Finally: The Lark Up Alarm Clock Review

Well, I finally have my Lark alarm after something of a delivery snafu (which turned out to be a tracking quirk), and after spending a couple of days using the Lark (I know it's short, more details to follow), I will render preliminary judgment on this rather expensive alarm clock. The base model will set you back $129, plus you need an iOS device.



First, the packaging is surprisingly professional. I've bought a lot of things from small startups before, and usually the packaging announces the smallness of the startup right from the outset. No such problem here though - it looks JUST like the typical Belkin accessory box hanging on the wall at the Apple Store. Which is probably the intent, as I understand this will start selling through the Apple Store in short order.



Open the box and you are immediately struck by the paucity of the overall package - for better or for worse. It's the dock, the cable, the receiver, and the velcro band. That's it. No manual, no registration cards, nothing. The instructions are printed on the panels of the box and the cardboard insert, but they are somewhat lacking in comprehensiveness. The Lark website has a more complete, consolidated manual that is worth perusing. It's nice to see someone attempting to curb wastefulness, I suppose.

The sensor is remarkably light and I'm surprised it has Bluetooth circuitry and a vibration motor; I never would have guessed from simply handling it. The wristband is kind of a neoprene-type strap with a velcro closure. It fits my girly 6.5 inch wrists just fine with no excess strap hanging off.



The dock is outfitted in somewhat cheap plastic - Brookstone plastic, as I like to call similar Chinese-made devices with that...kind of cheap silvery painted plastic. I don't know how else to describe it. It has a rubber-lined cutout for your iDevice (which I am happy to report is cut with enough wiggle room to accommodate the iPhone 4 plus the bumper) and a small recessed area with a mini-USB plug to charge the wristband sensor. It also has a USB port in the back so you can plug your iDevice in. I would have preferred that it had some sort of integrated charging port connector or (admittedly at a higher cost) inductive charging solution, but it is what it is. For what it's worth, it doesn't use a whole lot of power overnight; my iPhone only lost about 6% charge unplugged.

Once the sensor is paired with your device, you are prompted to download the Lark app from the App Store. It's a pretty bare-bones app with a tab for controlling the alarm, accessing your sleep history, and using the sleep coach (which requires a Lark Pro membership I didn't pay for). Unfortunately, I also cannot access my sleep history; I registered on the website, but the app keeps throwing me a "Could not authenticate" error when I try to sign in.*



The alarm controls are similarly bare-bones. You can set the alarm time, snooze interval, and "peace of mind" setting, which is the amount of time the app will wait before sounding an audible alarm (should you ignore the vibration or the battery dies on the sensor), but you only have two choices for this setting: 2 minutes and 5 minutes. There are no frills like automatic workday/weekday profiles or anything like that, though you do have the option of setting multiple alarms, and since you'll have to go into the app every day anyway, you can pick the alarm you want. Unfortunately, you cannot pair multiple sensors with one phone for his/hers (or his/his, hers/hers, etc.) alarms.

The wristband is fairly comfortable, aided in no small part by the lightness of the sensor I mentioned earlier. Unfortunately, the way the sensor tells you that it is active is by flashing a green LED, which in the dead of night can be quite annoying if you sleep with your wrist next to your face, because I can see it blinking through my eyelids. I didn't feel like staying up to see if it ever turned off; I just shoved my wrist under the covers. (EDIT: It does turn off after 2 minutes, see comments below) Not surprisingly, the sensor is not user-serviceable, so when the battery reaches the end of its lifespan, you'll presumably need to buy another one at a premium price.

So does it work? Amazingly, coming from someone who has slept through an earthquake, it does. The vibration seemed so weak I didn't think it would be very effective, but it got me up without too much of a problem. The catch is that while it purportedly tracks the quality of your sleep, it makes no claims about using that data to wake you at an optimal time, like the Axbo or the Zeo (leaving aside for the moment whether or not the science in those cases is valid). So your subjective wake experience is not THAT much easier than a regular alarm. I was just as groggy and miserable as I was with the regular alarm - it just doesn't disturb my girlfriend as much anymore. The latter is a laudable goal in itself, certainly, but how is this different from any of the vibration wrist alarms already on the market for $100+ less? The sensor is certainly sleeker. Maybe the sleep history would be a draw if the website would let me sign in. Outside of that, the value proposition is dubious at best.

Full disclosure: I am also compelled to mention that I meant to test the Lark for a week but only managed one night and one nap, because now the battery in my sensor is dead by the morning and refuses to vibrate.** I was hoping to see what it was really made of by staying up until 3:00 a.m. and trying to get up at 6:00, but my plans were sadly dashed. I am pursuing an RMA forthwith (and forthwith it must be; the warranty is a shamefully scant 30 days!), but at any rate, the entire Lark experience seems a bit half-baked at the moment. I am not unsympathetic to the hurdles that a startup faces in bringing a new product to market, but even in that context, the QA is slightly lacking.

I really wanted to like the Lark, and since it's a sunk cost for me and less annoying for my girlfriend, I'll keep the unit should they replace it. But it's a trickier proposition for someone on the fence. Truth be told, $129 is a small price to pay to save a relationship, but I daresay your alarm going off an hour earlier than your partner's is rarely the only obstacle between you and eternal loving bliss. I'll update this review if additional testing or data necessitate it, but at this juncture, I would avoid the Lark. It's just not mature enough to be worth the scratch right now.

*Update 1: I finally was able to sign in to the sleep history and it is actually pretty interesting. It tells you how many times you woke up during the night and rates the quality of your sleep. I have no idea how they come to that determination. There is a graph but they don't explain what the graph means.

**Update 2: The battery issue seems to have sorted itself out. My earlier assessments haven't changed, but for what it's worth, the team has been very polite and responsive.