The Mirari OK to Wake! Alarm Clock is designed as a toddler training tool. It’s a visually engaging device that, though simple in concept, promises great potential benefits. It’s marketed as a way to easily regulate how early your children wake you up, or how long their nap time can be, and like some of the best light therapy alarm clocks, ease users into sleeping or waking.
Design: A cheery little fellow
The Mirari OK to Wake! Alarm Clock is certainly cute, and won’t look out of place in any child’s room. Its light blue shell is cheerful, as is its cartoonish shape and interchangeable faceplates. Two of these are included—one green with buglike antennae, the other pink with a flower design. This customization allows this alarm clock to have greater potential appeal to a wider range of children. The overall construction of the OK to Wake! Alarm Clock is of fairly cheap plastic, which is perhaps my main criticism of the device. It’s not likely to survive a fall onto a hard floor, and that fragility is an issue in a device intended for young children. I very much appreciated the large buttons on the “feet” of the alarm clock, one to snooze the alarm, one to turn it off. In a way, this makes it superior to many “adult” alarm clocks with smaller, less intuitive snooze/off buttons. If you’re like me, your brain often isn’t firing on all cylinders when you first wake up, so a device designed for toddlers has its advantages for the added morning mind. The screen is a very basic affair, yet is perfectly functional and backlit, as are the buttons on the feet. The controls for setting the time and alarms are hidden beneath a hatch in the back of the clock, which is tough enough to open that young children may be discouraged from playing with the concealed buttons. A further hatch underneath the clock covers a battery compartment and is affixed with a screw to prevent curious little hands from removing the batteries. However, the battery hatch is shoddily built and the screw is badly threaded, meaning I ended up having to use a flat head screwdriver to press on the screw while I unscrewed it. The clock can also be powered via an included USB cable plugged into a computer or wall charger. Unfortunately, a wall charger isn’t included.
Setup Process: Fairly straightforward
I really appreciated the well thought out packaging of the OK to Wake! Alarm Clock, which is designed to minimize shipping and package waste, as well as to be frustration-free. Both claims turned out to be very true, and the device wasn’t overly troublesome to set up. The controls for setting the time and alarms are explained well in the included instructions and are very similar to the controls for other digital alarm clocks. I did find that operating the controls on the back and looking at the screen on the front could be a little frustrating, though. If you’re trying to test out the OK to Wake! feature, nap time, or the alarm, be aware that if you’re operating the controls on the rear at the time when OK to Wake! or the alarm is set to go off they will fail to activate. This should not be an issue for normal operation of the device.
Key Features: OK to Wake!
The standout feature of this alarm clock is its namesake OK to Wake! function. This is uncomplicated in principle, being just a simple light that glows from within the clock and a friendly face that appears on the screen. This can be set independently of the alarm to occur at a predetermined time and is intended as a kind of “green light” to tell children it’s OK to go and wake up their parents when it’s active. It essentially turns waking up into a very simple sort of game that even very young children may be able to learn. In addition, the clock can be set as a timer for naps, and the internal light can also be used as a night light.
Price: Just a little high
With an MSRP of $35 the OK to Wake! Alarm Clock is a little on the steep side as alarm clocks go, and it’s poor build quality severely diminishes its value. However, its child-focused design and simple but potentially very useful features go some way towards justifying that extra cost.
Mirari OK to Wake! Vs. HeimVision Sunrise Alarm Clock A80S
For not much more than the Mirari OK to Wake! Alarm Clock you could instead buy the HeimVision Sunrise Alarm Clock A80S, which is far better built, more feature-rich and versatile than the OK to Wake! However, the A80S lacks the friendly visage of the OK to Wake!, as well its wonderfully simple and obvious snooze/off buttons. The Mirari OK to Wake! Alarm Clock is a friendly little alarm clock for children with potential parenting applications. Though I appreciated the simple to use design, its poor build quality is limiting, and considering its premium price and basic features it’s somewhat hard to recommend.
