Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)It's first and foremost just a speaker dock. Once you add the app, you can completely customize the alarm schedule, but in that case, why this dock compared to any other? Sound quality was okay, no worse than any other clock radio I've ever owned.
It does have a clock built in with very basic alarm capabilities and a battery backup. However, while there are two alarms that can each be set with times for every day, or a combination of one time for M-F and another time for Saturday and Sunday, the ability to program the alarms was very limited. In my case, I get up at the same time Mon, Tues, Thur, and Friday, a different time on Wednesday, no alarm on Saturday, and a third time on Sunday. For me, I would have had to use both alarms for myself; alarm 1 for the "usual" schedule. Then I'd have to set alarm 2 for my Wednesday wake-up, but it would be set for every day, so I'd have to remember to turn off alarm 1 on Tuesday night and turn on alarm 2, then reverse it for Wednesday night. I also couldn't figure out a way to completely disable the weekend alarm without turning the entire alarm off (so it would automatically resume on Monday), and when I asked, tech support either didn't understand the question or chose to evade it.
(I realize most alarm clocks have to be reprogrammed to change the time they go off, and you have to turn them off to prevent them going off, but the description makes the alarm schedule of this one sound really customizable and in that regard, I found it pathetically wanting.)
It worked fine with my iPad 2, with no issues charging or playing. I found it difficult to dock; the connector rocks back and forth and I had to turn the dock around and visually align it to the port. By contrast, my mom's original iPad slid easily into place, and it worked well even with the iPad in an OtterBox case.
My chief concern, and the reason I returned it, was that when the iPad is docked, if you use to app to create a custom alarm, you have to use the alarm sounds built into the app, and the alarm volume is then tied to the dock volume. I keep the volume turned way down as I go to sleep at night, and was concerned that there would be mornings that I'd sleep right through the alarm. Also, because the built-in alarm was so limited, I was concerned that the battery backup built into the dock might not work if the built-in alarm was disabled and the user was relying on app's alarms, though I didn't test it to be sure.
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