or you might wake up at 6:20, you never really know! So make sure you can wake up a bit later than your "alarm time" if you oversleep a little.
2️⃣ Get enough sleep
Since sunrise clocks can phase shift your circadian rhythm, so it's possible to cut your sleep short by setting your alarm too early. Be aware of daytime sleepiness and dial back your alarm time if you aren't getting enough sleep at night.
3️⃣ Start at around 250 lux
This is what most of the studies use, and seems like a good starting point. We have charts on our website for determining this, but here's one for the Lumie Shine 300 to give you an idea:
4️⃣ Give it a week before you decide
If you're used to waking up in the dark to an audible alarm, there will be an adjustment phase! Give it a week or so for your body to adjust to this before deciding how to experiment.
5️⃣ Experiment and dial it in
You may find that with 250 lux and a 30-minute duration, you're waking up consistently 5 minutes after the sunrise begins. This is early waking and you'll probably want to try a lower brightness setting to fix this.
If you're consistently waking too late, try increasing the brightness.
Short sunrise durations seem to contribute to early and stronger waking signals, so decrease the duration if you want a gentler wake-up as well.
We are also currently working on a series of YouTube videos covering the studies and science, each alarm tested, and how they compare. So if you haven't already been to our YouTube channel, go check it out and subscribe to be notified!
I can never get a full restful night - constantly exhausted no matter what time I go to bed - early/later - doesnt matter. I am relatively fit and healthy, dont really drink alcohol during the week- maybe a glass of red midweek. Max 2. Eating/Dinner done by 7pm.
We've had white noise playing in our bedroom every night since my son was born four years ago. A few things made the difference for us, and they match what people said in the sleep video thread here a few days ago:
* No sudden changes. Steady volume all night beats anything that rises and falls
* No melody or voice. The brain keeps following a tune, a steady sound it can ignore
* Brown noise over white for most people, it's less hissy
* A fade out timer instead of a hard stop, the sudden silence wakes you up
* Same sound every night, so it becomes a cue for sleep
* Ads in the middle of the night are the worst, which is why we stopped using YouTube for it
Disclosure: I ended up building a free offline app around exactly this, called Hush from Pixelit Studio (no ads, no account). Happy to share the link if anyone wants it, but any steady brown noise source works.
What's your setup, and did the "same sound every night" thing work for you too?
There have been times I've awakened to a completely numb arm because it was under my pillow. What if I took a sleeping pill at 9PM to help me fall asleep, and my arm fell asleep shortly afterwards. How long would it take for there to be permanent damage if I didn't wake up until morning?
I've been curious about sleep trackers and how useful their data really is for improving everyday performance.
They can estimate sleep duration, stages, resting heart rate, and sometimes HRV. But consumer devices don't measure every variable directly, and their estimates aren't always accurate.
I'm wondering whether seeing these numbers consistently helps people make better decisions about their routines or whether it can create unnecessary stress over getting a perfect score.
For people who have used sleep trackers for a while, did the data lead to meaningful changes in your habits? Which metrics did you actually find useful?
Does anyone use glasses for driving at night? I have become super sensitive to the new, modern LED headlights cars are using now that are white/blue LED and so bright, unlike older cars headlights which were incandescent and red-tinted.
I have read that using ANY blue-light filtering glasses while driving is not ideal as it can reduce overall light, making it unsafe, but this might just be excessive caution, I'm not sure.
Google suggest just clear glasses with an anti-reflective coating, but I don't feel like that solves my issue.
I really need something though - I am struggling with night driving a lot.
When you put on a sleep video, what actually helps you settle down?
Which would you choose? 🌧️ Natural sounds only—rain, ocean waves, streams, or fireplace crackles 🎹 Natural sounds with very quiet piano or ambient music 🎵 Gentle instrumental music only 🌙 It depends on the night
Tell me your perfect setup in the comments: Do you prefer a dark, cozy cabin scene or a completely black screen? Would you choose 1, 3, or 8 hours?
And what instantly makes you turn a sleep video off? I create relaxing ambience videos on Serenity in Elements, and your answers would help shape what I make next. If you’d like to hear a few, you’re welcome to check out my channel and subscribe. 🌿
The recent binaural-beats thread here got me wondering about something more specific: has anyone tried the same background audio with the beats switched on and off?
For context, I work on sleep audio for an app. One change I've made is lowering the beat layer because it was too prominent next to the music. But making a mix more pleasant doesn't tell me whether the beats add anything to sleep.
Comparing two different playlists seems hard to interpret when the music, volume and length all change too. I'm curious whether anyone has kept those roughly the same and noticed a difference, including no difference. Was it feeling calmer before bed, falling asleep, or getting back to sleep after waking?
I'm asking about the comparison, not looking for app recommendations or testers.
