I HATE getting up in the morning, and this thing has made it a little less painful, especially as we move into the winter months when it's still dark when I get up. I've always been able to wake easier when the sun is up, and that's the philosophy behind this wake up light. Set a wakeup time, and the light will gradually start brightening to the setting you've picked over a span of about 20 minutes. You can choose the light brightness you wake up to - brightness goes from 1 (very low) to 20 (ridiculously blindingly high). Mine is set at about 7, though it could be a couple notches lower (maybe when it's not dark out when you need to get up, you need a higher setting). This gently and effectively wakes me up. I usually wake up before the brightest part (which is why I need to adjust it), but can easily go back to sleep for a bit as it brightens up and then wake up with the final brightness at the alarm sound, and I feel much less horrid than I usually do when I get up to a radio alarm. If you need it (you don't HAVE to have it on), you can also add a sound. The sound only comes on at the alarm time (say, if you set your alarm for 7, the light will start at around 6:40, but the alarm sound won't come on until 7), but gradually gets louder. You can wake to FM radio, chirping birds, or (what I picked) the "lazy kettle drum band" as another reviewer described it. All very nice and not jarring. I really like this alarm. It wakes my hubby up as well on days that I'm working and he's not, but the regular alarm woke him up, too, and this is less jarring to both of us. I much prefer it to the sudden jolt of the alarm, or even a gradual sound alarm alone. I used to find myself waiting and bracing myself for the sound of the alarm if I half-woke-up not too long before it, but now I can actually go back to sleep and not feel like I have to prepare myself for it. When you hit SNOOZE,Charito Soriano, the alarm sound goes off, but not the light (I'm honestly not sure what happens if you snooze and you don't have an alarm sound set, though!). It loses one star because for the price, the alarm could be more fully featured. It's missing some simple features: dual alarm, weekday/weekend settings, auto reset (though you can train yourself to do this manually by flicking the alarm switch back down every AM after you turn it off), digital FM tuner, and memory for the light level so that the alarm can be at say 7, but the light alone at 15. You can also use the lamp alone or the radio alone, so I was able to condense 2 things on my bedside table (alarm clock and light) into one, and this one is fairly attractive (some of these light alarm things are pretty ugly),Excelsior Lofts. Extra note: the LCD setting also has 4 brightness settings, which is nice. I can't stand a super-bright LCD, and the lowest one is fine for me. Hope that helps. I really like this thing. Though it's WAAAAY more than I would normally pay for an alarm clock, it's made my mornings so much nicer that I'd definitely buy another one if I needed to.