The 7 Very Best Alarm Clocks

Clock type: Digital | Adjustable brightness: Yes | Multiple alarms: Yes (2) | Extra features: None | Sound options: None

For a basic alarm clock, Sharp’s AccuSet Jumbo impressed me with its thoughtful design, big display, and low price. You can adjust the brightness to three levels, and even the lowest setting can be seen in a well-lit room, but is still faint enough to not be disruptive at night. You can only set two alarms on this one, but it’s easy to do so, and changing them doesn’t take more than a minute or two.

You won’t be able to change the mildly sharp beeping of the alarm, but the sound works well without sounding too unpleasant first thing in the morning. On the back of this alarm, there’s a USB-A port you can use for charging your phone overnight. In 30 minutes, I was able to charge my iPhone 15 Pro Max from 54 percent up to 72 percent, which isn’t quite as much as you would get with fast charging, but that rate for overnight charging is fine.

You won’t get any of the features (like ambient noise, sunrise light, etc.) that come with smart clocks like the Loftie and Hatch Restore 2, but its simple setup and easy-to-see display make it an affordable and convenient option that had no trouble waking me up during my testing.

Clock type: Digital | Adjustable brightness: Yes | Multiple alarms: No | Smart features: None | Sound options: One

For a barebones model that looks good and is easy to set up, DreamSky’s large-screened alarm clock is tough to beat. Its LED light comes in nine color options, and its large, bright numbers are the easiest to read of any alarm clock I’ve tested. I tried out the model with orange lights, and even at its brightest setting (there are five options), it was never overwhelming, even in a completely dark room. 

Strategist editor Hilary Reid says she bought hers to reduce her overall screen time and that it’s been helpful in that pursuit. She likes that the clock’s numbers are big and easy to read — they’re significantly larger than the numbers on the Mesqool projector clock, and a bit bigger than the Sharp— but aren’t so vivid that they’ll keep you awake. “The numbers are orange, which I find to be less shockingly bright than red or blue numbers, and they are fully dimmable so I can keep them very low when I sleep and then turn them up to their brightest setting in the morning,” she says.

Like the Sharp, there’s a built-in USB-A port you can use to charge your phone overnight. It only comes with one beeping alarm, while the other clocks we recommend have multiple, so you’ll have to be okay with the beeps it emits. It’s not horrible but not particularly pleasant, either. I also wish that this clock had its controls on the top of the device like the Mesqool, rather than the back, for easier operation. The snooze button is conveniently placed on the top, but setting the time or adding an alarm is tricky when using the buttons on the back.

Clock type: Digital | Adjustable brightness: Yes | Multiple alarms: Yes | Smart features: App-controlled, ambient noise, sunrise light, guided meditations | Sound options: 14

I ended up using the Loftie far longer than the allotted testing time, thanks to how successful it was at waking me up. It combines a classic, understated LCD alarm clock lozenge-shaped design with a subtle light that can simulate a sunrise to ease you into the day. The light glows just enough to grab your attention as you wake up; it’s gentle, and adds a warm touch to the room, both in sunrise mode and when turned on manually from the buttons on the top. Using the app, you can have it light up and play a nice tune to let you know it’s time to wind down and get ready for bed, and another when it’s time to actually get in bed.

The Loftie’s display shows both the current time and, in much smaller, dimmer numerals, the time of the next alarm. It’ll also tell you when Bluetooth (which you can use to stream stuff from your phone or tablet) is enabled. The display is smaller than on other alarm clocks like the Sharp and Hatch, but I still didn’t have any trouble seeing it from across the room while in bed. The top of the Loftie has four buttons: snooze, two arrow buttons for navigating the menu, and the main button for selection or play/pause.

There are 14 alarm sounds to choose from, including jungle animals chirping alongside a flute and gentle, repetitive strikes of a gong. If you have a Loftie+ membership ($5/month, with a trial month for free), you can also play relaxing music to fall asleep to, listen to guided meditations, and get horoscope readings. They’re all nice add-ons, and I did find they helped my anxious mind wind down before dozing off, but the Loftie has plenty to offer without the subscription. You also don’t need to pay the subscription to use the Loftie like a Bluetooth speaker to stream podcasts or playlists from your phone. Unfortunately, the Bluetooth setting disables itself after a period of inactivity, so you’ll have to turn it back on from the device whenever you want to use it.

The accompanying app is surprisingly feature-packed for an alarm-clock app. You can add multiple alarms, each with different sounds from Loftie’s library, and adjust the brightness of the clock’s bottom light via an adjustable slider. You can also choose from 14 alarm sounds, all of which have pleasant tones, though if you need a sharper, more attention-grabbing sound to get you out of bed, these options probably won’t work. The app also supports multiple clocks, so you can control several devices from one phone.

