Clock radios remind me of growing up in my family home. There’d always be one sitting next to my parent’s bed. It’d howl away at 6am every morning as my old man got up to go to work. That horrific sounding alarm would always precede the sound of a kettle whistling.
Fast forward 20 years and that that alarm clock has been replaced with a standard smart phone alarm and a kick to the face by my four legged friend Whisky. I suppose much hasn’t changed over the years.
Even less so when my partner Bryony and I decided to ditch the smart phones at night in favour of anything but a screen, and the need for an alarm called on a newer clock radio to make its way to our bedside table.
Enter the Siesta S2 from Pure.
The simple looking bit of kit is a serious ode back to my teen days when you had to tweak the dial back and forth to find the sweet spot.
Digital radios automatically find all your available stations and let you select them by name, and there’s also FM for any station that have not yet gone digital.
DAB (digital audio broadcasting… not the dance) digital radio provides a wide range of content in highly-detailed, digital-quality sound, much of which is only available on digital radio.
Unlike the clock radios of days gone by when bright red numbers would illuminate the room, the Siesta S2 rocks a clean, edgeless large format display which can be adjusted to suit your preferred brightness levels.
And just like a smart phone, setting alarms is easy, with the ability to set weekday or weekend alarms. There’s also a sleep timer that allows you to gradually fall asleep without worrying of the radio playing all night. And of course, there’s a much loved snooze button. Not that Whisky lets us catch any extra zzzz’s once the alarm goes off.
The sound is pretty sweet for a little device. It’s super easy to set up. And it doesn’t try to be anything other than it is. It’s got a basic façade, but what more do you want from a clock radio?
My only wish is that it included a USB port to charge my phone, and had a telescopic aerial, as the wire aerial isn’t all that flash.
In saying that, it’s been a worthy investment that will continue to adorn our bedside table for years to come. Or at least until we decide our smart phone ban is over.
