Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Pros: – Nice ID; clean, easy to use UI. – Nice selection of alarm sounds. – Light works well. Cons: – Account registration in app is broken in multiple ways; required. – App requires location access "to connect to WiFi"; will not allow you to do anything without it. – Network communication with app is janky at best, and appears to be partially broken. – App must be on same WiFi network as device, despite relying on Philips's servers for most functionality. I'm really torn about this product. There's honestly a ton to like about it. The alarm sounds are some of the best I've seen in a bedside clock. The light provides a wonderfully smooth glow and transition from dark to light and back. Even the screen and UI are really nicely integrated into the product. (A dot-matrix display projected onto the back of a curved diffuser ring with a capacitive touchscreen interface is seriously just cool, and it blends *perfectly* with the rest of the light, whether on or off.) Yet, I can't possibly leave this product a positive review due to the connected features. The problems started shortly after registering, and after resolving some network troubles. (More on that below.) Right after I got everything working for the first time, I closed the app, re-opened it, and was kicked back to a login screen, where I re-entered the email address and password I had just registered only to be told they were incorrect. I reset the password, confirmed I could login on my computer, but still couldn't login to the app. At this point, I figured I'd try registering a new account. No matter what email address I entered, I received an error *on the email address field* stating that the phone number (yes, phone number) was already in use. No, I never entered a phone number, and I know the app does not have access to my number without asking me. The next morning I tried again and was able to register under yet another email address, but if I tried to use any address I had entered the previous night, I received the same error about my phone number being in use. I did try the reset password option on these addresses, which confirmed none had accounts associated with them. It's worth mentioning here that the fact the SleepMapper reset password button tells you whether or not there's an account associated with the email address reflects *extremely* poorly on Philips's account security. It should not be possible for anyone to determine whether an account is registered under a given email address without either owning that address (thus receiving the reset email) or knowing the account password (thus logging in). I've contacted Philips support in the hopes that they clear out these zombie accounts, but rather than wait and pray, I also registered under yet another email address. I'm up to 6 separate email addresses required just to setup an account successfully, as the first five I tried are now associated with either an account on which I can login on Philips's website but not the app or some kind of zombie account which blocks registration but also doesn't exist as far as the password reset and login forms are concerned. Wonderful! Now that I finally registered a working account and reset and re-registered the light itself, I discovered yet another catch: The app simply *WILL NOT WORK* if you don't provide it with location access (which it claims is used "to connect the device to your Wifi and not to track your geographic location") and instead will dump you on a page with instructions to enable access. I would *really* love to know what the app developers were thinking here, as there's absolutely no reason GPS should have anything to do with a Wifi connection. The app also won't connect if it isn't on the same Wifi network as the device, so why not use a normal network discovery protocol like everyone else? (Note below that the app *does* do this. No idea what the GPS is for.) As for the networking itself, I'd really prefer not to keep this device on the same WiFi network as my phone and other trusted devices. Given that an account is required just to use the app and permission to send data to Philips is required for most app functionality, there's very little reason the app and light actually need to be on the same network. They could just as easily communicate through an online service (as many IoT devices do). At the very least, Philips could have used mDNS for service discovery rather than the somewhat less common SSDP (for which forwarding software doesn't exist that I'm aware of) combined with some sort of proprietary HTTP over UDP broadcast protocol. (Hey, if you send each PUT request 3 times in a row, it's *got* to get through, right???) Oh, and if you try to use a /23 (or, presumably, anything other than a /24) subnet, the app will hang forever on the first connection attempt. The end result is simply frustrating. The industrial design here is great, and the software on the clock itself seems to be solid. The app does allow for impressively granular control over data sharing, though unfortunately even the most basic option required for much of the app's functionality does allow Philips to use the data for product enhancements. (i.e. They're using your sleep data for product research.) But, unfortunately, any good is entirely overshadowed by the simultaneously horrendous and mystifying app design issues above.