Philips HF3510 Wake Up Light, White, Review: Beautiful Warm Sunrise Light

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In Short

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Product Name: Philips HF3510 Wake-Up Light
Latest Review Date: 14 August 2019
Price Guideline: $$$

The Philips HF3510 Wake Up Light delivers where it really matters – a fantastic simulated sunrise despite a few other minor flaws.

MY RATING: 86%

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Features

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Product Information

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In The Box

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• Philips HF3510 Wake-Up Light
• Instruction manual
• Two-year warranty

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So How Does The Philips HF3510 Wake Up Light Work?

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The instructions recommend that the first time you use your Philips HF3510 you place it 40 to 50cms from your head.

You program in your alarm and set the maximum brightness you want it to reach (there are 20 different settings) and then the next morning it will start to illuminate 30 minutes before your desired time.

So say you have it set for 7am, it will start to come on at 6.30am and reach full brightness by 7am.

The alarm also has three natural sounds that can play. These are birds chirping, a light zen-like music and birds chirping with music. If you choose to have these playing then once the light reaches it full brightness your chosen natural sound will play, gradually increasing in volume.

If you don’t want one of the natural sounds to play then you can also choose to be awoken by the FM radio. Hit snooze and the radio or wake-up sound you’ve chosen will turn off for nine minutes before coming back on.

The light also acts as a dusk simulator. Put it on at your required brightness, select the time period you want it to dim over (from five to 60 minutes) and then sit back and read/relax in bed until the light gradually goes out.

Simple!

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The Good

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The wake-up light itself is really nice and, lets face it, that is the primary reason you buy these things. It uses several LED bulbs and Philips have done a good job of diffusing the LEDs so that the surface produces a uniform smooth glow and not bright points of light.

It has a nice warm glow and changes from orange to yellow, doing a great job of simulating a rising sun.

Many of the more recent models of wake-up lights use LED bulbs which have great advantages over halogen bulbs. Yes they aren’t replaceable but they last 10,000+ hours, have a lower energy usage and higher energy efficiency, give off no radiation and are much cooler than traditional halogen bulbs which get very hot.

Also as it uses LED lights it won’t get hot at all no matter how long you have it on.

The Philips HF3510 offers three different nature sounds to wake up to, or the FM radio. The great thing about the nature sounds offered is, not only are they very pleasant, they don’t have the repetitive sound of being on a loop. It is a loop recording, but the loop is so long that you really don’t notice it.

The sounds offered are birds chirping, some zen-like piano music and a different selection of birds chirping with music. These sounds begin softly after the light has illuminated and then build up slowly in volume.

This is also the first in the Philips range of wake-up lights to give off 300 lux of light and offer a sunset simulation. The sunset simulation is very nice and you can set it to last anything from 5 to 60 minutes. It will then gradually and unnoticeably dim, hopefully lulling you to sleep!

You can use the HF3510 as a bedside lamp, and you can control the lamp brightness separately from the wake-up light brightness. So you could use it at brightness level 10 for reading in bed and have the wake-up light set to go up to brightness level 20 in the morning, which is useful.

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The Bad

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One of the main problems with the Philips HF3510 is the fact that the control buttons are hard to find and identify.

The majority of the controls are around the rim of the clock, all the same size (which is quite small) and very difficult to navigate at first when you are reaching from bed, in the semi-darkness and a little groggy from sleep. Finding the right button can be difficult at first.

Secondly this wake-up light is initially quite difficult to use. Be prepared at first to spend a little while sitting down to set your alarm, or turn the light off and/or sound off, etc, etc. The process isn’t as user friendly as it could be and the user manual isn’t a huge amount of help – it is a collection of slightly bewildering pictographs.

But with regards to both of these, like many things, it is something that once you’ve been using the wake-up light for a while they will both cease to become issues as you get your head around how it works.

The model doesn’t have a proper battery back-up – so if you have a power outage you will need to reset everything. However it does keep the time during short power failures, or if you move the clock from one room to another etc.

What might be a slight annoyance to some is that you cannot dim the time display completely so it will continue to glow at night. If you are highly sensitive to any kind of light when you are trying to sleep you might want to bear this in mind. It does have four adjustable settings though and at its lowest level it is dimmed considerably.

The other issues are fairly inconsequential. The bulbs are LED so cannot be replaced, however they have a 10,000 life span so that should not be an issue.

There is only one alarm you can set, so if you have to get up at a different time each day you will need to reset the alarm and there is no ability to preset particular radio stations, use a headphone jack or receive AM radio.

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The Beautiful

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It looks great! Or at least I think it does. It is an attractive product and fits into any home with a modern décor. It has a stylish, simplistic design and is about as pretty an alarm clock as you can get. The one area where the design could have been improved was the placement of those damn buttons around the rim of the clock…

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How Does It Compare To Other Philips Models?

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Name	HF3470	HF3500	HF3505	HF3510	HF3520	SmartSleep HF3650/60	SmartSleep HF3670/60
Sunrise simulation duration	30 min	30 min	30 min	Adjustable (20-40min)	Adjustable (20-40min)	Adjustable (5-40min)	Adjustable (5-40min)
Colors in sunrise simulation	Yellow	Yellow	Yellow	Orange, Yellow	Red, Orange, Yellow	White, Orange, Yellow, Amber	White, Orange, Yellow, Amber
Sunset simulation				✔	✔	✔	✔
Reading lamp	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔
Adjustable display	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔
Maximum light intensity	200 lux	200 lux	200 lux	300 lux	300 lux	310 lux	315 lux
FM radio	✔		✔	✔	✔	✔	✔
Number of wake-up sounds	2	1	2	3	3	7	8
Number of alarms	1	1	1	1	2	3	4

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And Does It Work?

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Yes. User feedback indicates that generally the vast majority of users wake up more gently, feel more energised and in a better mood when they wake.

The gentle rousing by the light is a much less stressful way to rise, with one user saying they love the Philips HF3510 so much they would buy it a million times over! Another said that they had bought many expensive alarm clocks in their life but none had worked as effectively as this one.

Research has proved that wake up lights have a beneficial effect on sleep, waking, mood and energy. There are numerous studies proving this but here are just a few:

• Psychiatric Hospital of the University of Basel
• Department of Psychology, University of Westminster
• Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London
• Department of Biopsychology, New York State Psychiatric Institute

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Conclusion

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Other Options

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As an alternative you might want to look at the next step up the Philips HF3520 Wake Up Light which has more functions and adjustable settings than this and is cheaper.

For something that is a great wake-up light and way more go for either the Philips Smart Sleep or the Philips Smart Sleep Connected – check out their additional features!

If you would like to leave your personal review or experience of this product, or if you have any questions, please do leave them below. I would love to hear your feedback!

Don’t forget you can also check out our SAD Light Reviews Index for all of my SAD Light Reviews on one page or read my SAD Light Buyers’ Guide to pick the best SAD Light for you.