Pure Siesta Charge Bluetooth DAB+/DAB/FM Digital Radio Alarm Clock - Bedside DAB Radio with Qi Wireless Charging Pad for Smartphones and CrystalVue LCD Display with Auto-Brightness - Polar

Product Information

You can choose when the alarm will sound (once/daily/weekdays/weekends), and can also choose the volume of the alarm. Out of the products we’ve reviewed here, four have Bluetooth: The AZATOM Horizon, the John Lewis & Partners Aria, the Roberts Revival iStream 3 and the Majority Fulbourn II. Each alarm has its own button, which makes it a bit simpler than on the AZATOM Horizon, where both alarms use the same button.

USB charging and Bluetooth are nice additions that help set it apart from other radios at this price point. You can set the display brightness to ‘Dim’, which should be low enough to prevent it keeping you awake at night while still allowing you to see the time. You can set the alarm to wake you up to either a standard alarm buzzer sound or a radio station of your choice. When shopping for the Ortus DAB Charge be sure to buy the version with DAB rather than the cheaper Ortus Charge which only has FM radio. Sound quality You can also choose the volume of the alarm. The alarm will gradually build up to this volume. However, the lowest volume setting is still quite loud. Summary

What’s the Cheapest DAB Radio Alarm Clock?

These include cheap digital radios as well as more premium options. Some of these radios also have Bluetooth, so you can connect them to your phone to stream music or podcasts. There’s a large snooze button on the top of the radio, which should be easy to find in the dark or when you’ve just woken up. It has great sound quality for something so small and cheap, and has the added bonus of being portable.

Since you can only set 2 presets on DAB and 2 on FM, this can make changing the radio station you want to wake up to a bit fiddly (the easiest thing is just to tune into it first before setting the alarm). Roberts doesn’t list the power output or speaker size for the radio. There aren’t any EQ or bass/treble settings to change. As well as playing DAB, DAB+ and FM radio, the Siesta Rise can also stream content directly from your phone or tablet through Bluetooth too. What’s more, the screen automatically dims to avoid distracting you when you’re falling asleep. Wi-fi for music streaming: Radios with wi-fi - called internet radios - often support music streaming services such as Spotify (may require subscriptions) For some more ultra-cheap DAB radios, see our overview of the cheapest digital radios on the market.It’s a shame that Bluetooth is not one of the options when setting an alarm. Apps like Radioplayer have an alarm setting and it would have been good to be able to wake up to stations which are available online but not on DAB or FM. Perhaps there is a risk that this wouldn’t be reliable if there was a problem with the Bluetooth connection or an app missing the alarm. Verdict