Hi, I'm Ethan Green from NoSleeplessNights.com, and in this video I’m going to be doing a review
of the Hatch Restore. The Hatch Restore is a smart sleep device that was designed to help you fall
asleep more easily and wake up more gently in the morning. To do that it, it has a wide
range of features. It's an all-in-one sunset and sunrise simulator, a sound machine, reading light,
night light, and bedtime routine assistance. The core concept, other than having lots of colors and
sounds to play around with, is that it encourages you to set up and stick to a regular and relaxing
sleep routine, which is a key sleep habit to adopt if you have difficulty sleeping. I’ve been using
the Hatch Restore for the past month and I’ve had a mostly positive experience with it. But,
I do have one or two gripes, that I’ll explain in this review. Just to be completely transparent,
I was given the Hatch Restore for free to test. And also, if you choose to buy one through the
link that I’ve put below the video, I might make a commission which will help with the upkeep of
my YouTube channel and my website. But as you'll see as we go through, giving me one for free to
test and review doesn't mean I’m only going to talk about the positives, because I will point
out the downsides as we go through this video as I try and give a fair and balanced review. So,
without further ado let's pop over to the table, take a look at the box that it came in
and the device itself close up. The Hatch Restore comes in a nice looking, sturdy box,
and wasn't wrapped in unnecessary plastic, which is always good for the environment.
Inside is the device itself. I like the sleek, modern and minimalist design with the half-moon
shape. It's a good size for a bedside table and doesn't take up too much space, especially as
you can remove your current reading lamp if you prefer. The main exterior is robust ABS plastic,
which holds up well to impact and drops, although I wouldn't recommend dropping it too many times!
There's also some grey fabric around the front and the back, which should blend well with a lot
of modern bedroom décor. You can see it doesn't have many buttons, and that's because most of
the controls are on the companion app. However, there are some basic manual controls. On the top,
I've left the sticker on for now but you can remove that, there's a button to start your
sleep routine or skip steps in the routine, which I’ll discuss in more depth later. This button also
works as a snooze function for the morning alarm. On one side there's a button to turn the volume up
or down. And on the other side, there are buttons to increase or decrease the brightness. Here you
can see those functions with the Hatch plugged in, with the display showing the brightness.
And there's a lot of incremental steps, which I do like about this device. On the reverse,
there's a button telling you what your current alarm is set to and also one to turn all alarms
on or off. To power it, there's a long cable and adapter that has to be plugged in for it to work.
There's no battery option and no battery backup in case of a power cut. However,
it will remember your pre-programmed settings if you turn it off to move it from room to room.
It's worth noting at this point that most features can only be accessed with the app,
so the hatch won't suit you if you'd like to be able to fully control your devices manually.
So on that point, let's take a look at the app. Once you've downloaded the app, you have to sync
with your Hatch Restore via Bluetooth. But you also have to connect it to your wi-fi, which is
a permanent requirement if you want to adjust the sleep settings. Most options are accessed by the
home or explore button. In home, you can set your bedtime routine and sunrise alarm. In explore,
you can browse and preview the colors or set a solid color. You can also browse the three sound
categories and preview the sounds directly on your smartphone before adding them to your routine.
I won't go through all of the setup process in the settings now, but I’m going to demonstrate the app
in more depth as I go through each of the main features in the rest of this video.
I think there's a few really important points to understand with the app of the Hatch Restore.
Firstly, I do like the interface now that I’ve had a chance to play around with it. It's quite
modern and quite sleek and pretty. However, it did take me time to understand how it works and
how to get the settings that I want to adjust. But then again, you know, that's what you get when you
have a device, a piece of tech, with so many different features and functions. You do have
an element of learning to understand how to get the best out of it. However, my main concerns
around the app aren't so much the interface. It’s more about the connectivity. Firstly, you need a
strong and stable Wi-Fi connection in your bedroom to actually send over the settings from the app
to your device. The other thing to understand is that sometimes there's a bit of a delay when you
open up the app and you connect it to the hatch restore. It takes a few seconds, but you know,
I do find it mildly irritating. I'd like to be able to open the app and just have it connecting
immediately or to be able to start playing with the settings straight away without having to
wait for it to connect. So there you go, that's the app. I think there's a couple of things to
understand. And really, probably one of the main downsides for me with this device is the
fact that you need that stable wi-fi connection. And I think that's just going to rule out quite
a lot of people who might be interested in having the device in their bedroom,
but just don't have the ability to connect with strong wi-fi. So, now we’ve talked about that,
let's have a look at the colors which is one of the areas where the Hatch Restore really shines.
