Update: Unfortunately, the Peaceful Progression Wake-Up Clock appears to have been discontinued.  🙁  

I finally remembered to put some “smelly stuff” in my clock so I could test the scent feature and write the promised review, so here goes…

Arrival
When the clock arrived and I unpacked it, the box reeked. I don’t know if it was the combination of all of the included aromatherapy bead scents or what, but it really smelled gross (and strong!) – like walking down an incense aisle at the store. Aside from that, though, unpacking it and setting it up was unremarkable. Installation of the backup battery was straightforward. Programming the clock was pretty simple with the included instructions. Although it would seem that with all of its features, the setting of the clock would be very complex, it’s actually very simple once you’re somewhat familiar with it. Nighttime go-to-sleep settings are on the left side of the clock and morning wake-up settings on the right; keeping them separate helps keep things simple, and one is set pretty much like the other. Main settings – sounds, clock buttons, on/off switches, etc. – are down the center of the clock.

Features and Quality
The clock offers six different background sounds for gradually waking up and/or for soothing the user to sleep. These sounds are nightfall, thunderstorm, Zen melody, mountain stream, songbirds, and ocean surf. I found that I could hear the “loop” of each sound pretty clearly, so I have a strong preference for certain sounds over others. Ocean surf, for example, shows the interruption much less severely when it loops than does, for instance, thunderstorm. (Ocean surf is what I usually use.) Four different scents of aromatherapy beads come with the clock: calming lavender, energy (cananga, orange, and amyris), stress relief (patchouli, orange, pine, and rosemary), and morning cafe (coffee). Each is composed of ethylene-vinyl acetate (presumably what composes the actual form of the beads) and what appears to be actual essential oils. I have not tried any of the beads yet; I used cassia essential oil on one of the felt rings and it definitely works! Just 3-4 drops scented our entire bedroom to almost overpowering! (Oops. Guess I’d better use less next time. 🙂 ) The alarm may be used with the buzzer only; with the buzzer preceded by a background sound; or with the buzzer preceded by a background sound and rising light levels (with or without aroma beads/oils added for scent).

Use
The main buttons on this clock are easy to find, even when half-asleep. The snooze button is especially so, as it is very large! The snooze button can also be used to turn the light and sound on and then back off. There’s a matching button below it for turning only the light on and off. I have discovered a couple of things about the snooze and off buttons over the last several weeks of use. The snooze feature lasts for eight minutes. The snooze button may be used during the period of background noise and, eight minutes later, the background features will kick back in. If, however, the snooze button is pressed within eight minutes of the buzzer going off, it will snooze until the buzzer’s regularly-scheduled time, at which time the buzzer will go off as usual. (In other words, the background features and the buzzer function as two separate alarm features; setting the one to snooze will not impact the other.) If the off button is pressed during the background time (or even before the clock goes off!), the alarm will not go off at all for the morning.

I am not sure how long the buzzer will beep if it is not turned off. (This is a factor I should have tested, but didn’t think to.) I do know that it does not go off indefinitely, because we have gone out of town without disabling the alarm, and it wasn’t going off when we came home. 🙂 My best guess is that it probably goes off for an hour if it isn’t turned off.

The battery backup functions well; our electricity has gone out during the night several times over the last few weeks and I have not noticed any interruption in the functioning of my morning alarm.

My Experience
This has been effective for me. (Yay!) I have been getting up pretty consistently (except for on weekends, when we tend to sleep in long enough for both girls to join us in bed for some family cuddling). The Peaceful Progression Wake-Up Clock has, indeed, been less jarring to my senses than my former alarm, both in its gentle methods and a less obnoxious-sounding buzzer. It is a bit pricey for an alarm clock, and certain features are not as top-quality as I might like (such as the looping of the background sounds), but overall I am pleased with it and do not regret the purchase.