Customer Reviews

Moshi Voice Interactive Talking Alarm Clock

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(25)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

Maybe I have a different version of this clock than other reviewers BUT
- you CAN change the volume, the buttons are on the back and there are three settings
- you CAN change the night light from single to multi so you don't have to have a disco show
- yes, there are only three sleep sounds but they last 15 minutes, not 5. Granted they are not the best, but this clock was really not made for that and would probably do best by eliminating that feature
until it is fine tuned.
- you have to speak the commands exactly as directed or you will get errors. For example, you have to say "hello Moshi" and then "set alarm" NOT "set the alarm" or it will not understand the command and do nothing.
- I would like the option of setting the nightlight to a preferred color however.
- the nightlight colors are a little too bright, but gorgeous!
- if you don't have the nightlight on in the dark, you can't see the clock. How could this have been overlooked when making this clock?
- It is made of plastic but I don't think it looks cheap. I have never had a glass alarm clock before so why should this one be different?
- it is made in such a way that if you have cats, like I do, walking around your nightstand they cannot change the settings or turn your radio on jolting you awake. This is priceless to me!

You do not have to listen to a full explanation every time you set it unless you pause too long after saying giving a command. If you wait too long, it will give you an explanation. One in a while it will confuse a command or a time set but it is rare for me. In fact, I make far more errors on clocks I have had to manually set than this clock has.

If you plug it in the wall, the unit operates by voice command but the alarm will shut off by touch or voice. If you install batteries, you can operate everything manually from the back buttons but it is not practical because they are very small. You can turn the alarm clock off by touch regardless if it running on batteries or is plugged in.

Do I think there is room for improvement? Of course!

Is it worth the $49.95? For me it was!

Written 8/2/09- We all know that the technology for voice-activated products has not really been good enough in the past to be REALLY useful. Well... MOSHI IS AWESOME! It truly understands virtually every command you give, as long as it's within its recognition model. Unless you personally have a speaking disorder of some kind, it is rare for Moshi to misunderstand, and even rarer for it to talk when it has not been given a command. This has only happened 2-3 times in the several months I've owned Moshi, and it's actually kind of funny when it happens.

If you don't know by now, Moshi's daily functionality can be completely controlled by voice commands, and without ever touching buttons (it does have setting buttons too on the back).

Here's what you can verbally ask Moshi;
-The time,
-To set the time,
-For the current alarm status,
-To set the alarm time,
-To turn off the pre-set alarm,
-To turn off the alarm as it's sounding,
-For a listing of its 3 alarm sounds,
-For a listing of it's 3 sleep sounds,
-To play the sleep sound you've previously chosen,
-To give you today's date,
-To give you the current inside temperature,
-To turn on or off the night light,

There is also a verbal Help command, so you can get a list of functions, which make it so you don't need to go find your owner's manual to remember how to use a function. Within the verbal help announcement, Moshi instructs you how to verbally turn off the alarm.

As an alarm clock, Moshi works well for my lifestyle, but it's not perfect. This is NOT due to the voice activation part of the clock. It's due to its some design and functionality issues. I guess you only get what you pay for, and this is what you get at the $50. price point.

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Here's some of the design negatives and other issues I've encountered with Moshi (which in my book, are NOT serious enough to call this a bad alarm clock. It's still very cool!)

-An occasional verbal misunderstanding when I give it a command (typically due to other noises in the room, like a fan, radio or tv that confuse my command. Moshi will tell you it did not understand, though.

-An even rarer verbal confusion, where my command is confused with another. This usually happens when setting the clock or alarms. Once again, Moshi confirms every command so you'll know when it misunderstood you.

-And the rarest of issues is when Moshi thinks I've given it a command, but I haven't said a word to it. This has happened only twice in several months- not enough to make Moshi a problem child. Moshi sits in my upstairs office. Perhaps a noisier location would yield misfires more often!

-Moshi is only capable of playing its sleep sounds for 5 minutes... MAX! This must be some sort of a joke! Some folks need hours of white noise (rain, jungle, or ocean noise) to get them through their much-needed REM sleep. These sleep sounds cannot be verbally and independently adjusted for play length or volume. Unfortunately, with Moshi, when you adjust the sleep sound volume, (which I like quiet), it also affect the alarm clock volume too, (which I like loud). That's bad! The designers will hopefully fix this on the next generation Moshi.

