Oregon Scientific BARM699 Touch-Screen AM/FM Radio Alarm Clock with Weather Forecasts and Wireless Outdoor Thermometer

After having tried several "atomic time" clock radios and alarm clocks, I have finally found what is for me a nearly perfect unit.

The clock easily synchs up with the time signal from WWVB, even during the daytime, when many other units can't (assuming you orient the antenna properly).

The digitally tuned radio works well on both AM and FM, being one of the few radios that I have tried that doesn't get swamped by the nearby radio towers.

A big plus on the alarm clock feature is that you can set the alarm to a particular station and volume, and then go to sleep with the radio set for a different station and volume. So you can go to sleep with a classical station on a low volume and wake up to a news station on a very loud volume.

Even without the HiGlo turned on, the display is very high contrast and easy to read in even moderately dim light.

I happen to prefer that the HiGlo isn't on full-time, since I try to avoid...Read more

While the features overall are pretty neat and this is a nice, compact design that is perfect for a night stand, I am finding that for a bedroom alarm clock it doesn't work so well. I thought that the "HiGlo(tm)" back-lighting was always on, making it easy enough to read in the dark, but that is not the case. The back lighting only comes on after fumbling to find one of the "touch technology" buttons that, of course, are also not lit up. For a desk clock, this would be perfect. For a bedside clock, find one that is visible in the dark...

The atomic clock didn't sync up after 48 hours on standby (the manual recommends at least 24), the temperature reader is off by 5 degrees, and the weather forecast promises only 70% accuracy (which means I check my computer for a *real* forecast each morning anyway). So what you have is a self-setting clock that you have to manually set yourself, a thermometer that you have to mentally adjust downward by 5 degrees, and a forecaster that provides a rough but useless idea of the day's weather. If the above is not enough to dissuade you, consider this: (1) the touch screen buttons are absolutely useless in the morning when your hand-eye coordination is at its worst, (2) the clock's "snooze" button annoyingly becomes a "sleep" button after several minutes of radio/ringing, (3) the radio reception on this in my area is worse than any other radio I have tried, and (4) as others have mentioned, the clock is invisible when the lights are off.