Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

OK: I knew going into this purchase that there might be some issues with set-up. I read quite a few reviews and came to the conclusion that I could probably figure this out: this would not be the first time I purchased an aesthetically-pleasing clock with badly-written or badly-translated instructions. When the product arrived I was not disappointed: the instruction sheet is TINY, with what I assume is native Chinese on one side and the English translation on the other. I had difficulty even reading the instructions so I scanned and enlarged it using Photoshop. (HINT: that helped a LOT.) After laughing uncontrollably for a few minutes at the ridiculousness of the English translation, I set out to decipher it and turn it into a text document that would help others, as well as myself in case I needed clear instructions at a later date. After about forty minutes of work, I am happy to report that I have a (more-or-less) decent set of instructions for this clock. READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS ALL THE WAY THROUGH BEFORE DOING ANYTHING! If you start programming the clock too soon, you will end up in a "black hole" which will require a reset. Trust me on this. Plug the clock into a wall outlet, and BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING, be sure the clock is set to its default position. The best way to do this is to open the battery compartment and locate the (tiny) RESET button. Use a bent paperclip to push this button. The display on the clock should start blinking and then rotating through time, date and temperature settings. Another reviewer said the secret was to press and HOLD the SET button, but BEFORE YOU DO THAT, you need to figure out that you can cycle between the two display modes by pressing and RELEASING the SET button. DP-1 (display mode 1) will cycle through time, date and temperature over and over again. DP-2 (display mode 2) will always display the time. OK: now that you've cycled through DP-1 and DP-2 a couple times, be sure you selected DP-1. NOW it's time to PRESS & HOLD the SET button. The YEAR is displayed first: the default is 2015; use the UP button to change it to 2016. Then press SET. The DATE is next. Use the UP/DOWN buttons to change the month as needed, press SET, and then use the UP/DOWN buttons to change the date as needed. Press SET again to move to... TIME. use UP/DOWN buttons to set time as above. After you've chosen the hour and minutes, push SET. Now you can choose 12 or 24 HOUR CLOCK. UP/DOWN to choose preference; push SET ALARMS ARE NEXT: sorry folks, I didn't mess with the alarms because I didn't purchase this clock to be an alarm clock. There are THREE alarms and you should be able to set the times for those in a similar way as setting the clock time. If you are not using the alarms, just push the SET button to get to the final setting. DON'T GO TOO FAST or you will have to repeat the entire cycle of settings again. After the alarms is the final setting: SOUND CONTROL. One reviewer thought this was a 5-day alarm, and I can understand why. The display shows "on:5d" which SEEMS like turning an alarm ON for 5 DAYS. However, that it NOT the case. "5d" is actually an approximation of SD, which is supposed to be an abbreviation for SOUND. So "on:5d" means SOUND ON, and "--:5d" means SOUND OFF. The DOWN button will cycle back and forth between sound OFF and sound ON The UP button will cycle back and forth between Celsius and Fahrenheit If you wish to have the clock on TIME ONLY, now is the time to do it. Momentarily press and release the SET button: DP-1 = Time, Date, Temperature DP-2 = Time Only ONE MORE THING: There are FOUR Luminance (Brightness) settings on this clock: L0, L1, L2, L3. Between 6pm and 7am, the clock will AUTOMATICALLY reduce the Brightness setting (whatever it is) 50%. PRESS & HOLD the UP button to cycle through the Luminance Settings. I hope this helps. The clock is really kind of cool and inexpensive too, so it would be a shame for folks to not order it just because they thought they couldn't figure it out. Yeah, I get it: this translation is PURE CRAP. But the clock itself is cool.