I have trouble falling asleep, which doesn't matter too much since I work from home and can sleep in. However, my husband has to get up at an unearthly hour and often wakes me with his repeated use of the snooze button, then his stumbling about in a dark room as he sleepily trips over a couple of dogs in his search for the bedroom door. At least, that's how it was before we bought the Progression Wake Up Clock.

I must admit to being a bit dubious about this gadget, but ordered it for my hubbie's Christmas present, knowing we could return it if he hated it. We agreed he should give it a week. Now, just ten days or so in, we wouldn't part with it.

The clock is sort of sci-fi looking, reminding me of a cross between a Dalek from the old Doctor Who series and an art deco building, but we soon got used to that and, in fact, it takes less space on the night stand than did our previous alarm clock.

Others have covered the way it works in detail so just as an overview, you set the clock for 30 minutes before you are due to get up and, at the start of that 30 minutes, a light turns on, initially very low, then increases incrementally at five minute intervals until 15 minutes before time to get out of bed when, if you choose, a sound will begin to play while the light continues to increase. After 30 minutes, the alarm goes off. And the wonderful thing is that you can do all this in reverse at night, with a light that decreases in increments over 30 minutes while you are lulled to sleep by a sound that switches off 15 minutes into the cycle.

As well as light and sound, you can opt to use aromatherapy beads that supposedly produce some relaxing or stimulating effect but which I found distinctly irritating. Better, I think, to use your own aromatherapy oils rather than these chemical reproductions, especially if you have allergies.

Initially, it took some getting used to. The first morning, my husband woke up and waited for the light to come on, but we are now accustomed to it. We are asleep well before the light turns itself off - lulled by the sound of ocean waves - and my husband begins to wake up about the time the sound switches on and is getting up a lot more refreshed and ready to get going. As for me, I am occasionally aware of songbirds doing their morning thing but I find this sound relaxing and go straight back to sleep. The light is just bright enough for my husband to find his way out of the room but not so bright that it wakes me up.

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