Did the town woke up?

We got from Philips a wake-up light (model HF3470) for to see, if it would make it easier to wake up in the mornings during the polar night. Now the dark time is over and we're going fast towards to the time of midnight sun.

When I got the light, I was hoping that it would help me to keep some kind of day rhythm over the dark period. As an addition for wake-up light I was using in the mornings a energy light. For me it's almost impossible to keep track of day and night when there is a dark time but also when we're having the midnight sun. I wasn't able to hold the reasonable day rhythm even in this winter...

It was cosy to wake up room which was lightened, but I wasn't feeling anyhow remarkable refreshed. Mornings are just difficult... At first I was using it with it's full power, but after a while I was only using light level 1, which lightened room up but didn't wake me up any earlier. I prefer slept so long as possible and woke up with alarm sound, not for light. I tried to use radio for to wake up but that wasn't working at all. I'm often listening radio programs from my iPod before I fall asleep and so I wasn't reacting for sounds from the radio. For me radio is more for to fall asleep... I was using the beeb as wake up call because fluting sounds of singing birds in an early morning isn't anyhow refreshing - instead it's irritates enormously.

When we got day light back, I stop using wake-up light but turned it off and used only the alarm function. Light was used as a night light, not for waking up. The yellowish tone of light was somehow unnatural and I was prefer waking up for light we got through the curtains.

For me the biggest trouble with the light was the control system. It's almost impossible to use buttons without seeing them. That means they are unusable if I wasn't wearing glasses on but also in darkness. They are logical enough but really difficult to use them just by feeling them.

One thing I was missing was a function for to set some preset profiles. In the evening I would have liked to listen some radio with low light and fall asleep with them on. But that wasn't possible, because you couldn't time the light or radio off for example after an hour or so. If that would have been possible, in the morning it's needed anyhow stronger light and louder wake up call. For that there would have been need for two profiles, one for evening and one for morning.

We're losing once in a while electricity in the town and then the wake-up light looses it's time and everything resets. That means that you can't trust it as an only alarm but you need to have always a back-up. It should have a back-up battery for to keep time even through a longer period of lack of electricity.

Now, when we're having again natural light, I'll be using the alarm function with light turned totally off. But I guess when we start with a new dark season in next autumn I'll have a new try with the light.