We've had this for about a year now. I always have had trouble waking in the mornings. This helps a lot. We don't need to use any other alarms or even the "beep" function. By the time the light is halfway up, we're pretty much awake. (As long as no one succumbs to the urge to turn it down again mid-way!) Using the sunset function works well for limiting the length of bedtime story reading and transitioning from stories to sleep for the kids.
My only quibble is the quality of this lamp/clock. When we first got it, the light would flicker or strobe unexpectedly. Time and tinkering seemed to fix it. The white noise function barely works. It only comes on when the light is on, if I screw around with it, and goes off when the light does. There's no separate control for it, nor a volume control. I wish that were separate. Is it just me, or doesn't it seem counter-intuitive to have the white noise only run when the light is ON? It doesn't come back on when the sunrise function begins, either.
The clock also runs consistently fast. Every few weeks I have to adjust it as the time grows ten or more minutes ahead.
We like it a lot, but there are a lot of foibles to contend with for the price.