@The_Tim well the alarm sound just clinched it for me. Firm no. I’ll stick with my 8 year old Ikea alarm clock that lets you record alarm sounds, and loses a few minutes every few days.
@djslack Obviously not the exact same since this one doesn’t give you temp readings. But that was my first thought too, it needs wireless charging. Cool room though.
@Pufferfishy Nah, I was afraid they might charge me $20 for the artisanal wood. I know the “mineral rock” that was on the table could be kept for $27. The bottled water in the mini bar was supposedly bottled rainwater and $9 a bottle.
I am unaccustomed to the hipsters-with-money scene, so this hotel that was a triumph of form over function was a little weird to me.
@djslack Sounds like Aloft in Cupertino, CA (2 blocks from Apple HQ) . Loaded with broken innovations, and of course, non-functional Apple gear at every turn. Best part was the band that played in the lobby a few nights a week - one of the guys was the clone of a mid-90’s Bill Gates, and he dressed the part (surely on purpose). Sad;y I didn’t get a real great shot of the guy (he’s on the left)
The hipster artwork all over the place was waveforms from snippets of Steve Jobs “greatest speeches”.
At one point the trim strip that edged the closet opening decided to go into attack mode and fell on my as I came out of the shower (the air management in the room clearly being handled by an iDevice as it was humid enough to raise orchids, which is likely what was making the room gradually un-glue itself)
Every single person I interacted with at the front desk was in a daze - as though it was their first day on the job, unable to address virtually anything I asked with anything other than “I will find out and get back to you”. The icing on the cake (and my last stay at an Aloft ever in my life) was getting a call while I was sitting at lunch on a Saturday, asking when I planned to check out. My booking was through the following Tuesday. They had sold my room and despite my vociferous objections literally put me on the street. The entire town (from Palo Alto to San Jose) was sold out for something - I ended up sleeping at a co-workers house.
There was TWO highlights to staying there - a Philz Coffee directly across from the hotel, and on my walk there and orphaned load of bread that I photographed every day for like a week…
@cinoclav It looks like the one for sale today is the TYM+, while the ones in that hotel are the original TYM. There were 4 or 5 black plastic buttons on the back to control this one, and I don’t recall it having the charging ports but I could be wrong about that.
@Pufferfishy sounds very similar, with less tech and more weird. Also, are you sure that bread wasn’t just given back to nature as labeled?
@raive Yep, a simple, LOUD alarm clock with only a couple of buttons (snooze, “off”) is what I wanted. And found one at the Am@z place for under $8. I’m not hard of hearing, just a really sound sleeper when I have to get up before I really want to! It’s not quite as attractive as this one, but it does the job!
@raive Yep. Way back when, I had a clock with buttons that were all flush with the top. After ripping the thing out of the wall a few times, I solved the problem by sticking a thumbtack in the snooze button so I could find it in the dark.
I picked up a vintage Hot Wheels am/fm radio about 5 years ago at a garage sale…and it has battery back-up. works great, has a timer as well. I also have a Google home mini in the bedroom for music and alarm and sleep sounds as well.
@tinamarie1974@Woody1 As someone not born before 1938, I dispute that remark – I use an alarm clock and I don’t use an app on my smartphone. When my alarm goes off, I’d rather pound on a $20 clock than an $800 phone.
I use both. Phone is my primary alarm, clock radio is set as a backup. It rarely happens that I turn off the first and fall back asleep, but it has and it’s saved me from being late to work.
I wish someone would make a clock radio that had a realistic size snooze button that you can find when you’re half-dead and not accidentally press another button while searching for it. Maybe the size of the Meh ‘Add Topic’ button would do.
My 2nd purchase in May 6,2015 was a projection, talking alarm clock that sets time and date automatically by Oregon Scientific and it was only 5 bucks, been using it 4 years now and consider it one of my top 3 purchases on meh so have to say no tonite for a change of pace .
@mellowirishgent I bought one of those. Took it to work primarily because it also provided the temp. It has trouble connecting to sync the time so it’s now a $5 thermometer. Guess it could’ve been worse.
Tablet stand with USB charging ports (and a tablet for a bit of pre-slumber netflixing).
Clock with automatic wireless time setting and time projection onto the ceiling where I can see the time without having to lift my head from the pillow.
QI charging pad for my phone.
Bluetooth speakers because the tablet’s audio is poor.
If anybody ever manages to combine those four into one unit I want it!