Moshi's night lite AUTOMATICALLY comes on when you play any sleep sounds. This is TRULY a design flaw. If you're having so much trouble getting to sleep that you need white noise to get you there, then why in God's name would a distracting light come on automatically that you can't shut off? The good thing is that this dim light is not powerful enough to light up the room, just the area around the clock, so you may need to put a pillow over your head if your eyelids are thin. But still, what were they thinking????

-Maybe it's me, but I often have some confusion shutting off the alarm in the morning, probably because I'm not "with it" yet. When the alarm sounds, I say to Moshi "Turn Off Alarm" and Moshi says "Alarm Off. But then it rings 9 minutes later like when I'm brushing my teeth. At that point I once again say "Turn Off Alarm". Moshi then announces the alarm is off and voices the day and date, so I know for certain the alarm is now off. So maybe I'm controlling the snooze verbally, but I don't know how to shut the alarm off the first time it rings. Guess I need to go look at the owner's manual for that (I was under the understanding that you must push on Moshi's LCD screen to get the "nonadjustable" 9 minute snooze to activate). It would be nice if this were simplified and the snooze time was adjustable.

- If the alarm is off, you cannot just say "Turn On Alarm", even though Moshi will tell you what the off'd alarm is set to. You have to reset the alarm to turn it on. This is not really an issue. It's just something I noticed that's kinda weird.

-The buttons on the backside of the clock are not legible. They need to have color in the letters so you can see them. I used a Sharpie to carefully darken them in.

Some other features that are NOT voice activated are;

-3 volume settings,

-Settings for temperature in Fahrenheit or Celsius,

-The LCD display displays different colors depending on the ambient temperature and red if there's a functionality problem. In theory, this feature seems like a nice idea, but in actuality, is utterly useless in an alarm clock unless you always have the owner's manual at hand. However, Moshi's LCD does glow blue while it's talking and green when it's listening to you. This color feature would be simpler to understand if the temp colors didn't exist OR the temperature and it's corresponding color could alternate with the time on the display.

-It takes 3 AAA batteries for backup power in case of an AC power loss,

-If working on battery power, the voice trigger (it's ability to listen) is disabled. You must push on Moshi's LCD screen in order for it to hear your commands.

If you forget any of Moshi's verbal commands, a complete list is located on the back of the LCD display. You can also say "Help" and Moshi recites all its commands verbally. If all else fails, the owner's manual has it all.

Anyway, for $49.95, Moshi is an alarmingly cool and very useful verbally-activated alarm clock with some minor design issues that hopefully don't turn you off to it. Bed, Bath, And Beyond carries it, so be sure to use your 20% off coupons to bring the cost down to around $40.

Hope this review helps!

I returned the clock because it was more aggravating than anything. The idea is appealing, and might be great, but this version really stinks (not to put too fine a point on it!).

1. I did figure out how to get the sleep sounds to work, although they are pretty awful, and the volume can't be adjusted. Not only that, but they last just 5 minutes, the point of which I fail to understand. I went back to my 60-minute ocean CD, which is much better.

2. The volume of the voice prompts is loud and can't be changed; how did they expect someone to check the time in the dark of night without waking the other person in the bed?

3. The nightlight cycles thru the 6 colors, and some are too bright. The red one would be great, but you can't select a single color.

4. To set the alarm, you have to listen to the explanation EVERY time; why is that? The voice prompts should all be short, and I shouldn't have to reset the alarm time every day. I should be able to use the same alarm time every day.

5. Without using the too-bright nightlight feature, how am I supposed to tell the time at night? If I speak to it, I risk waking the person next to me; if I touch the clock, I get the overly-loud voice prompt. Neither is a good solution, so it's useless in the dark.

A great idea, but a pretty useless first version. I give this 1 out of 5 stars.

If you expect this thing to be perfect and recognize every command even when the TV is blaring then you will be disappointed.

Having said that.. I change the alarm time frequently and this thing is SOOOOOO much easier to use than a conventional digital clock where you have to click so many times to get to your target alarm time.

"Set Alarm - 6:15 AM " Most times its that easy and at most I only have to repeat once if it did not understand.


I actually think the night light is very soothing also and being able to ask it the temperature is an added plus.

I absolutely LOVE Moshi. I first saw it in the mall and thought 'What a clever little gadget'. I thought about buying it but didn't. After my not so trusty cell phone died in the middle of the night and failed to wake me for an appointment, I decided it was time to actually get a clock.. and went back for Moshi. It is definitely reasonably priced, I expected it to be a lot more.. and for those that don't use the sleep sounds or the night light, you can get the cheaper version on their site somewhere.
A couple times she (haha she?) It didn't respond when my son called out to it, but Other than that, I LOVE it. I get up at a different time every day and I love being able to set the alarm so quickly. I also love that I don't have to keep walking back around the corner from my bathroom to check the time as I am getting ready for work. I can call out and my clock responds! I want to get one for each of my boys!!