After you select the explore option, you can then go into the colors tab. At the time of filming,
there are 22 different colors to choose from. For example, there's a warm white, red, green,
turquoise, and purple. Note that these aren't the sunrise or sunset options, but just solid colors
to use as a reading light, a night light, or just mood lighting for your bedroom. You can also
adjust the brightness, either with the app or the manual buttons on the device. The bulbs are LEDs,
which typically last for many years. I personally love the warm whites, oranges, and yellows
which seem to work well as reading light colors, and the light is more than bright enough to use
for reading. I think the wide range of colors is one of the areas that really separates the Hatch
Restore from a lot of other reading nights and night lights and wake up lights. For example, the
lumie and the Phillips range, which tend to make the better wake up lights on the market, normally
just have one color scheme from white to red. You can pause it in one of the hues in between to have
as a reading light or a nightlight, but they don't typically have turquoise and purples and pinks for
example. So on that front, the Hatch Restore is really good and I think adults and kids will enjoy
playing around with the different colors and the brightness levels to get just the right
bedroom ambiance that they prefer and that they find relaxing in the nighttime. Let's talk about
the Hatch Restore sound options now, which is one of the more complicated areas to explain.
Firstly, the good point is that it does have a lot of different sounds, whether
that's the alarm clock or sleep sounds or unwind sounds, the three main categories. However, the
bad point is that not all of those are available immediately when you buy the device. That's right,
some of them are only available if you subscribe to their premium membership. So to understand how
that works and what you do or don't get when you buy the device outright, let's have a look
at the different pricing options. At the time of filming, the restore is $129.99 up front, which
comes with the sleep sounds and alarm sounds and a couple of the unwind sounds. But if you want to
access the currently 160 plus unwind sounds it's going to cost an extra $49.99 per year. There's
also a pay monthly option if you prefer, which is $14.99 per month. To help you decide whether the
membership is worth it or not, let's go through the different sound options. There are three main
sound sections: unwind, sleep, and wake, which I’ll go through in reverse order. At the moment,
there are 10 wake sounds which you can choose as your alarm sound if you want. A tone at the end
of your sunrise, which you don't have to if you don't want to. The meditative flute is probably
my favorite. It kind of makes me feel like I’m waking up in the safe zone of a video game!
There are some more abrupt sounds as well, like signal, if you need it.
There are eight sleep sounds to choose from, which you can set on a timer or run all night.
These are typical white noise machine sounds, like fan, rain, pink noise, and creek.
The loops are much longer than most white noise machines I’ve reviewed, which is more than 20.
So I’m really impressed with the length of the loops and the quality of the recordings.
If I remember correctly, the sleep and the wake sounds come free without needing the membership.
The most extensive category is unwind. This has 19 channels of music, soundscapes, stories,
and meditations to help you relax before falling asleep. Personally, I really like the slow and
hypnotic astronomy archive stories, which I thought was going to be boring, and it kind of is,
but it helps me to unwind. “tonight we are reading astronomy for amateurs by Camille Flammarion”.
The deep sea dreams are great if you like the sound of water.
And the rain and thunder options are also excellent because of the
long loops and the variety of authentic sounding thunder.
I also like having the body scan meditations which are a good way to reduce stress at night.
“Hello and welcome to your evening wind down. Before we begin,
I want you to take a second to send yourself some gratitude.”
As you can see then, there are lots of sounds with more added on an ongoing basis.
It's also worth mentioning at this point that you can't play your own music through Hatch Restore,
and there's no way to play radio through it either. As for the speaker quality, well, it's
more than good enough for quiet bedtime listening, especially if you're just going to be listening to
some stories or meditations. And some of the sounds, the nature sounds, also sound pretty
good through the speaker. Where I think it's a little bit lacking is in the bass department,
and it's not exactly the loudest either. So if you're hoping to mask really loud neighbors or
street noise with this machine, it might not be the right one for you, especially because
it doesn't have a headphone jack so you can't get that even closer sound experience. But for quite
bedtime listening it does a perfectly good job. My point of view is that it would have been good
to have a few more of the unwind sounds included for free. I can understand the desire to charge
people if you're going to be continually evolving the category of unwind sounds and growing them on
the app. You know, other apps like Headspace and Calm, for example, they're very popular
ones that have meditations that people use in the nighttime, now you have to pay a yearly or monthly
subscription for those too, so it's not like this is unique. However, I think that the fact that you
have to pay for the device to begin with and then pay for a membership is going to be a deal-breaker
for some people. Whether you're one of those people or not, I’ll leave up to you to decide.
