La Crosse Technology Curved Blue LED Atomic Dual Alarm Clock, 1.8 Inch (617-249)

The media could not be loaded. I own other atomic clocks and watches. They are nice for people who care about the exact time.All clocks and watches begin losing the correct time by a few seconds within a day or two. Atomic clocks automatically reset their time every day, so the most they ever get off by is one second. In several months, an ordinary clock may be off by a few minutes.What makes this atomic clock very rare, is that it is LED (Light Emitting Diode) instead of LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) or analog (uses hands to tell the time.)All LED clocks require that they are plugged into the wall to display the time.LCD clocks often just run on batteries that you must replace each year. In addition, you cannot see them in the dark unless they are back lit. If they are back lit all the time, these clocks must also be plugged in to house current.LEDs are much easier to see, day or night.Unlike LEDS, LCDs are dependent on the light in the room and their visibility varies depending on the viewing angle.I bought this LED clock to sit below my 85” TV. The dimmer setting prevents this clock from distracting me while watching TV (or taking a nap.) I found the two light settings to be perfect - bright works even in the most sunny location and Dim is low enough to sleep.I did not need to read the simple instructions to start using the clock. As soon as I plugged the clock in, it set itself to the atomic time. It was off by 3 hours, so I changed the Time Zone to correct it. (just choose a number between 1-4, representing the number of US Time Zones.) The controls on the top of the clock are simple, which is welcome.Another setting is Daylight-Savings-Time (DST), which you set to ON if your area uses DST. A little dot lights up on the front of the clock to indicates this setting is ON.I was surprised to find the clock is thin enough so that the legs rest comfortably on my sound bar in another room - even with the power cord plugged into the rear! So I ordered a second one for that location. This is in a very sunny room and while the LED is bright enough on the high setting, glare from the windows can interfere at certain angles. See video as I walk about the clock on a sunny day.I use my Casio analog atomic watch to check the accuracy of my other atomic wall clocks. It's cool to see them all set to the exact second. After a week, I noticed one new LED clock was off by a few seconds. After experimenting, I found neither of these LED clocks can connect to the Atomic Time when facing South, and my second clock faces south. They must face West - toward Colorado. (I'm in Indianapolis.)So, the clock that will be facing south, I'll have to manually turn it towards the west and press the Time Set button whenever I want it to be accurate to the second.I did not test the alarms or the USB charger features.Note: Internet and mobile devices rely on GPS for the time. GPS uses the atomic clock time indirectly so they are very accurate too, though they may be off by a few seconds.

Two major faults (in my opinion at least) with this clock that caused it to loose a star. First is that there is no way to set this thing to 24 hour/military time format as I can with just about all my other clocks/watches/cellphone. I understand this is just a personal preference, so I didn't take a full star for just that, but annoying as I cannot see the am/pm LED hardly at all, nor have I been used to looking for such a designator in MANY years as most of my clocks are 24 hour capable. Second major flaw, I apparently suffered the DST time change defect of this clock. I am certain it is likely due to a minor firmware bug in the clock that is likely to never be corrected. I bought the clock before the time changed back to "normal time" from DST, and the Sunday of the change, it showed the incorrect time, when, again all but my car and microwave showed the correct time. This was disappointing considering this clock gets a live signal to sync from and one that has the DST change impending bit embedded in the signal. Forcing a resync of the time, also did not work as I later read by other comments regarding this clock. The following day it did resync to the correct time on it's own I believe (or it might have been me messing with the DST enable/disable setting, unsure). But otherwise a great clock save those flaws.This clock is about perfect in every way except two which is why I took off 1 star. The size is about perfect. The size of the numerals is also about perfect, though due to the blue color of the LEDs I can barely see it from somewhat far away, though I'm not sure if that's just me, so I didn't take a star off for that. The alarms work, though sound somewhat weak. The buttons and the manner in which you configure this clock is ok, mildly confusing or obtuse progression through the settings via the buttons, not the most intuitive, but workable once you understand it. Does set itself via WWVB signal, though like other clocks I've had similar to this one, I had the usual difficulty, even in Atlanta, GA vs West Palm Beach, FL which I would have assumed a better signal reception compared to south Florida. Will only set itself successfully if placed in a "good" place in the apartment and mostly only works at night, late at night. But once set it holds it time accurately and resyncs by itself most nights successfully around 1am or so. The USB port does work to charge a tablet I have, though it causes either the tablet or the clock to emit a high pitch squeal which doesn't induce much confidence so I may not continue to use it, or at least not for anything valuable just in case. I have not tried the battery backup function, and while I have tried the alarm, if you're not a heavy sleeper, they can work for you, but due to the DST time change big, I think it may not be wise to rely on it, unless by the following Monday the time has ALWAYS returned to the correct time on it's own (I don't mind my Sunday being off). But I'll have to wait another 6 months to test that theory out, in the mean time I still have my cellphone which has a more workable and ironically more reliable alarm for the time being.

Great concept: a clock that keeps time accurately. I like this clock because it is pretty simple, it has large numerals, they are blue and they can be set to 3 levels of brightness, and it is relatively inexpensive. I unboxed the clock and manually set it to the approximate time. A few hours later I noticed that it had adjusted to the exact time. And the next morning, it was off by an hour, which was my error because I had set the wrong time zone. My only quibble is that the instructions do not show a table of the correct setting for each USA time zone. I am replacing another "auto set" clock that runs fast and needs regular manual resetting to show the correct time. This one is slightly more expensive, but is accurate. And this atomic clock is the same price as the least expensive "WiFi" clock that I could find on Amazon, and I like the display on this clock better than the competition WiFi clock. I plan to buy another one of this model.