Lenovos Smart Clock Essential is a slightly smarter bedside clock
Functional simplicity
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Lenovos Smart Clock Essential
There is no shortage of devices that you can stick on your bedside table to use as a voice-controlled alarm clock. You can, of course, just use your phone, but you can also put a small smart speaker, such as Amazons Echo Dot, Googles Nest Mini, or Apples new HomePod mini there and bark commands at it to set an alarm, tell you the weather, or snooze for ten minutes. If you want something more fully featured, devices like the Echo Show 5, Lenovo Smart Clock, or Googles Nest Hub have full-color touchscreen displays that can play video, show camera feeds, or be used as a digital picture frame.
Lenovos latest entrant in this space, the $49.95 Smart Clock Essential, sits somewhere in between all of that. Its a voice-controlled, Google Assistant smart speaker with a simple, black-and-white segmented LED display. It displays the current time, weather conditions, day, and your currently set alarms. The display will automatically adjust its brightness depending on the light levels of the room, so its not blinding you in the middle of the night. But its not a touchscreen, doesnt display photos or video, and cant be used for monitoring camera feeds. Its effectively what youd get if you combined a modern smart speaker with an old-school LED clock radio from the 1980s.
That combination of ideas carries over into the Smart Clock Essentials looks. From the front, the white numbers on black background make it look like a typical, basic alarm clock. Peer closer and you can see two small holes for the microphones that pick up your voice commands. On top of the wedge-shaped device are four buttons for managing alarms, play / pause, and volume. Around back is a USB-A port that you can use to charge a phone or smartwatch, as well as a switch to stop the microphones from listening.
The sides of the Smart Clock Essential are wrapped in gray fabric, as has become the trend with smart speakers in recent years. A unique feature here is the LED ring light on the back of the device thats meant to be a nightlight of sorts. Lenovo claims it shouldnt disturb your sleep, but I found it too bright to use when the clock is a foot or two from my head as I sleep. You can adjust the brightness using voice commands, but I wish there was a button to do so or Lenovo just made it adjust automatically based on how much light is in the room. Or even better, it could gradually come on as a wake up light just before my alarm is set to go off.
As an alarm clock, the Smart Clock Essential is well equipped. You can set multiple alarms, either via the buttons on top or through voice commands (a much easier method, if you ask me). It can play a standard alarm beep, or you can just say STOP once the alarm is going to cancel it. You can also tap on top of the clock twice to snooze it. This tap gesture takes some effort, though, and when Im half awake and groggy, I find I have to smack the top quite hard to get it to snooze. Amazons similar Echo Dot with Clock does this tap-to-snooze thing better.
One note and this applies to every smart speaker alarm clock Ive tested theres no backup battery here, so if your power goes out overnight and doesnt come back before your alarm is set to go off, you wont have an alarm in the morning.
As a smart speaker, the Smart Clock Essential is fine, but dont expect it to be your main music listening device. The 3-watt speaker does get surprisingly loud, but as youd expect, the bass is lacking and the sound isnt very pleasant at high volumes. For listening to weather reports, news updates, or your preferred wake-up song, its certainly adequate.
Agree to Continue: Lenovo Smart Clock Essential
Every smart device now requires you to agree to a series of terms and conditions before you can use it contracts that no one actually reads. Its impossible for us to read and analyze every single one of these agreements. But we started counting exactly how many times you have to hit agree to use devices when we review them since these are agreements most people dont read and definitely cant negotiate.
Though its branded a Lenovo device, the Smart Clock Essential is a Google Assistant smart speaker, which means it carries all of the required agreements of Googles own smart speakers. Those include:
The following agreements are optional:
- Help improve Nest Audio by sharing device stats and crash reports with Google
- Voice Match: store a unique voice model on the device to allow the Assistant to identify you when you speak to it
Final tally: two mandatory agreements and at least two optional agreements.
The Smart Clock Essential can be summed up in two words: functional simplicity. It provides more utility and alarm clock features than a screen-less Nest Mini or Echo Dot but doesnt overwhelm you with the functions of a full smart display. At its regular price of $50, it provides a good experience. But lately, its been selling for half that price or less, which makes it an even better deal if youre looking to upgrade your alarm clock experience.