Next, let's talk about the programmable sleep routines. In many ways, this is the core feature
of the Hatch Restore and the main way that it's supposed to help you fall asleep easier.
When you go into the bedtime routine section, you can program anything from one to ten steps. For
example, at the moment I’ve got read first with deep sea dreams playing and a warm white light
that lasts for 20 minutes. Next I’ve programmed a relax step. I'm listening to an astronomy
archive story for 15 minutes and I’ve selected a sunset rather than a solid color this time.
There are lots of sunset options to choose from, but my favorite so far is probably evening embers.
It fades out very slowly over 15 minutes, but you can make it last longer if you want.
The final part of the sunset admittedly is a little bit jumpy, but I have my eyes closed by
then so I don't really care. And honestly, a lot of wake up lights and sunset simulators that I’ve
tried have a similar problem. They fade nicely for a while and then the last little bit can
be a little bit jumpy. But really, overall it does have a nice fade. And finally, I have rain
set to play quietly for 30 minutes but with no light on this time and that's the final part of
my sleep routine. Incidentally, if you wanted to you could have the rain to last all night.
It took me a few days of trial and error to find a sleep routine that seems to work well for me
and I’m still playing around with the different sound options and the different sunsets to find
the one that I really like. I have a feeling I’m probably going to have several of them
on the sleep routine and just turn them on and off from one night to the next depending on
my mood. And I think that I really like that flexibility that this device gives you. It's
great that you can adapt it and change it from one night to the next, or once you've found a
sleep routine that works for you, just stick with it. I think it's something that you do need to be
somewhat committed to doing because not everyone wants to have the same sleep routine every night.
But if you're willing to give it a go and try it for a couple of weeks, or even just a few days,
then you might surprise yourself with how well it helps to remind you to put your phone down, or
your book, or whatever you're doing and actually try and fall asleep. So for me, this is one of the
best features of the Hatch Restore and I have found that it works in encouraging me to have
a more regular sleep routine in the night time, and just to unwind and take a little bit of time
before I close my eyes and turn the light out and try and fall asleep to actually just relax.
So once you've got your unwind and sunset routine in place the next thing to work on is the sunrise.
The sunrise is a really nice way to wake up in the morning because it's just a much more pleasant
way to wake up with light filling the room slowly rather than a blaring alarm tone. I've been using
wake up lights for years and I really like just the gentle way that they wake you up. The Hatch
Restore does a good job on this front as well because it has many different built-in sunrises.
And you can change the alarm tone as well, and the timings, and you can snooze it as well.
You can set different alarms for different days if you like. I currently have one for weekends
and one for weekdays. For example, from Monday to Friday, I have it set for 7:30 a.m. with my
overly joyful flute sound coming in. Like the sunset, you can also select a range of sunrises
such as the spring sunrise that I’ve got on here. You can change the duration from 5 to 60 minutes
and the light will start before your chosen alarm time. If you do choose a tone, it only comes on at
the exact time. It doesn't fade in like the light does. Again, I really like the flexibility you
get with the Hatch Restore to tailor your wake up routine to your liking. The sunrise effect works
well and I often wake up just before the tone goes off, which is great because then I can turn it off
myself without needing to be woken up by a loud alarm. And if you're someone that likes to snooze,
you can just tap the top button of the Hatch Restore and you'll have a snooze function.
You may have noticed the digital display clock in the previous sections. I don't have it on at the
moment but I know that the digital clock light is something that bothers some people. Fortunately,
the Hatch Restore has some settings to adjust the clock or turn it off completely. I know that this
is something that people have complained about in the past and I like the fact that the company
has responded to those complaints and updated the software to give you more flexibility to
control the clock. To start with, if you want to you can permanently turn the clock display off,
which is great for people who just don't like any light at all in the bedroom. You can also dim it
if you like to have a visible clock as long as it's not too bright. You can switch from 12 to
24 hour time, which will suit people in different regions of the world who prefer one or the other.
