Sleepless Nights, Digital Dreams & Water Works
I can’t really blame my children for sleepless nights any more as they are old enough to have left home. When they were babies it was a different matter though, until they developed steady sleep patterns. One thing that might have speeded up this process is an ingenious alarm clock, night light called the Bodyclock Junior 50. Back in PM43 we reviewed the Lumie Bodyclock Classic alarm clock which wakes you with a simulated sunrise. Now Lumie have created a version especially for babies and toddlers. Using our body’s natural response to daylight it helps to establish and maintain a good sleep routine in young children. It does this by providing a daylight spectrum sunset and sunrise at times determined by you. This helps them naturally drift off to sleep and awake slowly in the morning. It also has reading light, night light and alarm functions.
Not having any qualifying off-spring myself, I sent the Bodyclock to my sister to try out on my young niece, Emma. The result was that while she liked the unit and found the night light useful, she didn’t feel it made much difference to Emma’s sleep patterns. There were two reasons for this though: 1) the test took place in the summer when the natural daylight hours conflicted with the artificial cycle being tried and 2) Emma was a bit too old and had already established a good routine.
She did feel it would probably be of great benefit to someone with a restless young baby or where the sleep routine of a young child needed to be altered, such as needing to get up earlier than usual.
Despite our slightly negative results the press pack for the Bodyclock Junior is full of positive testimonials from satisfied users. Many of these are from mothers with very young babies who are still being fed at night. They found their babies responded to the sunset, sunrise cycles and slept better. They also found the night light feature useful both for checking on their babies and for night-time feeds.
Time moves on and so does technology. Soon we won’t be able to receive analogue TV signals in the UK (part of Wales has already been switched off) as we are forced to accept digital whether we like it or not. This is not all that bad of course as digital gives you a better picture, sound quality and more channels for a fairly minimal outlay. Radio has already started going the same way with the introduction of DAB digital radio. With its CD quality sound and many exclusive channels it offers a bright new future for radio... Enter the Freeplay Devo DAB & FM Portable Radio, a new addition to the very popular range of Freeplay products we first reviewed in PM36, which features the same wind-up charging system as its well established forerunners. It has a rechargeable battery and a mains charging adapter for use where power is available. As well as having an internal speaker, it is fitted with both a headphone socket and stereo output sockets so it can be used as a digital tuner for your main sound system. Hailed as the first truly portable DAB radio, it should fulfil your digital dreams.
Note: This product is no longer available but similar products can be found here.
This time last year I reviewed some water powered electrical products (PM42) and commented that it was a shame that the water activated cells weren’t replaceable. The manufacturers wrote back saying they would try to make these available in the future. True to their word they have launched two new water battery products, an H20 Multifunction Clock (new model now available August 2007) and a Desk Calculator both of which have replaceable cells. The clock is a neat 4 in 1 unit with time, date, temperature and alarm functions. The function required is selected by rotating the clock through 90º. The calculator is a desk model suitable for home or professional use. It has a twelve digit display and a range of accounting features. Both units will operate for up to two years on just a few drops of water which will need to be added to to keep pace with evaporation. All parts of the water battery are recyclable and spare ones will be available soon. Unfortunately neither of these products arrived in time for personal testing but they are all derivatives of previously tested items so they should be fine.
John Adams
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Lumie Bodyclock Junior
Freeplay DAB Digital Radio
H2O Multifunctional Clock
H2O Multifunctional Clock
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