@blaineg No worries - it is like barely 3 stars on amazon and apparently you have to be very careful not to touch the top or settings change. So yes it is meh.com
I usually buy my (cheap) Christmas gifts from Meh, but this is going in my guest room. My mother and in-laws neither know how to use their smart phone alarms, but they always need a charge.
Can the electronics industry as a whole, with particular regard to Bluetooth speakers, please move away from the concept of using one pair of buttons to control both volume AND track skip? This, more than any other single thing, is what makes me decline more Bluetooth device purchases than any other. It’s extremely awkward to adjust volume only slightly…you have to hold the button down. If you press and release too soon, you skip tracks. It’s also usually impossible to quickly raise or lower the volume.
Surely it can’t be that difficult to implement four buttons to control these completely unrelated tasks seperately? Or, you know, just forego track skip buttons entirely, on the premise that 95% of people use the connected device to control their music?
There are just as many 1- and 2-star reviews for this thing on Amazon as there are 4- and 5-star reviews. So I guess whether or not you buy this would depend on if you’re an Oversized 55oz Beer Stein half-empty or half-full kind of person.
Looks cool, but would have to be less than $10 for me to bite. ONLY as a clock, though! These reviews on Amazon probably sum up what meh says:
Pretty, but frustrating design
at least the clock works
Don’t try to use this as an alarm clock radio
The first one had a fun description of the issues: "It looks good, but if you want a clock radio - get something else. Very annoying to use the radio - no easy way to tune to your station, makes a loud BEEP every time you push a button (any button). If you turn it off and then on, the radio always seems to reset itself to a very loud volume, no matter what. Imagine that you want to put on some music to fall asleep - or turn on the news first thing in the morning. With this radio your experience will likely be, “BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! STATIC AT VOLUME LEVEL 1,000, BEEP! BEEP! CRASH (as you throw this thing against the wall)”
The looks . The function and selection buttons suck. Yes and trying to tune to an FM station is frustrating because half the time the button switches to a volume setting, and when you turn off the radio and turn on again it defaults to the loudest setting! Very loud, and the buttons don’t respond quickly enough to turn it down! I am a disappointed purchaser. How do I return this?
Q: What’s your return policy?
A: If it’s damaged, defective, or just DOA, we’ll either refund or replace it at our discretion. Just fill out our support form and tell us all about it.
We DO NOT accept returns if you just decided you didn’t want it, don’t like the color, or just feeling a little buyer’s remorse. You might try eBay - with as cheap as you probably got it, you could even end up making a little off it. Or hone your reputation for generosity by giving it to someone a little less picky.
@MINUANO68 Yo, I just want to echo everything in this comment, except the futile request to return this…lovely but poorly-thought-thru clock radio. As everyone says, its aesthetics are dead on. But like so many lovely things in this world, the functionality is dreadful. Just. Dreadful. The meager buttons rely on a short-press, long-press and the response is a decidedly unpleasant beep/screech. Even setting the clock was ear-cringing. I gave up on setting any FM stations because of the sheer unpleasantness of operating the radio.
But it looks pretty sharp on the bedstand, so I got that going for me.
Buttons are really a big pain in the a$$ use to set radio station and volume. Also, every time I turn on the radio, it defaults back to 88.9 instead of the last station I set it to. Ugh!
I regret this purchase. Should have read the amazon review. It is visually cool, but the volume is at maximum whenever Radio or alarm is turned on. These clocks must be destroyed.
@therealjrn I’ve been married for a very long time so the only thing I am actually fumbling around for is the actual snooze button. This tiny actual button is, for me, a non starter. I hate snooze buttons so much that all I have to do to snooze my current clock is wave my hand above it. Leads to less fumbling.
The last time I purchased a speaker dock like this on Meh, the speaker stopped working after about two uses, the remote never worked because the app went out of business, and its use as a giant phone charger also crapped out because the cord went bad.
HARD PASS.
I’m pretty impressed with this device! The speakers sound very good. The strange LED through wood display looks very good! The FM radio works. It works well as a bluetooth audio device and it powers phones.
It is true the buttons are hard to use. They are capacitive and very slow to respond. I’m sure I can figure it out with the massive manual (it is big because it’s for every language). If that part could be fixed then everyone in the world ought to have one!
I too regret this purchase. Terrible interface. Impossible to tune without messing with volume or adjust volume without changing the station. The beep it makes when you push a button is ‘alarm clock’ volume. So much regret.