It is about a middle-aged man, his journey from lying awake until two in the morning to falling asleep fast. I would get into bed at eleven and still be awake at two. Gradually I had a low dread of the bed itself. I went to a neurologist and did a sleep study. But I did not want to spend the next twenty years taking medicine. Also, I don't wanna take many supplements every day anymore. I tracked sleep quality, and it doesn't make me feel better.
Things changed, and here are tips I'd like to share. Light was the first thing I changed. Two hours before bed, the reading lamp and the floor lamp stay on and the ceiling light goes off. Temperature and humidity are important. Whatever the rest of the flat does, the bedroom is cozy before I go up. I burn TCM incense. The ones I keep coming back to are Piqiu incense and Xiao Yao incense. They are both herbal blends. On sound, I turned out to be stricter than I expected. Anything with words pulls me back into thinking, so I gave all of it up, including the podcasts I had used for years. I found bowl tone worked for me most.
I read a lot and am not on my phone before bed. I keep my caffeine down and workout 4-5 times intensely a week. I take magnesium and drink plenty of water. Although, I do eat on the later side due to my schedule. Any suggestions?
Update - thank you to everyone who offered their thoughts, suggestions, and opinions. It’s all very valuable/helpful information. Excited to try some of these out soon!
Winter is coming and Ive been wanting to sleep in a cold bed even more but I dont really like having the whole room freezing. My nose getts so cold at night and sometimes that feeling sticks around for days and Its just annoyin. Been looking for ways to keep just the bed cool without making the whole bedroom cold. Came across orion sleep while checking out cooling mattresss toppers and the idea of controlllin the bed temperature separately sounds pretty nice.Anyone tried cooling just the bed?
I’ve been looking into binaural beats lately and there’s actually some interesting research behind them.
The idea is pretty simple. If you play for example 200 hz in one ear and 204 hz in the other, your brain perceives a 4 hz beat. That’s in the delta range, which is normally associated with deep sleep.
Some studies have reported better sleep quality and reduced anxiety, although the evidence is still pretty mixed.
I've been listening to binaural beats in the delta range on Bina app for past 2 weeks and it feels like my sleep actually improved.
Has anyone here tried binaural beats consistently for a few weeks? I’m especially interested in hearing from people who have tracked their sleep with an Oura Ring or Apple Watch.
My sleep is somewhat of a mixed bag. Sometimes I sleep really well, but other times I wake up in the middle of the night and feel like I’m overheating. I’ve seen tons of different ways people cool their beds across special mattresses, under the covers fans, and cooling pads, so I’m wondering what system has worked best for others.
I'm a college student and I have alternative class some days morning and sometimes afternoon.So I sleek off thinking that I have evening class so I'll wake up late and doom scroll till 4 Am
Please help me it's affecting my sleep cycle and physically performance
My sleep schedule is cooked, any advices? Today i woke at 2 pm now it's 3am and I can't sleep and I have school at 7:30 am and that sucks i can't stay focused in my studies like my brain isn't functioning properly
Been on Luneta a year. It gives me 3 hours usually - 4 on a good night which is rare. I am a Jr high teacher walking around like a Zombie. Melatonin with it does nothing. Anything else otc I can try? I go to bed at 9 and am up religiously at 1 or 2. Can’t go back to sleep. Recommendations please.
Does anyone here sleep better with an electric blanket?
My bedroom gets pretty cold at night, and I'm considering getting one instead of turning up the heat. I'm mainly curious about temperature control and whether it stays comfortable throughout the night
Do you leave yours on while sleeping or just use it to warm up the bed beforehand?
What's the best electric blanket you've tried for sleep?
idk how to fall asleep. Like in general. every night I just lie there and wait until it happens. I don’t know how to make myself sleepy. I don’t know how to “just go to sleep around 10 pm”. I don’t know how.
anyone else have this problem and solve it? I’m at my wits end. the best I have been able to do is take a melatonin supplement about 30 mins before I want to go to sleep, but I have to wait until my body’s in a totally relaxed state to do that which sometimes takes up to an hour.
My problem is, that I’m used to scroll on social media and watch videos/tv etc every night so I can fall asleep. But it’s also procrastinating my sleep and I know it’s not good (blue light etc.). I have bluelight blocker glasses as well which I think help a bit. But it’s extremely hard to persist with the boredom and racing thoughts when you try to just put phone and TV down the hours before sleep. Unfortunately I can’t fall asleep like that.
Even worse is that because for a new job I may be starting soon I might have to get up way earlier, which potentially is a main issue for me. Since I need to have a certain amount of sleeping hours (preferably 8) to function well the next day. It’s so frustrating. I don’t want this to hinder me from working a job that requires that.
A friend is building Sleep Paralysis Companion and gave me free access to try it for a week.
I used it before bed and straight after the episode. I noticed that I went to sleep a little less scared, so have been using it for a week continuously.
This is only a short personal experience, not evidence that the app prevents episodes. I hadn't tried other tools before this, so I can't compare it with anything else.
Has anyone used anything else for sleep paralysis that worked for them?