Eton ESP2000 AM/FM Atomic Clock Radio (Silver)

The other reviewers nailed all the problems with this clock. I've now had it for a month and while I appreciate the small footprint on my crowded night stand and the radio signal is a good one (I live in an old warehouse - thick walls make radio reception difficult), it is so frustrating to use this thing that I'm even embarrassed to donate it to Goodwill.

I, too, have tried every trick in the book to get it to automatically shut off as the teeny weeny instruction book says. I have also written to customer service asking for instructions. Nada. They damn thing just stays on until I get home in the evening. Stupid.

With a name like Grundig behind this AM/FM atomic clock radio, I was expecting more than I got. I normally give more favorable reviews of products on Amazon than other reviewers - maybe I'm just more easily satisfied than the usual person - but in this case I have to agree in giving this product 1 star... maybe 1-1/2.

In its favor, I will say that it automatically detected which time zone it was in and set the correct time within a minute of me connecting it to power. It has a weekend sleep mode, so the alarm is automatically de-activated for weekends. And I find the Nature sounds sound pretty realistic. As one reviewer noted, the one for rainfall seems to be on a 3- or 4-second loop, but I think that has more to do with the fact that this sound effect is one of water dripping rather than trickling. Water drips at a constant rate so that it sounds like you're hearing the same short sequence of water drops over and over. The rest of the nature sounds, such as waves, are of much longer duration and sound fairly realistic - nothing to write home about but certainly not synthesized in someone's garage.

My principle complaints revolve around the Eton's sensitivity of its radio reception, a poorly-designed power connection, and a very badly-written user manual.

Some stores advertise this unit as having digital tuning. WRONG! It's analog. It uses the power cord as its FM antenna, and I've never had so much trouble tuning in my favorite - albeit weak - radio station so that it didn't have static. How the power cord is physically arranged heavily affects the FM reception. Unless you listen only to the strongest FM stations, the radio reception suffers terribly if the Eton is anywhere near any electrical device, such as a lamp or the control for an electric blanket. That ruled out my being able to put it on my nightstand, and I had to place it on a dresser several feet from my bed. This unit is nearly 8 inches tall, but it has such a small base (only about 2-1/2 inches deep by 5 inches wide) that any movement of the dresser -- such as pulling out a drawer -- sometimes is enough to nearly topple it over. And your physical proximity to the radio also affects its reception, which is a real pain when you're trying to manually tune in a weaker station.

The sound quality is OK but I've gotten much better quality sound from smaller speakers in other devices in the same price range. And the blue LCD backlighting display puts out light equivalent to a tiny TV screen. Once my eyes adapt to darkness, my entire bedroom is bathed in blue light. My girlfriend and I look like actors in a cheap teenage horror movie.

The Eton works off a DC plug-in connection on the back (not an internal AC adapter), but it b-a-r-e-l-y makes connection with the power jack; it's VERY easy to lose power, even though the power plug is still connected. Simply moving the unit a few inches or rotating it a few degrees is enough to disconnect the power. I will probably cut the plug off, disassemble the unit and solder the power leads directly to the power jack. It may void the warranty, but I'd rather have a solid power connection I can trust. And if I do break it I will consider it a $50 lesson in learning to NOT buy any more Eton products.

Trying to make sense of the user manual that's half the size of my palm was frustrating. Not comprehensive at all, and it doesn't explain at all how all the various controls interact. It must have three separate sections on how to turn off the alarm. But nowhere does it make clear if that's turning off the alarm permanently or simply turning it off for that day only. I was trying to set the alarm for a 5-day-a-week schedule rather than 7-day-a-week, but what the manual tells you doesn't work, and nowhere does it tell you where to look - or what to look for - on the display to determine which schedule the alarm is set for. I finally saw a tiny "1-5" notation that was hardly bigger than a flea in the extreme upper right corner of the LCD screen that I had to guess meant I had stumbled onto selecting the 5-day-a-week schedule. But I have no idea how I made it happen. The user manual says it shuts off automatically after 2 minutes or after 60 minutes, depending on which set of instructions you care to believe. The manual calls both sections 'turning off the alarm'. In my experience the radio NEVER shuts off automatically. I've come home from work 9 hours later with the radio still playing. Several months after buying it and I've given up on trying to figure out how to get the damn thing to shut off automatically. The instructions are useless. Sheesh!