Video review from some random Youtuber. Lets you see what it looks like in real life and hear the alarm (@5:00):
@The_Tim well the alarm sound just clinched it for me. Firm no. I’ll stick with my 8 year old Ikea alarm clock that lets you record alarm sounds, and loses a few minutes every few days.
@tartanknickers @The_Tim Yeah that sound was awful, no way. I was sort of interested until that.
@The_Tim This is the correct product but sadly the review is not as in depth.
@robson @tartanknickers @The_Tim So the alarm is a jackhammer pounding a church bell? Pass.
This looks familiar. It might be the alarm clock that was in the ridiculous hotel I stayed at in Austin last fall. It’s neat looking.
It needs a qi coil in the top.
Yep. Found it.
@djslack Obviously not the exact same since this one doesn’t give you temp readings. But that was my first thought too, it needs wireless charging. Cool room though.
@djslack Did you gnaw on that complimentary bedside kindling? Nice touch. Seems perfect for Texas.
@Pufferfishy Nah, I was afraid they might charge me $20 for the artisanal wood. I know the “mineral rock” that was on the table could be kept for $27. The bottled water in the mini bar was supposedly bottled rainwater and $9 a bottle.
I am unaccustomed to the hipsters-with-money scene, so this hotel that was a triumph of form over function was a little weird to me.
@djslack Sounds like Aloft in Cupertino, CA (2 blocks from Apple HQ) . Loaded with broken innovations, and of course, non-functional Apple gear at every turn. Best part was the band that played in the lobby a few nights a week - one of the guys was the clone of a mid-90’s Bill Gates, and he dressed the part (surely on purpose). Sad;y I didn’t get a real great shot of the guy (he’s on the left)
The hipster artwork all over the place was waveforms from snippets of Steve Jobs “greatest speeches”.
At one point the trim strip that edged the closet opening decided to go into attack mode and fell on my as I came out of the shower (the air management in the room clearly being handled by an iDevice as it was humid enough to raise orchids, which is likely what was making the room gradually un-glue itself)
Every single person I interacted with at the front desk was in a daze - as though it was their first day on the job, unable to address virtually anything I asked with anything other than “I will find out and get back to you”. The icing on the cake (and my last stay at an Aloft ever in my life) was getting a call while I was sitting at lunch on a Saturday, asking when I planned to check out. My booking was through the following Tuesday. They had sold my room and despite my vociferous objections literally put me on the street. The entire town (from Palo Alto to San Jose) was sold out for something - I ended up sleeping at a co-workers house.
There was TWO highlights to staying there - a Philz Coffee directly across from the hotel, and on my walk there and orphaned load of bread that I photographed every day for like a week…
@cinoclav It looks like the one for sale today is the TYM+, while the ones in that hotel are the original TYM. There were 4 or 5 black plastic buttons on the back to control this one, and I don’t recall it having the charging ports but I could be wrong about that.
@Pufferfishy sounds very similar, with less tech and more weird. Also, are you sure that bread wasn’t just given back to nature as labeled?
@djslack @Pufferfishy this is the roller coaster of a story that I expect from a fellow VMP member.
If I was paying for VMP I’d be a little upset by now. In fact I think meh should be sending me five bucks a month to keep checking at midnight
@Woody1
Eh…yeah
@Woody1 Meh praying on your hopes and dreams.
Touch buttons are trash, especially when you’re half asleep feeling for them.
@raive Yep, a simple, LOUD alarm clock with only a couple of buttons (snooze, “off”) is what I wanted. And found one at the Am@z place for under $8. I’m not hard of hearing, just a really sound sleeper when I have to get up before I really want to! It’s not quite as attractive as this one, but it does the job!
@raive Yep. Way back when, I had a clock with buttons that were all flush with the top. After ripping the thing out of the wall a few times, I solved the problem by sticking a thumbtack in the snooze button so I could find it in the dark.
I picked up a vintage Hot Wheels am/fm radio about 5 years ago at a garage sale…and it has battery back-up. works great, has a timer as well. I also have a Google home mini in the bedroom for music and alarm and sleep sounds as well.
Do people still use alarm clocks that are not an app on their phone?
@tinamarie1974 only if you were born before 1938, otherwise no.
@tinamarie1974 Uh, yeah, if you need a LOUD alarm clock (i.e. can sleep right through the phone app!!)
