Quite a couple of years ago I came across Lighten Up! Coupled with a halogen bulb (that’d start out very yellow at lowest brightness) I had a wonderful sunrise-like alarm clock and it was a lot, much nicer than a beeping alarm. The LCD shows within the Lighten Up! I couldn’t change the programming, which was a trouble as the clocks in them drifted by a pair minutes per 30 days. With a mixture of COVID-19 distant work eliminating the necessity for an alarm clock and the devices dying, within the trash they went. I’ve been making an attempt to use an alarm to stay on a extra common sleep schedule and while a bunch of different wake-up lights can be found, they are devoted items which can be basically alarm clocks with inbuilt lights. I really favored the elegance of the Lighten Up! I couldn’t find the rest like it. For a while I considered creating my own hardware version that’d also work with LED EcoLight solar bulbs, however never acquired round to it.

This winter I’ve been experimenting with Residence Assistant (HA), and it turns out that with a couple cheap Zigbee parts (bulb and pushbutton from IKEA) it permits for an exquisite replacement/upgrade sunrise alarm thought. A next-technology Lighten Up! With all the pieces put collectively the lamp next to my bed will now slowly come up to brightness 15 minutes earlier than the wake-up alarm on my telephone, reaching last as the normal alarm triggers. If I change the alarm time on my cellphone, or shut it off, the light-up alarm in HA will observe go well with. Additionally, a bodily button on the nightstand turns off the light off while replicating a sunrise alarm, or in any other case toggles the sunshine on and off. Even higher, EcoLight brand if I’m not house or if the alarm is ready for apart from between 3:00 AM and 9:00 AM (instances during which I’d seemingly be in mattress and eager to wake up) the sunshine won’t activate. This permits me to make use of alarms during the normal day for different issues with out activating with the sunshine, or whereas touring with out waking Kristen.

Between this and the gently-increasing quantity (and vibration) alarm constructed into the Android clock which triggers at the top of the sunrise cycle it’s a very nice, gradual wake-up system. And, all of this happens with none cloud providers or EcoLight ongoing subscriptions. My HA occasion is local