The company also sells a Wi-Fi connected lamp, which is my new favorite lamp after a week of testing. It pairs with the clock to coordinate wakeup routines, like dimming your light before bed or using a soft light to help wake you up. Every time it lit up along with my alarm, I felt like I was waking up in a room pulled straight out of the brightly colored yet softly lit future of Spike Jonze’s Her. At $250, it’s rather expensive, and you can only control it from within Loftie’s app, but the light does look great. Rather than using a bulb, the entire base of the lamp lights up, and you can set it to one of over 30 color options, including solid colors and gradients. All of the color options are relaxing, never too intense, and can work for anything from providing some light for reading or just helping you wake up in the morning.

Clock type: Digital | Adjustable brightness: Yes | Multiple alarms: Yes | Smart features: App-controlled, ambient noise, sunrise light, guided meditations | Sound options: 14

While I like the Loftie’s design, the Hatch Restore 2 is the one I wanted to keep on my nightstand after I tested it. I prefer its more subtle look and I like its sunrise light more — though the Loftie Lamp gives that model an edge if you’re willing to splurge on it. The Restore 2’s light has a softer glow thanks to the fabric surrounding it and compared to the effect created by Loftie’s transparent casing. Unlike the Loftie’s single-color light, the Hatch has 18 possible colors, and they can all be changed from within the app. My room doesn’t get much light in the mornings, and the Hatch’s vibrant but not overbearing light serves as a gentle nudge to help wake me up.

Like the Loftie, the Restore 2 has 14 built-in alarm sounds to choose from; I prefer the soothing chords of “Joyful Morning.” You can even play white noise to fall asleep to. Unlike with the Loftie, some of these ambient tracks are available for free, though others are available only with a subscription ($5/month). That subscription also unlocks guided meditations and fun things like the series “i’ll scroll 4 u,” where a host narrates what they’re doing on their phone in every episode; it’s sort of like a podcast version of someone’s hushed internal monologue. In one episode they comment on the question prompts their Hinge suggestions have on their profiles, and in another the narrator talks us through their hunt for a new couch on Facebook Marketplace. On its own, the Restore 2 offers more than enough to help make sleep a little easier, but I’ll admit, I’ve enjoyed trying out some of Hatch’s subscription content, so it’s worth checking out at least for the free trial.

Atop the Restore 2 are two buttons: one for activating your morning routine, and one for your evening routine. The morning button is convex, while the evening button is concave, making it easy to distinguish them by feel alone. The buttons are easier to differentiate this way than on the Sharp, but the Loftie’s different-size buttons are even easier to tell apart. The front of the clock also has four touch controls, though there are no icons to show where they are: Tapping on the top or bottom of the display toggles the light’s brightness, while tapping the left or right side adjusts the volume of the speaker.

Strategist writer Arielle Avila has been using the Restore 2 for about four months, and says it’s totally replaced her phone as an alarm. “It’s the only thing that can get me fully up when it’s still dark out because of the sunrise option,” she says. “I set mine to gradually brighten 30 minutes prior to my actual alarm, which is a morning bird sound — it’s calming but really effective.”

Avila also notes that only one person can control the Restore 2, so setting multiple alarms for multiple people isn’t convenient. You can also mute the alarm using a switch on the side, but it’s not easy to flip when you’re half-awake, which may disturb your bedmate if they wake up later than you.

Clock type: Digital | Adjustable brightness: Yes | Multiple alarms: Yes (2) | Smart features: None | Sound options: 1

If you need a way to look at the time without rolling over in bed, get a projection alarm clock. I’d almost given up on finding a good one — so many have projections that are too dim to be useful — but then I came across this one from Mesqool. It looks like a standard digital clock, and operates just like one, but on the right side of the display, there’s a tiny projector that’ll put a temporary clock right on your wall or ceiling. You can adjust the position of the projected time, as well as its orientation, but not its brightness. In dark rooms, the projection is quickly spottable without being excessively bright, so it won’t keep you up. Even during the day, the projected time is still visible in dimly lit rooms.

The numbers on the actual clock are slightly smaller than the display on the Dreamsky and on par with that of the Sharp Accuset but significantly thinner than both. The digits on the Mesqool are also tilted at an angle that’s not as pleasant to look at as the numbers on the Dreamsky. The Mesqool has an edge on actual operation, though: The buttons are on top of the display, so you can actually look at the clock while you’re adjusting the time or scheduling an alarm.

The alarm sound is quite similar to that of the Dreamsky, so while it’s not especially pleasant, it’s not grating or annoying, either.