@tinamarie1974 @Woody1 As someone not born before 1938, I dispute that remark – I use an alarm clock and I don’t use an app on my smartphone. When my alarm goes off, I’d rather pound on a $20 clock than an $800 phone.
@cbl_wv
You should get an alarm that fades light on before the alarm. Or get Philips hue lights. I usually wake up before the alarm goes off
@tinamarie1974 As a person born in 1988 who sleeps with his phone off, and in another room, yes.
@tinamarie1974 Yes,yes they do
I use both. Phone is my primary alarm, clock radio is set as a backup. It rarely happens that I turn off the first and fall back asleep, but it has and it’s saved me from being late to work.
@tinamarie1974 I do, my alarm clock is from the 90s and has a giant physical snooze button. This model’s tiny snooze is not good enough IMO.
@tinamarie1974 I don’t use the alarm of my alarm clock, but I keep it for the time and temperature projected on the ceiling.
For when I don’t feel like asking Alexa.
@craigthom @tinamarie1974 I like to see what time it is when I wake up without picking up my phone.
yeah – I do – I tell Alexa to wake me up. She does.
@tinamarie1974
I bet the majority of people using an alarm are born before 1980.
I wish someone would make a clock radio that had a realistic size snooze button that you can find when you’re half-dead and not accidentally press another button while searching for it. Maybe the size of the Meh ‘Add Topic’ button would do.
@heartny And have the snooze button right in the way too (like the add topic button). That way you won’t miss it (snark directed at meh).
@heartny The entire face of my philips sunrise alarm clock is the snooze button. The vibrations from slapping my night stand also snooze it.
needs qi charger on top and LED bias lighting
So we’re plugging our alarm clocks into an alarm clock? … meh
My 2nd purchase in May 6,2015 was a projection, talking alarm clock that sets time and date automatically by Oregon Scientific and it was only 5 bucks, been using it 4 years now and consider it one of my top 3 purchases on meh so have to say no tonite for a change of pace .
@mellowirishgent I bought one of those. Took it to work primarily because it also provided the temp. It has trouble connecting to sync the time so it’s now a $5 thermometer. Guess it could’ve been worse.
@cinoclav you had to sync through the fm radio !!!
@mellowirishgent I bought an Oregon Scientific one either here or the other place with outside temp and qi charging.
Some segments on the projected display go out and come back weeks later. The qi charger is a bit picky.
The outside temp works great.
Currently on my night-stand:
If anybody ever manages to combine those four into one unit I want it!
Looks cool
@Stallion What’s wrong? I’m confused. Is this really meh.com?
@blaineg No worries - it is like barely 3 stars on amazon and apparently you have to be very careful not to touch the top or settings change. So yes it is meh.com
That wood design is so modern that it’s practically crawling from its placenta.
I have another model of the same brand. All the Bluetooth and speakery stuff works fine, including the fancy pairing.
The clock, on the other hand, runs several minutes slow every month. I gave up.
Ymmv.
/giphy you’ve been warned
https://www.amazon.com/GOgroove-Bluetooth-Speaker-Digital-Charging/product-reviews/B076JQ8NKG/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_hist_1?filterByStar=one_star&pageNumber=1
Sounds like this unit has significant issues. Amazon has it with 80% at one star.
@Michaelforman Wow. Those reviews are really bad!
I usually buy my (cheap) Christmas gifts from Meh, but this is going in my guest room. My mother and in-laws neither know how to use their smart phone alarms, but they always need a charge.
steadfast-granular-oatmeal
Can the electronics industry as a whole, with particular regard to Bluetooth speakers, please move away from the concept of using one pair of buttons to control both volume AND track skip? This, more than any other single thing, is what makes me decline more Bluetooth device purchases than any other. It’s extremely awkward to adjust volume only slightly…you have to hold the button down. If you press and release too soon, you skip tracks. It’s also usually impossible to quickly raise or lower the volume.
Surely it can’t be that difficult to implement four buttons to control these completely unrelated tasks seperately? Or, you know, just forego track skip buttons entirely, on the premise that 95% of people use the connected device to control their music?
AUX in, Bluetooth, and FM radio, and there’s only the option for that bell ringing as the alarm? Standard 80s tech allowed you to wake up to the radio
Can the display brightness be turned all the way down to off?
@plimas this is the most important question.
@plimas At that point you could save some money by just using a chunk of 2x4.