I wouldn't give this to anyone unless I wanted to make a new enemy. An accurate, and much better-written, user manual would help.

I was expecting more. The radio tuning dial was faulty (right out of the box). The nature sounds are not of high quality. Shop around. I returned this item for refund.

This was an unfortunate purchase, and I do not recommend it to others.

First, all the buttons to set the clock, the two alarms, and the sleep timer, are located on the very top of the clock underneath a flip-up cover. This cover is hinged with two extremely thin and fragile pins at two points. The cover is repeated flipped up and down, probably several times a day, throughout the course of use. The very first day I owned the clock, I flipped back the cover and one of the pins broke off. This is just during normal use, and during the daylight hours, while I was attempting to set the clock. This flimsy piece is unlikely to survive if you're fumbling with it in the dark, while sleepy.

Incidentally, the plastic cover is also the snooze button. So, the snooze button broke off this clock within one hour of my receiving it. While I can position the hinge so that the snooze button still works, if my sleepy hands push the button sideways rather than straight down, the snooze doesn't work. The poor quality of construction is unacceptable in a $50+ alarm clock.

Speaking of the snooze - on at least three days now (and I've had the clock for only 2 weeks), I've repeatedly hit the snooze alarm, only to have the alarm silenced and never go off again. That is, I'll ambitiously set the first alarm early in the deluded belief I will get up and run at 5 am. I'll hit snooze a half dozen times. Then, a half hour after hitting the last snooze, I'll wake with a jolt, late for work, because the alarm never sounded again. In disbelief, I'll look at the clock - it displays the word "snooze" while the snooze button is in operation, but on these occasions it doesn't say "snooze." The alarm just shuts itself off? The instructions say nothing about a maximum number of snooze hits, but even those clocks that have a maximum then keep sounding the alarm when you try to hit snooze after the limit is reached. They don't just shut off and make you late for work. This is absolutely astonishing to me. If you find yourself to be a frequent snoozer, this alarm is essentially nonfunctional.

The clock is fairly tall, such that reaching the buttons, including the snooze button, which are all located on the very thin top of the clock, causes you to reach and fumble. The clock is prone to tipping over as you attempt to adjust it. Also, from bed level, because of the height of the clock, it is almost impossible to see the top buttons to press them. They are not lit or illuminated by the clock's main display, so they are useless in the dark. And even if there's light in the room, you have to look at the clock from a top-down, aerial view to see the buttons, so you cannot adjust the clock from a lying-down position.

The blue display on the clock is incredibly bright, and there appears to be no way to adjust the brightness. Accordingly, the entire bedroom, even a very large bedroom, is lit with a blue light. If the clock is facing toward you, you are in a high wattage blue spotlight, which makes it very difficult to sleep. If you turn the clock away from you to avoid the spotlight problem, you risk tipping the clock over or dislodging the AC adapter plug at the back of the clock. The clock's display does not operate with only the battery, and I have dislodged the AC connection at least a half dozen times in 2 weeks, which makes the clock unreadable. Usually, the cord disappears behind the bedside table, and I have to get out of bed to plug back in the clock.

Additionally, the "soothing sounds" are completely worthless. They are on a 3 SECOND loop. I counted. For anyone looking for help getting to sleep or white noise, such as those with tinnatus, this feature is just unusable. A 3 second loop is so short that it drives you crazy. In the "rain" setting, for example, there is a white noise sound of rain overlaid with a three plinking notes (drip, drip, drop). These three notes repeat over and over because of the extremely short loop, and all you can hear is this plinking, it drives you crazy, it actually disrupts your ability to fall asleep. Each of the sounds suffers from the same problem.

Also, you cannot set the two alarms to different wake up sounds/buzzer/radio - one setting covers both. And, if you set the sleep timer to fall asleep listening to the soothing sounds, that is what your alarm will be. The concept that the same sound, at the same level that soothes you to sleep, will also be appropriate to wake you is just ridiculous.

I was drawn in by the gimmick of the atomic clock and the sleek, modern look of this clock. For $50+ dollars, this is a complete rip-off, however. Poor quality construction, lack of features, and failure to perform as expected make this a bad option. There are better clocks out there.