It won't come on.
Check to make sure the lamp is turned on and that the bulb lights up. Do not use a switched outlet. Switching off the power will reprogram model 205. Plug model 205 into the wall 8 hours before you want sunrise to start. For model 308 check to make sure the AM/PM settings are correct for both time of day and sunrise.
It worked for a few days and then quit.
Are you sure the bulb you are using is an Indandescent? Some CFL bulbs look like incandescents. If the bulb has a heavy base or has plastic around the bottom of the glass it is a CFL or LED. Do not use these bulbs! Do not even try them as an experiment. Even one use can damage or destroy the computer chip in Lighten Up! See #5 also.
Did you have a power outage? If so, any outage longer than a few seconds will reprogram model 205. It may be coming on in the middle of the day now. Unplug it, wait 30 seconds and plug it back into the wall 8 hours before you want sunrise to start.
Display problems, faded, blank, scrambled, all 8s, etc.
The battery may have died and the computer chip may need re-booting. See Battery Replacement, and let the unit sit without power overnight at least. Make sure the new battery is at least 3.2 volts. Some people have put in new batteries that didn't fix their problem. When we got them back the battery was below 2.0 volts. 2.8 seems to be the cut off. Below that and Lighten Up! does weird things and the display fades away.
The model 308 instructions are confusing.
When you first plug it in it should show the time of day. The day of the week is displayed at the top of the little screen.
Press and hold the + or - button until the day of the week starts to blink. Press + or - again to change the day of the week.
Press "Set" and the hour should start to blink. Check for correct AM-PM. You might have to press Set a couple of times or hold it briefly for it to make the hour blink. Then press + or - to change the hour.
Press Set again and the minutes will blink and can be changed.
Let the Lighten Up! sit quietly until the display stops blinking.
Press and hold the Set button until the display changes and the day of the week again starts to blink. + or - will change the day.
Press Set and the hour will blink and can be set for that day. Check AM-PM.
Press Set and the minutes will blink.
Press Set and the display will show the number of minutes the brightening cycle will take to get to full brightness. Default is 30, maximum is 90.
Press Set and the hour will blink allowing you to set the number of hours of additional stay on time. Default is one.
Press Set again to set the number of minutes of stay on time.
Press Set again and the days of the week will again flash and you can program the next day.
You have to program every day of the week. If you want to sleep in on the weekends you could program the sunrise time for 3 PM, 30 minute cycle, zero minutes stay on time. Or you could just turn off the lamp or put the rocker switch in the Off position. I would leave everything On because I would probably forget to turn everything back ON and then would miss sunrise Monday morning.
Let the Lighten Up! sit quietly until the display stops blinking.
Move the rocker switch to On to check that your lamp and bulb are functioning correctly.
Make sure the rocker switch is in Timer position in order to get a sunrise.
Off means that the lamp will not come on.
If you want to do a test, set the Alarm time to 2 minutes later than the time of day. That should give you a sunrise in 3-4 minutes. Make sure the day of the week matches, and the AM/PM too.
If the light bulb icon comes on the lamp should VERY slowly start to brighten. In a bright room you might not be able to see it for 10 minutes. In a dark bedroom it will be much more obvious. Trust me!
If the lamp bulb icon doesn't change then you have not set the alarm correctly. Double check and try again.
It doesn't wake me up.
Is your room dark at night? Night lights and bright street lights can prevent your body from going into a truly deep, restful sleep. Set Lighten Up! to come on 15 minutes earlier than your audio alarm, some people are slow starters.
I have an older Model 205 or 212. Where can I find instructions for my model?
Model 205 programming instructions