The La Crosse Soluna C80994‘s sunset feature is sorely lacking. It’s a bomb-pop gradient of orange, pink, red, and blue that you can’t change to a more uniform color, and it throws a mostly pink light around the room. It lasts for 30 minutes, and you can’t change the timer length. It’s also the dimmest sunset light of any alarm I’ve tested. Even right at the beginning of the cycle when it was brightest, I had difficulty reading. The sunrise mode isn’t much brighter, and it ends on a blindingly blue-white shade that’s reminiscent of waking up with a flashlight shining in your eyes. The alarm itself looks nice but feels cheaply made. It’s $50 but isn’t anywhere near my top pick, the HomeLabs, which costs less. I say pass.
The Amazon Echo Glow is marketed specifically for kids and so it prioritizes intuitiveness over features. It’s not a hub and doesn’t have a microphone, so you need to pair it with an Echo device in order to control it with your voice, although you can control it through the Alexa app without a hub. The Echo Glow reaches a maximum brightness of 100 lumens, but it doesn’t seem to get any brighter than a Dollar Tree nightlight. It’s like jumping straight to the halfway point of a sunset.
You can set various colors and automatic color-shifting schemes, as well as custom schedules, but that’s about it. There are no other features, although it does seem durable enough to survive a toddler’s room. For $30, its value is weak. You’re better off buying your kid our top pick, the Homelabs, for the same price. Or if you want something intuitive that your kid can use without an app, spring for the Casper Glow Light.
