JALL Wake-Up Light Sunrise Alarm Clock

The JALL is the cheapest way to get the basics right. Its sunrise brightens from dark to full over a window you set between 10 and 60 minutes before the alarm, which covers the 30-minute ramp used in the sleep inertia trials. You get 20 brightness levels, two alarms with every day, weekday or weekend modes, and a snooze you can set from 5 to 20 minutes, all on physical buttons.

At night there is a sleep timer of 10 to 480 minutes, 25 sounds including white noise and rain, and FM radio. A 5 W Bluetooth speaker plays music from your phone, and Bluetooth also syncs the clock’s time. The display has an L0 setting that turns it fully off, which is better for a dark bedroom than many pricier clocks.

What you do not get is any brightness rating. JALL publishes none, so you cannot tell whether the peak reaches the roughly 250 lux used in research. Keep it close to your pillow and turn the peak up. The 17 colored and RGB modes, including a music-rhythm flash mode, are decoration rather than circadian features; stick to the warm sunrise.

Tom’s Guide picked it as its budget sunrise clock, noting that its sunrise simulation does not quite match Philips’ and that it feels budget-built. It had more than 28,000 Amazon ratings averaging 4.3 stars when we checked.

One buying note: JALL sells several similar-looking clocks, including a 7-sound kids’ model, at the same price. The specs here come from the Amazon listing the buy link points to. JALL’s store also advertises a lifetime warranty once you activate it online. If you can stretch to about $107, the Philips HF3520 adds a published 300 lux peak.