Wake Up Gradually With These Smart Alarm Clocks

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Maintaining a healthy sleep cycle is one of the most effective ways to lock in your hard-earned fitness—recovery is just as important as a good workout, after all—but how might you manage that when your next long run starts tomorrow at 7 a.m., and you’re not a morning person? You could subject yourself to the daily jolt of your phone’s default ringer, or you could take some of the edge off your morning routine with a smart alarm clock.

These gadgets offer voice controls, customizable white noise, and simulated sunrises, among other time- and energy-saving features. Depending on your needs, these tools might be the key to streamlining your morning routine. To keep your search for a quality alarm clock on track, we talked to a sleep researcher about some of the most popular smart clocks available, taking care to suss out which features will benefit you the most—and which sleep health claims stand on shaky ground.

The Best Smart Alarm Clocks

• Best Value: Emerson Smartset Dual Alarm Clock

• Best for Smart Homes: Amazon Echo Dot (5th Gen) with Clock

• Best Music Player: Tribit Home Bluetooth Speaker and Smart Alarm Clock

• Best With Charging: iHome Wireless Charging Smart Clock

• Best Splurge: Hatch Restore 2 Sunrise Alarm Clock

What to Consider

What Makes a Smart Alarm Clock Smart?

When you set up a standard alarm clock, there isn’t much to it—you set the time, your alarm times, and which alarm sound you want. But while some sleepers might appreciate that simplicity, others have a more involved morning routine (or bedtime ritual) that a smart alarm clock can simplify for the better.

Many smart alarm clocks pair with your other devices so you can play music, charge your phone, or get real-time weather and news updates without starting your day with a device in hand. Some even communicate with the rest of your smart home, so you can turn on your lights or turn up the thermostat without clambering around in the dark for a switch.

To combat the inorganic wake-up call of a standard pre-dawn alarm, some smart clocks also use baked-in software or companion smartphone apps to dial in your alarm preferences on a more personal level. Some, like the Hatch Restore 2, even provide a simulated sunrise, which can make getting out of bed feel easier when you enter the darker months of the year.

Can Smart Alarms Improve Your Sleep?

Some brands make bold claims about how their smart alarm clocks will improve your sleep quality or duration, especially as features like sunrise alarms and brown noise flood the discussion. To make sense of all the jargon and buzzwords, we spoke with Robin M. Tucker, PhD, RD, FAND, an associate professor at Michigan State University who researches the effects poor sleep has on other facets of our lives.

Her thoughts on most of these claims are straightforward: “The research isn’t really there,” she says, admitting that while sunrise alarms are pleasant, there isn’t peer-reviewed research that proves that sunrise alarms improve the quality of your sleep, or that they’re healthier for your brain than traditional alarms. “I do have a sunrise alarm,” Tucker says. “It has pros and cons… It makes getting out of bed when it’s dark outside much easier, but I can also roll over and ignore it.”

She also suggests that the journey to finding your best alarm clock is a personal one, and trying several options (including free apps on your phone) is often the best way to beat the placebo effect and truly understand what works for you. In general, features like sunrise alarms work best as a means of providing a soothing ambiance per your own needs and preferences, but they aren’t an end-all solution to a quarrelsome sleep cycle, according to Tucker.

The same goes for different colors of white noise, such as brown or pink noise, which supposedly match various sound and color frequencies to provide different pitches of ambient sound. But you don’t need to dig that deep into the science to know which one works for you—it’s more a matter of trying a few options.

“I’m a big proponent of white noise for people trying to sleep in noisy environments, but there isn’t a lot of convincing data that a particular noise color gives you substantially better effects,” Tucker said. “It’s mostly down to what sounds the most soothing to you.”

There’s also something to be said for the peace of mind—you might sleep better knowing for sure that your alarm will wake you when it’s time to get ready for work, or fall asleep faster with the help of white noise, thus helping you feel more rested in the morning in turn. In all, a smart alarm clock likely won’t fix all of your problems with sleep, but it can help address some challenges like trying to wake up in a dark room, trying to sleep through disruptive noises, or being anxious that your alarm won’t go off.