@blaineg @plimas How do you set the alarm on a chunk of 2x4?
@plimas @therealjrn Have someone throw it at you. My little brother was a good candidate.
I like wood. It is really wood, right?
/giphy slimy-ambulatory-wind
@blaineg Well, it’s going to be hard to top that one, so I won’t even try.
Anyone else have a top 3 list?
/giphy cogent-flying-jackrabbit
There are just as many 1- and 2-star reviews for this thing on Amazon as there are 4- and 5-star reviews. So I guess whether or not you buy this would depend on if you’re an Oversized 55oz Beer Stein half-empty or half-full kind of person.
Thank you, Meh, for the convenient link to the Amazon reviews which make it clear this is NOT usable as a bedside clock radio.
Looks cool, but would have to be less than $10 for me to bite. ONLY as a clock, though! These reviews on Amazon probably sum up what meh says:
The first one had a fun description of the issues: "It looks good, but if you want a clock radio - get something else. Very annoying to use the radio - no easy way to tune to your station, makes a loud BEEP every time you push a button (any button). If you turn it off and then on, the radio always seems to reset itself to a very loud volume, no matter what. Imagine that you want to put on some music to fall asleep - or turn on the news first thing in the morning. With this radio your experience will likely be, “BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! STATIC AT VOLUME LEVEL 1,000, BEEP! BEEP! CRASH (as you throw this thing against the wall)”
The looks
. The function and selection buttons suck. Yes and trying to tune to an FM station is frustrating because half the time the button switches to a volume setting, and when you turn off the radio and turn on again it defaults to the loudest setting! Very loud, and the buttons don’t respond quickly enough to turn it down! I am a disappointed purchaser. How do I return this?
@MINUANO68 see the FAQ
@MINUANO68 Yo, I just want to echo everything in this comment, except the futile request to return this…lovely but poorly-thought-thru clock radio. As everyone says, its aesthetics are dead on. But like so many lovely things in this world, the functionality is dreadful. Just. Dreadful. The meager buttons rely on a short-press, long-press and the response is a decidedly unpleasant beep/screech. Even setting the clock was ear-cringing. I gave up on setting any FM stations because of the sheer unpleasantness of operating the radio.
But it looks pretty sharp on the bedstand, so I got that going for me.
@MINUANO68 @Trask Agreed! Terrible controls
Buttons are really a big pain in the a$$ use to set radio station and volume. Also, every time I turn on the radio, it defaults back to 88.9 instead of the last station I set it to. Ugh!
/giphy very-mushy-gerbil
Great concept. Apparently horrible execution. The dreaded three stars! MEH IT TO HELL!!
I regret this purchase. Should have read the amazon review. It is visually cool, but the volume is at maximum whenever Radio or alarm is turned on. These clocks must be destroyed.
Specs
What’s in the Box?
1x Bluetooth Clock Radio
1x Power Cable
1x AUX In cable
Price Comparison
Was $39.99 at Amazon
Warranty
90 days
Estimated Delivery
Monday, July 13th - Thursday, July 16th
/image smart-courageous-cyclops
I consider this a speaker dock, meh
Alexa is my alarm clock. She gives me everything I need… via my imagination.
I don’t even need to look at anything else on this. That snooze button is way the F too small. How are you supposed to fumble around and find that?
@ohcoasterfreak
ಠ_ಠ
@therealjrn I’ve been married for a very long time so the only thing I am actually fumbling around for is the actual snooze button. This tiny actual button is, for me, a non starter. I hate snooze buttons so much that all I have to do to snooze my current clock is wave my hand above it. Leads to less fumbling.
The last time I purchased a speaker dock like this on Meh, the speaker stopped working after about two uses, the remote never worked because the app went out of business, and its use as a giant phone charger also crapped out because the cord went bad.
HARD PASS.
this will go great next to my sansa dock
I’m pretty impressed with this device! The speakers sound very good. The strange LED through wood display looks very good! The FM radio works. It works well as a bluetooth audio device and it powers phones.
It is true the buttons are hard to use. They are capacitive and very slow to respond. I’m sure I can figure it out with the massive manual (it is big because it’s for every language). If that part could be fixed then everyone in the world ought to have one!
I too regret this purchase. Terrible interface. Impossible to tune without messing with volume or adjust volume without changing the station. The beep it makes when you push a button is ‘alarm clock’ volume. So much regret.
Mine does not work at all