The light doesn’t gradually come on - it comes on pretty bright straight away at about 80% brightness and increases to 100% over 30 mins before alarm. It’s too bright, you’re effectively waking yourself up 30 mins before the alarm. The sound quality of the radio and the nature sounds is very poor. The nature sound especially are not a gentle waking up set of sounds, but rather a shrill piercing noise. I don’t think this alarm clock provides a nice wake up at all.