Alarm clocks and I have never gotten along.
I am not a morning person and I hate being blasted out of bed by an alarm. The sound startles and stresses me, and I am sure my heart rate and blood pressure shoot up when the alarm goes off. I use the alarm on my phone, set to Elisabeth Serenade which is quite gentle, but I normally wake before it rings. I am sure that is because I hate alarms.
I also like being able to easily see what time it is when I wake up in the night. I cannot see a thing without my glasses so I need large digits and cannot use my phone because then I would need to fumble around for it in the dark. I don’t like clocks with bright dials because I cannot fall asleep if there is any light. I used to have a nice one with gentle glow-in-the-dark dots on the dial but it broke, and since then I have been battling to find a ‘visible’ one that does not shine in my face.
Turns out the solution I never even knew existed was a projector clock with red numbers that show on the ceiling. I have had one for a couple of months now and I love it. Love it!
I turn the front display of the clock off and only have the red numbers on the ceiling, set to the dimmer option. That light does not bother me at all and I can see the time just by looking up. The digits are large enough that my husband also uses them to see the time but not large enough to bother me. This one also has a radio and alarm but I just use it to look at the time. It cost about $18. I got a cheap one because I was sure it was not going to work. But it did!
Most projection clocks allow you to adjust the display so you can show the clock on the wall as well, but I sleep on my stomach so the ceiling is perfect. I cannot see anything unless I look up and I set the display to the dimmer option so I can see them but they are not too bright.
