Review: Loftie Clock

On the nights I have trouble sleeping, I ask my husband to explain the Legend of Zelda timelines to me.

I ask him to do this for a variety of reasons. One, I’m a newer Zelda fan (my first foray into the series was when Wind Waker came to the Wii U, closely followed by Breath of the Wild) and I enjoy hearing about the lore from a longtime fan. Two, it provides a sense of comfort as I dive into a story I already love and am invested in and hear facts about familiar characters. And finally, I like annoying my husband by asking him to repeat the same story.

I was reminded of the comfort of familiar fantasies when I tested the Loftie Alarm Clock’s newest feature, the Magic Story Maker. It can create AI-generated bedtime stories that get sent to your clock so you can listen to a personalized story about living abroad or taking a snowy train ride with your best friend—or perhaps your favorite character—to lull you to sleep. It’s one of many soundscapes available on the Loftie, but it’s by far the most interesting.

Before we go down the AI rabbit hole, let’s talk about the Loftie in its truest form—as an alarm clock.

I’m the kind of gal who’s known for hitting the snooze button. Doesn’t matter what type of alarm clock it is, I always hit snooze at least the first two times it goes off. Sometimes more than five times. I’m not a morning person, if that wasn’t clear.

Photograph: Loftie

The Loftie essentially has snooze built into it. It’s a two-phase alarm, and you can customize which sound you hear for each phase of the alarm. Phase one, the Wake-Up Alarm, goes off for about 30 seconds, followed by phase two, the Get Up Alarm, nine minutes later. The idea is that that phase one starts to rouse you from sleep, and phase two is the official wake-up call.

You set these up on the Loftie itself or within the Loftie app (iOS, Android). The app is also where you adjust the volume for your alarms and choose how bright the built-in nightlight is. The clock will need to be connected to Wi-Fi to learn these preferences and to get any software updates.

Photograph: Loftie

Once your alarm, sound, and brightness settings are done, you won’t need the app. Everything else you can find on the clock itself. There are three buttons on the top of the device, each with a different size and function. The middle button lets you click through the main menu, which includes Alarms, Sounds, Playlists, Bluetooth, and Settings. The smallest right button lets you make selections, and the large left button sends you back through your choices and also turns the nightlight on and off. In Sounds, you’ll find soundscapes that range from white and blue noise to campfires and tent rain. Playlists is where you’ll find a variety of content, including soundbaths, sound patterns, and the stories generated by Magic Story Maker.

It took me a little while to get used to the alarm, but while I prefer the two preset alarms, it hasn’t helped me get up much more quickly in the mornings. The first couple of days it went off, I found myself instantly reaching to snooze the first alarm, until my groggy morning brain remembered that it would snooze itself if I waited long enough. I’m bummed to say that I found myself taking advantage of those nine minutes to try to fall back into a deep sleep, rather than preparing to wake up when the second alarm went off. Each morning, I was ready to turn off the second alarm, and I quickly mastering the art of finding the small top right button that disables the alarm and going right back to sleep.

So while I did like the sounds quite a bit more than the alarms from my phone, I think I’d need a third—maybe a fourth and fifth—alarm option to actually wake up at the right time.

Loftie’s newest feature is the AI-powered Magic Story Maker. It uses ChatGPT and ElevenLabs voice AI to create a personalized bedtime story that will play directly from the Playlists menu of the Loftie Clock.

Loftie offers a handful of story outlines to get you started, including “A Snowy Train Ride” and “Last Days of Summer.” For these story outlines, you use a Typeform to answer specific questions, such as your name, who you’re with, and an activity you’d like to do. You’re also able to add in anything you want before finishing the form. It takes a couple of minutes, but you’ll get an email confirming that the story is ready. Make sure to use the same email your Loftie is connected to so that your clock is updated. If you aren’t sure whether it has been updated, hold down the small right button to reset it; the clock will automatically check for software and update itself.

Photograph: Loftie

The stories were soothing to listen to. They were also easy to find on the clock (though sometimes the company picks random names; my train ride story was called “Lumina,” while my story abroad was called “Kyoto Dreams”). I was impressed with how the Loftie stories included the specific details I asked for, like getting cheesecake for dessert during my snowy train ride and accurately describing the vermillion torii gates of Fushimi Inari. I was less impressed with food descriptions, particularly when I checked “food from this area” for my Japan-themed story and got the vague “grilled skewers” from a street vendor (are we talking yakitori? Takoyaki? I was disappointed it didn’t choose something specific.) But less detail about food is probably better, lest I end up wandering into the kitchen for a midnight snack instead of going to bed.

It was also jarring when it tried to encapsulate people in my life without having any real details besides who they are to me and their pronouns. When my train ride story talked about how my husband “couldn’t resist good chocolate” and chose mint tea, I was shaking my head both times. After that, I generated a similar story but used two of my favorite characters from a book series to preserve the sense of immersion. That worked much better for me.

Speaking of my husband, the downside to these stories being on your clock is that if you have a partner or roommate who doesn’t want to listen to the stories before bed, they’re out of luck. There’s no headphone jack to let you listen to the stories privately, and they’re only available on the Loftie. They’re also only available if you pay for the Loftie+ membership at $5 a month. At $150, the clock itself isn’t cheap. It’s pretty on the nightstand, and the base price includes a lot of content—everything except the Magic Story Maker’s AI storytelling—but you could find similar, though less robust, sound options on cheaper sound machines.

Still, the Magic Story Maker is a cool feature, and one of my favorite uses of AI so far. Winding down for bed is something to look forward to when you know your custom story is waiting for you—as long as you’re willing to stomach the cost of the Loftie and the monthly membership.