Nowdays, smart devices are everywhere. You got your smartphones, your smart TVs, and your smart speakers, but what about a smart alarm clock? Doesn’t sound that interesting, but 2019’s Lenovo Smart Clock has become a device that I’ve really grown to love.

The $60 Lenovo Smart Clock, released on June 2nd 2019, is a smart alarm clock equipped with Google assistant. This means it does all the smart speaker things that a Google Home Mini or Alexa enabled device can do, but unlike those devices, the smart clock has a screen on the front of it. Now, the screen isn’t particularly impressive, being a 4 inch display with a 480p resolution, making it smaller than most phones. This isn’t really a problem though, as you don’t need a mind blowing screen for what this device does. It also comes equipped with a USB port on the back to charge your phone, and a mute switch for when you don’t want it listening to your commands.

The Smart Clock can be used to play music from your streaming service of choice, set alarms and stop them with your voice, control your smart home devices, tell you the weather, and answer just about any question you may have. When you aren’t using the display for anything, it will show the time on the screen in a large, bold font. I can easily read the time from across the room thanks to the screen’s backlight, which can’t be done on many normal alarm clocks. It also automatically dims the screen when it detects a change in light as to not light up your room at night.

The Google Assistant is a fantastic thing to have in my room, and I find myself using it all the time. Whenever I have a question or want to fact check something, rather than stopping what I’m doing to pull out my phone and look it up, I can just ask the Google Assistant and have the answer read out to me. My favorite feature though is the smart home functionality. For instance, with a set of smart plugs, I can have it wake me up for school by turning off my loud fan and turning on my lights in the morning on weekdays before it plays my alarm. 

So, while a smart alarm clock may not sound like something you would need, it ended up being an incredibly useful gadget that I find myself using every day.