Gadgets

I had a long quest to find a non-ticking alarm clock. My old alarm clock used to tick, and I was fine with that, but having then not used an alarm clock in the bedroom for some time and needing to go back to using one when I started a new job, I found it intensely irritating. We bought a "non-ticking" Acctim one at Argos, but that went straight back when we found that instead it whirred, and it also whined when the light was operated. We thought we'd found a quietly-ticking one at a jeweller, but it got louder and louder over the course of the night, so that went back too. I swapped it for this one, badged by the Science Museum but manufactured by Zeon. I eventually realised that to attain silence I was going to have to bury my principle and get a digital one, but this handily also sets itself against the atomic clock signal transmitted from Anthorn in Cumbria since 2007. The display is LCD, with a backlight button, but pretty clear, and (once I'd responsibly dumped the supplied batteries) it's proving unproblematic. It even managed to pick up the atomic signal from Belgium, and honoured the different time zone I had previously set - though it may have been picking up the similar CET signal from Germany I guess. The alarm is not a crescendo one, but is piercing and effective. There's a bit of a quirk with the snooze that means it sometimes pauses for ten minutes rather than five, but it's never mattered so far. It would also be nice if the light/snooze button wasn't on the back, if it would fold up in a way that protected all the buttons (light/snooze included) and the rather scratch-prone gloss-black front panel, and if the stand was a little firmer. Otherwise, it does the job, simply and stylishly.

Rating: 4/5