How We Selected

Because smart alarm clocks vary so considerably in functionality, we used our expert’s input to find a range of devices that emphasize different features—sunrise alarms, multi-device charging, and voice controls, to name a few—without sacrificing all-around quality or ravaging your wallet. Every clock on this list promises easy setup and operation, a sleek design, bedside table-friendly dimensions, and a feature set that doesn’t feel like overkill for something you’ll interact with only once or twice a day. Plus, we kept price in mind: While some clocks can climb up to $200, plenty of cheaper options still offer loads of perks. And they’re all sure to get you up on time, one way or another.

SmartSet Dual Alarm Clock

Upgrading your alarm clock doesn’t have to cost you a fortune. Despite cutting the cost of many other smart alarm clocks in half, the SmartSet has modern features like Bluetooth pairing, charging ports, and customizable alarms that automatically account for daylight savings and weekends. The alarm sound selection is slim and doesn’t offer any gentle wake-up options, but for heavy sleepers, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Home Bluetooth Speaker and Smart Alarm Clock

It’s not often that you see an alarm clock tout features like room-filling sound and thumping bass, but this one from Tribit is ideal for waking up to your favorite music. You can connect your phone via Bluetooth, an aux cable, or USB to blast your morning Spotify playlists; insert an SD card pre-loaded with tunes; or tune it to your favorite FM radio station. (Yes, some of us still have a favorite radio station!)

Aside from music, this alarm also has a customizable sunrise alarm and a built-in white noise generator, both of which will keep your sleep cycles ticking along naturally through the night and into the morning.

Echo Dot (5th Gen) with Clock

If there were such thing as a smartness-to-flashiness ratio, this generation of the Echo Dot would likely have the highest one we could find. Despite having an entire smart home’s worth of connectivity and functionality, this thing’s as small as a regulation softball, and it only has a handful of buttons and lights.

Just like any other Alexa-compatible device, all you need to do to set this up is connect to it using the Alexa app. Once it’s plugged in, it will instantly sync with your phone and the rest of your devices, giving you full control to customize your alarm, morning updates, and voice controls. And when your alarm goes off, you just need to tap the top of the Dot to turn it off.

Wireless Charging Smart Clock

Fussing with cables shouldn’t have to be part of your going-to-bed routine, nor should fishing them out from behind your nightstand. This iHome smart alarm clock lets you set your wireless-charging-compatible phone in a nook with a charging pad so you wake up each day with a full battery (assuming you don’t have a metal case). It also has ports for USB-A and USB-C cords on the back, if you’re rocking a phone without that tech.

The clock itself is otherwise pretty stripped down, but that can sometimes be a welcome switch-up if you’re weary of screens after a full day of looking at them.

Restore 2 Sunrise Alarm Clock

Waking up to the sunrise isn’t always as practical as our biological clocks would like it to be, but this smart alarm from Hatch lets you take full control of when that sunrise happens. It’s a pricey pick, and plenty of that cost goes into aesthetics, but it’s nevertheless an incredibly intuitive, minimalistic device with loads of customizability.

If you can successfully stave off a post-alarm return to sleep, the Restore 2 can fill most bedrooms with your preferred hue of warm light, as well as an impressive array of pre-loaded white noise settings for reduced interruptions during sleep. It can also function as a lamp, so you can consolidate your nightstand space in a cramped bedroom.

Nest Hub 2nd Gen Smart Alarm Clock and Smart Home Hub

Perhaps you like to start your day with a summary of how it’s going to go—environmentally speaking, at least. If so, this smart home-friendly Nest Hub will wake you up with your choice of alarm, including sunrise options, and then present you with a quick rundown of the news and weather on its compact 4x7-inch screen.

If you’re not a big fan of screens in the bedroom, this may feel like an intrusive option, but if the alternative is multiple screens or your notification-flooded phone, this can keep your nightstand (and headspace) much tidier.

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