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Sleep Week is one of my favorite weeks of the year because it’s a time to reflect on how you’re letting your body rest. Admittedly, I used to be a horrible sleeper. I thought that five good hours between 1 a.m. to 6 a.m. was decent enough. But as I got older, it became painfully obvious that some R&R in the form of quality sleep was going to make or break my days.
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13 simple strategies to make this the most restful year of your lifeNow, that doesn’t mean just staying in bed for eight hours as opposed to five — that means getting some good time in deep sleep, not getting up in the middle of the night and waking up in the morning feeling refreshed and ready. Anything less constitutes a poor night of sleep (for me) and will probably hinder my day.
It can be frustrating to navigate the wormhole of wellness and tech products that have emerged in the market in the last few years because there’s a lot of stuff out there that you don’t need. The sleep supplement situation is truly hit-or-miss, and the tech options have gone a little berserk, from earplugs that will cost you an arm and a leg to wildly expensive blackout curtains.
There are far simpler remedies to making sure you hit the pillow ready to rest and wake up rejuvenated: investing in a quality mattress, making sure you move your body enough during the day, ditching your phone at least an hour before falling asleep — and the list goes on.
That being said, I do recommend that you invest in an alarm clock. I used to be a tried-and-true iPhone alarm user and would get PTSD if I heard the same jingle go off during the day. I’ve had the chance to try both the Hatch Restore 3 and the Loftie alarm clocks in the last few months. The two products would not stop showing up on my TikTok For You Page, and so when the opportunity arose to test them out, I jumped at it.
After a good chunk of time spent waking up to both alarms, I now can confirm that they make my waking process much more enjoyable and natural — so let’s get into all the details.
Hatch
For the last week, I’ve been waking up with the Hatch 3 Restore Alarm Clock. It’s one of the most transformative pieces of sleep tech I’ve used to date.
To start, it’s larger than my Loftie clock, which I had been using for a month prior. Its colorways are lighter, and it has a few additional functions that I appreciate as someone who likes to be woken up by the sun. To start, you will need to purchase a subscription to the Hatch app, which is $5/month or $50/year if you purchase it annually.
Once you log in, the app prompts you to set up your clock — selecting initial alarm times, bedtime wind down signal, your sunrise starting time and any sounds you want played as you drift to sleep. The sound catalog on the Hatch is impressive. I was sifting and sorting through different lakeside bird songs, meadow ambience — and I got really excited when I saw that Hatch often partners with popular TV shows like The Traitors or Survivor to develop custom alarms.
While those were fun options, I opted for a more subtle sound called “Great Lakes Water Fowl,” which woke me up peacefully at 6 a.m. the following day. What I was unprepared for was the sunrise simulator that Hatch clocks offer. If I have the option to wake up at the same time as the sun, I’m opting for that. But after daylight savings, the sun was coming up just after 7 a.m., which just doesn’t work for me. So my sunrise simulator was queued to start 30 minutes prior to my alarm — that’s at 5:30 a.m. Excited to experience a slow wake-up, I shut off my devices and passed out.
The morning came quickly, and when I tell you the sunrise simulator was the best thing to greet my eyes in the morning, I mean it. Slowly, light filled my room starting at 5:30 a.m. It wasn’t glaring, aggressive light; it was warm and welcoming, much like the sun. I acknowledged it, and as I fully came to, the sweet sounds of the lakeside filled my room.
This is all to say that the week following this was amazing. I woke up slowly and surely each morning to different sounds and my simulated sunrise. One function the two clocks share is a bedtime signal. At 10 p.m. each night, a little tune would play, and my Hatch would light up letting me know it was time to get ready to sleep.
Ultimately, if you’re looking for something that will make the waking-up process as simple and comfortable as possible, it’s this clock. If the app subscription is a deterrent, read on and learn more about the Loftie Clock — or if you’re sold, the Restore 3, which you can purchase below, is $25 off right now in honor of Sleep Week.
Loftie
I had been using my Loftie alarm clock for about a month prior to testing out the Hatch Restore 3, and I thought it was the best thing I’d added to my sleep repertoire since revamping my mattress.
To start with, it’s a more minimal aesthetic than the Hatch Restore 3; it’s sleek, dark and subtle with different colorway options that don’t overpower. It blended in nicely with my small bedroom side table setup. Similar to Hatch, it comes with an app that you use to operate its settings. When you set it up, you can select your alarm timings and sounds. It also comes equipped with a catalog of white noise options.
The clock relies on a two-phase alarm, which was a game-changer for me. It wakes you up so subtly, you’ll start hearing sounds in your dreams, only to be eased awake when the second phase alarm starts going off. You have the option to snooze the alarm initially, but the clock will continue to lull into and out of sounding off until you’re up. This was a much more friendly alternative to my iPhone.
At nighttime, again similar to Hatch, Loftie will play a bedtime signal letting you know that it’s time for you to start winding down. During my month of using the Loftie, this was something I looked forward to in the evening. I cherished the music it played and always took it as a cue to start zen-ing out, whether that meant making a cup of tea, fluffing my comforter or plugging my phone in on my desk across my room.
While it lacks the sunrise simulator that Hatch has, it’s similar in most other functions and is a little more accessible, seeing as you don’t need a subscription to access its array of sounds. I would consider it a more subtle option that will have you waking up feeling very well-rested. Plus, if you lean more into the dark aesthetic, this is the clock for you — and it’s on sale for Sleep Week, with a discount of 20% applied in your cart.
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