What is it lacking? I cant get it to Vacuum for me... and I wish the sleep sounds would stay on. Would also be nice if you could put it in silent mode..where it just displays what you ask.

A number of the lowest review scores here have numerous complaints that are actually addressed in the manual itself. Such as;

-No snooze. There IS a snooze function! Push down on the top of the clock when the alarm goes off and it sets it for 9 minutes before the alarm goes off again.

-Can't cycle light colors. You CAN. There is a button on the back. Again, this is in the manual.

-You CAN turn the alarm off without the switch in the back. This is one of the many voice commands and is right in the front of the manual.

There are some valid complaints that keep it from reaching true 5-star status though. The voice can be a bit on the loud side and the alarm and sleep sounds could be a little better. Otherwise, this is fantastic hands-free alarm clock. It takes almost no time to set up and responds extremely well to voice commands.

This Moshi alarm clock is such a cool concept. The design is very nice, the display is good and big, and the voice feature is a great selling point.

Now for the bad news. I am on my third replacement! They just keep breaking! Some of my replacements were even DOA straight out of the box! The problem seems to be that something goes bad in these clocks that causes them to not be able to "hear" so well. It might work well for a few months at first, but then it stops being able to hear me correctly (if at all). Here is how a common night goes for me:
me: "Hello Moshi"
moshi: *no response*
me: "HELLO MOSHI!"
moshi: *no response*
me: "HELLO MOSHI!"
moshi: "Command Please"
me: "Set Alarm"
moshi: "What time would you like your alarm to sound"
me: "6:00AM"
moshi: "Your alarm is set for 7:04PM. Your alarm is on."
Then I get to start all over.
My current Moshi worked fine for about a year (a record for me!). Now that its acting up again, I tried to contact the moshi customer service. I have gotten no email replies from them this time around. I tried calling the number listed on their website (moshilifestyle.com) but I never get an answer, and they didnt even bother to setup an answering machine message (its just the default generic message). They haven't returned my call.

So the moral here is that, although Moshi does have some neat features (which is the only reason I gave it 2 stars), you should probably think twice about purchasing this product.

The Voice Activated Moshi Alarm Clock is the best holiday gift for any gadget lover or elder person with vision impairments! I ordered a couple of them to give to my elderly relatives who have difficulty seeing the time and often forget which day of the week they are in. I tried it out myself and being a female- these voice activated products always have a hard time with my higher pitched voice but the Voice Interactive Moshi Alarm Clock had no problems. It's nice to have purchased a product without feeling buyers remorse.

Length:: 2:08 Mins

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I apologize for the quality of this video--I worked on it for over four hours to shrink it and edit it to fit Amazon's requirements...I did everything I knew how to do to improve it while keeping it short enough! I debated whether or not to include it and decided that just for the value of hearing how the clock works it would be worth it.

This is a great clock if you want to take the time to work with it. It's really, really easy to set up, but using it takes a bit of finagling. In this video, I demonstrate some of the features.

There are problems. Sometimes it takes a couple of tries to get Moshi to understand. Also, in order to turn off the alarm with your voice, you must speak the command in between the alarm sounds. This is really hard to do when you're half asleep. It is easier to just use the alternative buttons, which are on the back in an awkward place and impossible to see without a flashlight. You have to do it by feel and knowing where it is ahead of time.

The reason for the variability in the reviews is that not all the clocks work well; there are apparently quality control issues. You may have to return your clock and exchange it for another. One of our functions didn't work but we didn't need it (it was the temperature, and we wanted the clock to tell time) so we kept the clock anyway.

Even though I give Moshi only three stars (because it is new technology and not what an alarm clock should be--you need to be able to turn it off easily, for example) I still enjoy it and am glad I bought it.

Recommended for people who can work with a temperamental alarm clock in exchange for the voice technology.
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I liked the way the clock looked and the voice activation worked well but the digital display did not work correctly so certain numbers did not appear. Also, what you don't find out until after you get the clock is that the display does not remain lit. It only lights up when you speak a command. So if it is dark in the room you cannot see the display. The only reasons to speak a command are to change the time, set the alarm or play sounds. This clock didn't work for me.