iLuv Vibro II Alarm Clock 30-Pin Speaker Dock with Bed Shaker (White)

• An innovative approach to waking up:  Digital dual alarm clock with iPhone / iPod dock and 'Shaker'
• Unique 'Shaker' vibrates to wake up heavy sleepers
• Wake to iPhone / iPod, FM radio, buzzer and / or shaker
• Sleep to iPhone / iPod or FM radio
• Speakers play your music with depth and clarity

The product is standard iDevice pricing...you end up paying 4X as much for anything made for iPhone but whatev. I bought mine at B Cubed (Bed Bath and Beyond) because I wanted instant gratification, and to my surprise, I got just that. The guy let me demo an actual unit in the store so I could see what I was buying (the floor model only demoed music and the shaker). It was small and compact, so that was a huge selling point for me. I decided to buy it, took it home, and became quite frustrated with it (for a few minutes). You have to download a free app first in order to use your iPhone with it (I'm using the 4S), but the app itself is pretty cool. You can set your own alarms via the app and wake up to your music or set 1 or 2 alarms on the actual device to use the bed shaker attachment. Alright, about the bed shaker, it was SOOOOO frustrating getting that thing to work! The instruction booklet has a whopping 4 pages that aren't very informative at all and the website doesn't provide anything either. So after playing around with it, I finally figure out how to set the alarm to go off with my iPhone music and the bed shaker attachment. Now the bed shaker is nothing spectacular, in fact, it's just as good (slightly better) than the vibrating feature on your iPhone. The only difference between using this and a $5 alarm app is that this charges your phone. But I wasn't too worried about price, I was looking everywhere for a cheap iHome like device and with no luck, decided to get this unit. The display on it is also annoying! It is placed slightly higher than my bed and I cannot see the time for the life of me! Luckily though, the free app has a nice clock display that is dimmable and readable. You wont have this problem if your bed is higher than your nightstand though. (The unit actually faces an upward angle).

If you find it in a store, buy it there. I think I paid $2 more at B Cubed than I would have with my Amazon Prime, but I also have the comfort of returning it right away and not having to ship it back. But if it's a gift, Amazon has amazing gift wrap options. :-D. Tonight is the first night of use, so hopefully it wakes me up in the morning. I'm the kind of guy who hits the snooze button 4-5 times (yes, I do realize that is practically an hour after my initial alarm, don't judge). So to wrap it up, the device is decent. A battery backup doesn't really bother me because my power doesn't go out and when it does, the raging storm that knocks out the power usually wakes me up anyways. If you're really paranoid about not having a battery backup, then avoid this guy, but if you don't care, go for it.

Pros:

Compact design

Time Sync saves a lot of time for someone lazy like me who doesn't want to hit the + or button to manually set the clock

Bed Shaker (and really long cable)

Free App

Bed Shaker

FM radio

Cons:

Battery backup (if you're on of "those people")

Display is hard to see sometimes

Really confusing at first to set-up the bed shaking feature

Haven't quite figured out how to chose what music I wake up to

Short power cable

The name makes it sound like a sex toy

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Nice sound, great iPod/iPhone compatability, love the 3.5mm AUX input... doublechecked everything on the manufacture's website and I decided to order it to replace my old alarm clock. As soon as I took it out of the box I knew it was going back NO BATTERY BACKUP. That doesn't hurt if you're just using for music, but if the power goes off and this is your only alarm clock not good. So I ordered the iMM178 which should have everything I need (minus one thing I wanted no 3.5mm input).

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This iLuv was attractive to me for the shaker feature alone. The missus and I sometimes set our iHome iA9BZC App-Enhanced 30-Pin iPod/iPhone Alarm Clock Speaker Dock (Black) alarm to the "wrong" kind of music: delicate Debussey, or lengthy pieces with quiet violin solos, and when it comes on at the appointed time, although I generally wake right away, the missus has been known to snooze through entire movements. I figured the shaker on the iLuv would solve that problem. And it does, provided you set the clock correctly. Shaker mode and regular mode are two different things, and while many will consider the small size of the iLuv an advantage on an overcrowded nightstand, I consider it a disadvantage because the display is very small and difficult to see. Setting the time is easy enough. You just put your phone on the iLuv and press "sync", and you're done. Setting the alarm is not very intuitive, and the buttons are tricky to get the hang of. (They are four way circular jobbies, and they are unforgiving.) Once everything is set, operation is one button on, one button off, as long as you don't use the multi-alarm setting. The shaker is quite robust and even through a thick king-sized mattress, it makes its presence, and the time, known. I like not needing a separate charger for my phone (since the missus uses the iHome herself). All in all, this is a good tool and an adequately designed device that does what it advertises, easily worthy of four stars.

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Love the clock. Love the gradual vibrating alarm. A little difficult to program and hard to read from different angles. But still a great item.

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Ok, I HATE pieces of equipment that are smarter than I am. In fact, my solution for daylight savings time in my car is to realize my clock is off an hour and just keep it set the same year round. Drives my passengers crazy, but it works for me.

So, I have to admit, this particular alarm clock nearly bested me. It was only the fact that I really wanted a back up clock by my bed that kept me focused until I learned how to do everything.

First of all, if you don't have your iPhone or iPod around, you can use the regular or radio alarm (or just the vibration alarm) to wake up. The sound is nice, although not audiophile perfect. And I love the little vibration addition to the alarm. I placed it under my pillow, and was pleased with the results. You should know that I am not a heavy sleeper, and I'm not sure if it was the vibration or sound that did the trick, but it started going off before the other half of the alarm (music from my iPad) slowly grew.

Because this is designed for the bedroom, it is very nice that the clock can be dimmed out, so you don't feel like you are living in a blue wonderland all night.

I have mine sitting right next to the bed, so I have no trouble seeing the numbers, but I have noticed that looking at it from above, they are not visible.

Now for the reason why I was confused at first each side has a large button, and a small ring on the outside. I didn't even realize the small ring was a button in itself at first ... The pictures in the manual aren't clear. But once you realize it is a dual button, the instructions are easier to follow. Each ring has four spots to push (which are marked) and which allows you to set the time, alarms, and even radio stations.

The settings cycle, so the first time you push the ring on the settings, the time flashes, the second time the Alarm 1 can be set, and the third time Alarm 2 will be set. By looking at the screen this is obvious. The second level involves how you want to wake up, and again it goes in a cycle. But it cycles first without the vibrator, then with it. However, once the alarm is set, even though the vibrator is set, it does not show.

Probably the only thing I would suggest is much better instructions. I realize the trend today is towards pictures instead of words, but in this case, a word or two is worth a thousand pictures. I have deducted a star because of the poor documentation.

This is pretty pricy, so I suggest unless you want the radio and vibrator you consider a dock with speakers and use an alarm app on your iPhone.

NOTE this uses the older connection, and would need an adapter if it is to be used for iPhone 5.