Pros: Great sound, good bass, nice display, ease of use, app friendly, auto time synch
Cons: Display Light Bright on lowest setting
Ok. I must say with some of the reviews on this device that I am baffled to what people are doing and how they are using this unit. First and foremost - it is much much more than a Clock Radio - lets be clear about that...<br />This sound system is meant to be mated with an iPod or with the revised iHome design in the iA100 product launch last year with an iPad. Yep, even the iHome naming scheme is mixed up on this but they got one thing right. The sound!<br />The iHome Set and iHome Sleep Apps that are immediately asked for installing are a must to really use this device. Notice how I keep referring to this system as a device and not a clock radio! This "Set" app is how one updates the firmware on the unit which fixes some issues that other reviewers have complained about.<br />If one knows how to use an iPod then one can basically use this device. A nice feature is that the unit comes pre-installed with 2-AA batteries and already has the time set. But it is now DST and wouldn't you know - go to the "Set" app and press time sync #with your iPod# and it automatically sets the time. No fiddling with mins, fast forward, reverse or anything. One button synch and perfect. Could not be easier.<br />This device only has FM so no AM stations here but again there is a "Radio" app for that and along with Pandora and other music servers you are good to go. If you want to wake up with the iPod - it must be in the dock and not on bluetooth like several reviewers have complained about. I don't feel like this is a big deal since I usually have the iPod docked at night or just have the radio set to both go to sleep and then wake on my favorite station. Again, pretty easy.<br />One curious thing about why SDI and iHome had this one sound feature toggled to allow on/off is the Bongiovi sound effect. Trust me - you never want to turn this sound enhancing feature off. For the life of me, why would someone add this feature to possibly turn off. It adds a great presence to the music and makes full use of the Reson8 speakers. This thing has some serious bass for its size. No, not your powered sub bass, but impressive for something that sits on a night stand. The radio is very good once you have the antenna fully-deployed and signal strength is superb!<br />So, the wake-up settings are used from the "Set" app and there are multiple settings for days of the week, M-F, weekends, etc. Very flexible. There are sound settings in the app to for gradual wake up and volume settings. Just make sure to test and set to your preference. This works perfect for me.<br />The one thing I am not real keen on is the light settings - there are 8 various setting from Bright to Off and everything in between. I like it dark in the room and do wish, as most folks have noted, that the lowest setting that can be dialed in auto at night, was about half as bright. You can turn off, if it bothers you so is not a big deal.<br />After setting this up and running for 2-weeks, I actually bought another unit. You can track pretty good deals at the store or on-line. So, to sum it all up. This device Rocks! The sound is impressive, it is very app friendly and has numerous settings to make it much more than your old "Big Ben" on the night stand! There are a lot of very good reviews in both PC and Mac magazines. Go check it out - I think you will be impressed.
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