The Oregon Scientific WS683 DreamScience is an interesting take on alarm clocks that help you wake more naturally. Whereas most daylight alarms focus on the waking up side of things the Dream Science also tackles the falling to sleep element as well.
The DreamScience is a nice looking bit of kit, although being made of highly reflective black plastic it doesn’t feel as premium as the price tag suggests it should.
On the top are the control buttons which are used in conjunction with a scroll wheel on one side.
There is an LED display on the front to show the time and menu items. Below this are a set of backlit words, with each word corresponding to a sound. Around the face is a circular LED light capable of changing between 6 different mood lights.
Around the back is the speaker, power input and aux input. There is also a removable back plate that gives you access to the battery compartment (4 x AA) if you don’t want to plug this in as well as a small CR2032 battery compartment that acts as a backup to store the time and the settings should main power fail.
Setup was very easy, power up the DreamScience, set the time, then have a listen to the various sound available.
The sounds are split into two categories: Waking up sounds and going to sleep sounds. The type is indicated on the unit by the use of different blue backlights behind each sound name, a lighter blue for waking up and a darker blue for going to sleep.
Each sound is designed to seamlessly loop and in use they do loop really well without an obvious jump back to the start that would likely jar you awake in a bad way.
The idea behind the DreamScience is that the sounds have been designed to aid you waking up or falling asleep.
It’s worth pointing out at this stage that I generally don’t have any problems getting to sleep and I respond well to light levels, so in summer I’m one of those annoying people that gets up without an alarm clock.
This sort of product is rather subjective and as it’s being reviewed during summer only the sleep functions have been fully tested, I haven’t needed to use an alarm clock. When mornings are dark I make use of the Pure Twilight light alarm clock which has a bright light on the top that gradually gets brighter to mimic sunrise and helps ease me awake in the morning. The DreamScience only has a mood light so you’d still need some sort of bedside light to see what you’re doing in the dark or if you like to read in bed.
The sleep sounds do well to be part of the background noise, surprisingly they don’t disturbed you or keep you awake. Although I generally don’t have a problem getting to sleep I did find this was really useful on the hottest evening of the year so far, rather than staying awake focusing on feeling too warm I instead focused on the lapping waves and this really helped me drift off to sleep.
There are a wide range of sounds and if you happen to practice yoga or meditation I imagine this would provide a brilliant sound backdrop to either activity.
The Oregon Scientific WS683 DreamScience offer excellent quality sounds, much better than those provided on the Pure Twilight, and should be considered if you have problems getting to sleep or even if you just fancy some really relaxing background sounds to chill out to.
Available on Amazon UK: https://amzn.to/1eJxoGK and Amazon US: https://amzn.to/1HiguJ8
