American Innovative Teach Me Time Talking Alarm Clock and Nightlight
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Tools and Hardware Reviews of American Innovative Teach Me Time Talking Alarm Clock and Nightlight
Customer Review: Great little clock
Summary: 5 Stars
We bought this clock for our 2 1/2 year old who was getting out of bed at 5:30 in the morning and asking us if it was time to get up yet. We set the the "wake up time" to turn green at 6:20, and a year and a half later we haven't had a single problem. I have recommended this to all of my friends whose children are early risers. It is a little expensive, but well worth it to not have a bleary eyed child wandering around asking if it's time to wake up.Customer Review: Great little clock ... has some quirks, highly effective for too-early-rising toddlers
Summary: 4 Stars
As some of the other reviewers noted, the interface to control the changing from the nightlight to "green to get up" light could stand to be a little more intuitive (or possibly just explained better/differently in the setup instructions.) When I first set it, it took me several tires to get it right (I had set it up wrong, and it came on green at bedtime rather than that morning.) However, now that I have figured it out, it only takes a few seconds to alter the "wake up" time when necessary.
Based on some of the other reviews, I had expected it to be a bit larger and brighter, but it is about the size of a slow-pitch softball (or a decent-sized grapefruit) and I really don't think it is excessively bright. (There is a bright/dim setting, but in a dark room I found there wasn't a huge difference between the two.)
It has worked for us, as our three-year-old (who would often mistake streetlights at 3 a.m. for "Sun's Up!") now knows it is not appropriate to get up before she has the green light. (Of course, lately she runs into our bedroom at 7:15 a.m. to announce "Green light on!")
If anyone at American Innovative reads these reviews, I think that there is room for improvement in the product (like different settings for weekdays and weekends, perhaps brighter "green light," larger stature, reverse the polarity filter on the LCD face to make it predominantly dark with illuminated numbers and hands.) On the positive side, there are many things that this product beats the competition hands down (price, not character-based so it won't fall out of favor when Elmo, Dora etc. fall out of favor with the child, the interchangeable color face rings are also a nice touch and this product's teach-me features also give it room to grow with your kids.)
I would certainly make this purchase again, and likely will for other families of young children.
Customer Review: Great product for my 5 1/2 year old early riser
Summary: 4 Stars
This clock is pretty much what I expected based on the great reviews. Our 5 1/2 year old is a very early riser. He reads and understands digital time, but I still think the different colored lights on this clock are more effective at keeping him in bed because it's easier for him to glance quickly at the clock and remember "green means go" than have to go through the thought process like "it's 6:47...does that mean I can get out of bed?"
We set the night light to turn green when it's OK for him to get out of bed and play quietly in his room. Half an hour after that, we set it to shut off, at which time he's allowed to come into our room and wake us up.
I'm puzzled by the comments that the night light is too bright. It's rather dim actually (in a good way) and doesn't illuminate much beyond the immediate vicinity in my son's largish room. In fact, it's much dimmer than my son's old nightlight, to the point where he was a little afraid of the darkness on the first night of use.
Customer Review: Great product!
Summary: 5 Stars
We purchased this clock as our two year old's wake up time was getting earlier and earlier. This thing has been a lifesaver! It took him about a week to understand that he couldn't come out of his room until the light turned green, but now he fully understands and we are getting to sleep in past 7am!Customer Review: Great teaching tool, and cute too
Summary: 4 Stars
As I type this review, my 5 and 3 year old daughters are sitting at the counter nicely taking turns (wha!!!!) playing the "teach me time" game. After about a two years of failed attempts using the Melissa & Doug Wooden Shape Sorting Clock and the My Book of Easy Telling Time: Learning about Hours and Half-Hours workbook to teach time, in 10 minutes, my 5 yo is finally understanding the mechanics of reading analog time...right now it's just whole-hour (1:00, 2:00, etc.) but I'll take it! We'll be adjusting to level 2 of teaching tomorrow for 1:30, 2:30, etc.
I took off one star for the following two things:
1) The directions are somewhat complicated as to setting the transition light from the yellow nightlight to green. I did have kind of a "well, duh" moment on the third morning, but I don't know that it should have taken this long to figure out how to turn on the "turn green when it's time to wake up" feature. For what it's worth, you need to set the "on" for when you want the nightlight to come on (for us 7 PM ), and then the "off" for when you want the actual LIGHT FEATURE to go off, NOT the transition to occur), for us 8:00 AM, and thirdly, you set the time you want the yellow to change to green, for us, 7:00 AM. We had set the green feature as 7:00 am, AND the yellow feature as 7:00 am, so functionally, they just canceled each other out, and turned off. It makes sense when I type it out, but didn't really make sense in the directions.
2) I wish it had (and I THOUGHT it did) was a speaking voice announcing "It's time to get up" instead of the clanging fake bell sound. My girls were afraid to get out of bed because it was so loud, so it just went on and on while I was in the shower, until I could go in there and turn it off. The alarm bell is NOT volume adjustable, however, the other voice features are (why not?).
Finally, a thank you to American Innovative: thanks for making a cute item that is NOT licensed with a character. We plugged that pink ring onto its face, and the girls were more than happy with their cute PINK clock.