Some products show up everywhere: subway ads, Instagram, celeb endorsements. With this series, we're testing such products to conclude one thing: Does it live up to the hype?
What’s Everyone Talking About?
Loftie, a connected alarm clock that’s designed to help you unplug from technology around bedtime, fall asleep easier, and wake up happier.
What’s the Buzz About?
Unlike traditional alarm clocks, the Loftie does more than just wake you up: It doubles as a white noise machine, a Bluetooth speaker, and a nightlight.
It emits melodic alarms (as opposed to obnoxious beeps) with the intention of gently lulling you out of sleep. You can create a weekly alarm schedule with preset alarms, customize its volume, and use its integrated speaker to fall asleep to a wide variety of relaxing sounds.
Where’s All the Hype Coming From?
- Nearly 20K Instagram followers and a steady barrage of IG ads
- Gift guides from brands like goop, the Museum of Modern Art, and the New York Times
- A sleep editor at Reviewed who said the Loftie “changed my life”
- Recognition in Real Simple’s 2021 Sleep Awards and CES’ Innovation Awards
So Does It Live Up to the Hype?
How Did We Come to This Conclusion?
With most alarm clocks priced between $20 and $60, I expected a lot from the Loftie given its steep $149 asking price. The Loftie alarm is an extremely well-thought-out product that improves upon traditional alarm clocks by leaps and bounds, but it still feels like a work-in-progress given how expensive it is.
Let’s start with the good: The pill-shaped device doesn’t take up too much room on my small nightstand. It includes a generously long charging cable, and since it has just three main buttons, it’s easy to operate.
Press the large snooze button once, and you’ll be greeted by the warm glow of a nightlight that’s hidden on the Loftie’s base. If you hold the snooze button down for a couple of seconds, the Loftie’s display will turn off completely — perfect for those who get easily disturbed by even the faintest of light.
My favorite part about the Loftie is that it doubles as a white noise machine, so you can easily fall asleep to relaxing sounds like rain, a stream, some cicadas, or static. There are meditations, breathing exercises, and even classical music you can play. But if that’s not your thing, you can also use the Loftie as a Bluetooth speaker.
I had no issues streaming ASMR content, podcasts, and my own personal music library from my iPhone on the Loftie. I appreciated the fact that it has a built-in sleep timer that stopped playback automatically after I fell asleep.
As for the not-so-good? Well, I really wish the numbers were a little bit larger (they are only about a half-inch tall). Unless you’re lying in bed right next to it, the clock is hard to read, and there’s no way to increase the size of the typeface. The product’s glossy plastic housing feels a little cheap, too, and is extremely susceptible to smudges, fingerprints, and hairline scratches.
Besides its steep asking price, the biggest downside to the Loftie is its long setup and reliance on Wi-Fi. To use the Loftie clock, you need to connect it to a 2.4 Ghz wireless Internet connection. This is problematic because most folks don’t know the difference between 2.4 Ghz and 5.0 Ghz wireless bands, so if your router doesn’t have the correct one, it can be a hassle to set up.
Once you get it set up, the clock occasionally requires firmware updates, which can take up to 20 minutes to finish — and who wants to deal with a software update around bedtime?
Because of its Wi-Fi requirement, the Loftie isn’t very travel-friendly, and it can sometimes lose track of time if your Internet goes out. The good news is that all alarms are saved directly on the Loftie clock, so your alarm will still go off during an Internet outage. As for power outages, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the Loftie has a backup rechargeable battery to keep it powered on.
What’s the Bottom Line?
What sets the Loftie apart from other alarm clocks is how customizable it is. It offers you a handful of alarm tones to pick from that are designed to calmly rouse you from sleep. You can adjust the brightness of its night light, as well as how loud it is, and find the perfect sound to fall asleep to.
I love that you have the choice to manually set alarms right from the device itself, or remotely on a smartphone app. I was able to easily set alarms earlier on the mornings when I swim laps, and later on weekends. I do wish there was a way to turn on its relaxing sounds from my phone instead of having to cycle through them on the clock itself, though. I have to awkwardly lean out of my bed to do so.
What I don’t love is how dependent the device is on Wi-Fi connection. It requires time-consuming software updates, doesn’t keep track of time on its own, and needs to be re-setup if you travel with it or if your Wi-Fi settings change. If the device were $5o cheaper, I’d be more forgiving of these few faults. But at this price range, I definitely expected better.
Regardless, the Loftie is a nice-looking alarm clock that offers more useful features than a typical alarm clock does, and it helps folks keep their smartphones out of the bedroom. This is important to curb the negative effects of blue light, and it lessens the likelihood of you getting glued to your phone before bedtime (or right when you wake up in the morning).