Finally, you can set a clock display schedule. So if you want it on during the daytime,
but to switch off automatically at night, you can have just that. Okay, before I wrap up with some
pros and cons and my final verdict let's compare the Hatch Restore to another wake up light,
which is the Lumie Bodyclock Shine 300. I’ve done a previous review of this one, and I’ll
put a link in the description below this video if you're interested in seeing it. So for me,
which one of those is better? Personally, I think the Hatch Restore has many more features,
many more options than the Lumie Bodyclock Shine 300. It has all the different colors and a lot
more sounds to choose from. The Lumie Bodyclock Shine 300, however, has a smoother sunset and
sunrise simulator I think. I just find that the way it goes from the white to the red is just a
little bit smoother, doesn't have quite so many jumps. But it only has that one color scheme,
you can't change the colors, so if you want to use it as a reading light or a night light you have to
choose one of the colors between white and red. You can't have greens and purples for example.
Now, the sounds on the Lumie Bodyclock Shine 300 aren't as extensive as the Hatch Restore either.
It doesn't have meditations and so on, but it does have a radio. Which one would be right for you or
not? Well, if you're someone that is worried about the wi-fi connectivity, the Bodyclock Shine 300
doesn't even have an app. It has all the controls on the device, and that's something I know some
people would appreciate. However, if you like to have lots of different features and you want
to play around with different colors and sounds then perhaps the Hatch Restore is the one for
you. So let's look at some of the main pros and cons. I think the main pro is the fact that it's
got so many different features. This really is a feature-rich device. As a smart sleep assistant as
they call it, it has a lot to offer. I really like all the different light options it has. I think
it's great to have so many different colors and so many different options in the sunrise and sunsets.
It's good that it has so many different sound options as well and the catalog of over 160 sleep
sounds is fantastic. However, it is a bit of an issue that you have to pay for some of them. But
if you do decide to pay for the membership, you do get a lot of different sounds to choose from.
I think the sleep routine idea is a good one and I think that it works pretty well. I like the
fact that it has so much flexibility to tailor the sleep routine just how you like it. I really like
the fact that you can control the digital clock brightness and turn it off in the nighttime or
have it on that schedule if you want. It might seem like a small point, but I know for some
people it's really important. And finally, I like the design. I think it looks good in the bedroom,
it doesn't take up too much space on the nightstand, and it has a nice sleek,
minimalist look to it. As for the cons, I think the number one thing for me is the fact that many
of the sounds are hidden behind a paywall. I think that, you know, for this kind of price
it would have been good to have many more different unwind sounds for free, and then
if you want to pay extra to get more of them then you can do. I think that it's a little bit cheeky
just having a couple of meditations. I think I would have liked to have seen more included
there and I know that this is going to be a deal-breaker for some people. But for many others,
maybe $49.99 per year to have a growing library of sounds to listen to isn't such an issue. The
next con is around wi-fi. I think that it's a bit of a pain that you have to connect via wi-fi and
via Bluetooth to sync it. I would have liked to seen it just connecting via Bluetooth. I think
the speaker quality, as I said earlier, isn't the best in the world either. I think that
it's not a device that you're going to play loudly to block out external noise.
Finally, the sunrise and the sunset aren't quite as smooth as some of the more dedicated wake
up lights like the lumie and the Philips, the high-end models just have a slightly smoother
sunset and sunrise. But, you know, when you're falling asleep and you've got your eyes closed
you perhaps don't notice those moments right at the end or the beginning where it's a little bit
more uh jumpy in the color change. So my final verdict of the Hatch Restore is that it's an
excellent device with a lot to offer and a lot of good features that I really enjoyed using and I
found helpful. However, I think there's a couple of potential deal-breakers that are important to
understand, namely around the need for wi-fi in your bedroom and the decision whether you need to
pay for the premium subscription to get all the different sounds or not. And for that reason,
I don't think I’d recommend it if you're buying it as a gift for someone else. But to use for
yourself, I think there's a lot to like about it. Now, does it do its main job of helping you sleep
better and wake up more gently in the morning? Personally, I think it does. I think it's got a
lot of potential to help you to actually take that time out in the night time to unwind and relax,
and to stop doing what you're doing if you're the kind of person that uses your phone or reads
a book too late into the night when actually you should be stopping what you're doing and
trying to go to sleep. So if you'd like some help reminding you to do that and a good unwind routine
then this is one to consider. I think that I’ve been sleeping a little bit easier, falling asleep
easier, since I’ve been using it. And I definitely like waking up with the light in the morning.
So there you go, this is the review of the Hatch Restore. I hope that you found it useful,
if you did and you'd like to buy it, you can find a link in the description below to do so.
And please also subscribe to my YouTube channel to keep in touch and see future videos.
Thanks again, this is Ethan from No Sleepless Nights.