LaMetric Time Wi-Fi Clock for Smart Home, LM 37X8, Black

I've thought hard about whether to do a review for the LaMetric because of its very high price, but at the same time I think it's not nearly well selling as it deserves to be and I don't want to make that worse by giving it less than 5 stars.Elephant in the room first: it's _expensive_. Stupidly expensive for a clock, even a wifi one. I *would* be giving it four stars if I'd have had the slightest issue with it. It should be two thirds of that price at very most.Setup was easy for me, although your mileage may vary. You will need a free Android or iOS app for this, and strangely enough Android on tablet "isn't compatible", although it will work if you sideload it from a phone. I had no issues with wifi compatibility, but remember it isn't 5G.The LaMetric has a minimalist, retro, attractive look: it's a little chunk of matt obsidian with colourful, very noticable pixels (only the icon square to left of the device has coloured ones). The LEDs are vivid without flicker. The automatic brightness function works perfectly for however your room is currently lit, meaning you will still see it in bright sunshine; as does the "screensaver" option which dims the display to minimum when it's dark, so you won't get annoyed if you use it as a bedroom alarm clock. You can also switch that off and go with whatever brightness you prefer and time (or switch off) the screensaver instead.You can customise the function and appearance of the clock app, adding a coloured icon and time/date etc. if you wish. The alarm function is a little basic but functional (one alarm, with a snooze, or radio function). Radio is excellent and can play any internet radio channel with no switch-on delay, although not every station out there is built in to the app and you may need to add them manually. As a bluetooth speaker the clock isn't at all bad, but simply doesn't have the juice to be a party piece. It's good as a desktop radio and to attract your notice with notification chimes, not to replace your hifi system.I love the weather app as not only is it handy it looks pretty too. It'll tell you current weather, temperature, wind speed, humidity etc with colourful icons, but also today's (if it is before noon) and a forecast of tomorrow's.The app on display can be set to cycled in any order and with delays if this is what you need, but unless it is done as an office clock I'd find that distracting. I use it as a desk clock right next to me so prefer a fixed display and make heavy use of the buttons to cycle through apps, especially weather, radio and news.The functions I use it for most:- Clock (obviously), with time and date and day marker- Changing my LIFX lighting theme with a button press (IFTTT app)- Notifying me if it starts to snow or if the wind goes above 40 mph (IFTT app)- Notifying me and showing incoming gmails (gmail app)- Notifying me of any met office weather warnings (via RSS app)- Reading the news, traffic and met office weather feeds (via RSS app)There are plenty more apps that I don't use, including Twitter messaging (visit the website for full current list), and it has integral support for Amazon Alexa and NetAtmo. You can also make your own with a website-based builder; if you run a webserver at home then it'll be a sinch, if not then you probably won't be able to. What you can do is make your own icons (animated or otherwise) using the webpage designer, which is considerably easier; although there is already a very good selection.I haven't had any problems with the LaMetric and love it. Not only that, it's become a very handy tool for me and I don't regret spending so much on it at all. For that, I'm going to give it five stars purely to keep it from sliding into an undeserved obscurity - but if you're reading this it's just four if you factor in the price. Just keep it between you and me. ;)

If you have several smart home gadgets this is a excellent piece of technology to keep track of all the notifications. As other reviewers have said it is a expensive gadget made of plastic and with a retro look, but If you can buy it while on offer well worth the spend. When I bought it I thought: A- Why did I spent so much on a desk clock and B- this is going to be one of those things that sounds good in paper but then disappoint once you start using them. Well... I was wrong, I do actually like it very much and don’t regret buying it! I use it every single day without even realising that I’m using it! It is so easy to look at it and get the information you need at glance (specially notifications!). I use mine to keep track of different smart devices around home. I enabled different apps and automatically change between them to display the following:- Time and date (obviously!)- Weather (you can customise what information you want the clock to display)- Temperature and humidity at home (from Nest thermostat). Also notifies if the temperature is too high or too low- name of the song and artist of the song currently playing in my Sonos system (Which automatically displays it as soon as a new track starts)- Exchange Rate- RSS News (which I’ve configured to notify and give me the 5 headlines very hour)- Mirror the notifications on my phone (I really like this feature as I can see and read text or WhatsApp messages and email subject lines without having to pick up my phone)- Notifies and shows who is calling (again, this is great so you don’t need to grab the phone to see who is calling)- Notifies me when someone is at the front door (Ring Doorbell integration via IFTTT).- Set date and time reminders (I.e.: Put the bins out Tuesday evening! - You can even choose different wheelie bin icons!)I have the LaMetric time for over a year and only had a couple of issues with it so far. Both times an installed app was causing the device to freeze and just displaying a black screen. The technical support is great. Both times I had the issues I contacted support and sent them the logs.The display is quite bright and you can enable auto brightness so it changes based on the light in the room. You can configure a ‘Do Not disturb’ (they call it screensaver) so the screen turns off (or displays a dimmed clock) during the specified time period. I enabled this at night to stop notifications coming through.It has 3 large buttons at the top which they allow you to manually scroll between the enabled apps and make selections. The button on the right side turns off the device and on the left side there are two small buttons to increase or decrease the volume. If you are thinking to purchase this to listen to the music, don’t! You can play the radio or Spotify on it but the sound quality is terrible.To summarise, if you are looking for a smart display to keep track of notifications and other gadgets around the house, go for it - you won’t regret it.