Unique 185 Hours Battery Time, Reecom R-1650D S.A.M.E Weather Radio/AM/FM

I bought this product in 2018 and it's still going great 5 years later. This is a fantastic bedroom radio. You can mute alert categories you don't care about, control the volume for the alert categories you do want, and the backlight has an auto-shutoff so you don't have something glowing while you're trying to sleep.Best features:- MUTE ALERTS BY CATEGORY! This is the BEST feature. I live in the midwest. If the radio went off for severe thunderstorms or flash flood warnings in the spring, I'd never get any sleep. But I absolutely do want to be woken if there's a tornado warning. I love that I can mute alerts by category. This feature is the deal-breaker for me.- Control the volume of the alert sound. I have this set so that it's loud enough to wake me, but not loud enough to give me a heart attack.- Voice alerts. It plays the alert tone for only a few seconds, then turns the radio on to the weather station so I can hear what the emergency message is. (You can set it to only the alert tone and no radio, but why would you want to do that?)- Alert auto shut-off. After the alert turns the radio on, it stays on until the end-of-message signal and then turns off the radio. This means my upstairs neighbors don't have to listen to the radio all weekend if I happen to be out of town.- Backlight auto shut-off. It lights up when there's an alert or when you press any button, then turns back off again. Because nobody needs something glowing all night. (Or if I'm wrong and you want the light, it is a setting you can change.)Meh features:- The user interface is about as friendly as a 1990s alarm clock. Setup was straightforward, but I absolutely needed to read the manual. After I learned the basic functions, I haven't needed the manual again because everything except programming the county codes is something I can figure out on my own.- It needs non-rechargeable batteries. It will show a low battery warning for rechargeable ones. I don't understand the physics of it, but I know this is a common problem with some kinds of electronics. Something to do with the voltage or something, I'm not sure. Just save yourself the headache of the low battery warning that won't go away by giving it Duracell or Energizer. As long as it's plugged in, it won't drain the batteries, so you won't need to replace them often anyway.- It's also an AM/FM radio alarm clock, if you like that sort of thing. I appreciate that I could listen to AM/FM radio in an emergency, I suppose, but I never use it under ordinary conditions because I don't like the amount of advertising on broadcast radio.

I have had this alert radio for 3 or 4 months and I have nothing but good things to say about it. The radio shipped directly from Reecom and it arrived within 2 days of ordering it through Amazon. The radio was pretty easy to program, so if you have an average understanding of how electronic gadgets work, it's pretty user friendly. There are a couple of things someone considering a purchase should know about this radio:1) SAME technology: This radio has SAME capability, which allows you to program a code number that is assigned to your county by NOAA. The code number is encoded into the alert message. You must look up the SAME code for your county through NOAA's website or by contacting them in your area. For this to work properly, your area must use SAME technology and you must have clear reception for the NOAA weather radio station that services your area. If you don't, SAME won't work. I programmed in our county and those immediately to the west of us so we can be alerted about bad storms ahead of time. So far, I have gotten all alerts and I am not aware of any missed alerts.2) End-of-Message cutoff: This radio automatically cuts off after an emergency alert message. This is a great feature since most other radios have a time setting that lasts several minutes after the emergency message is over. There is a manual capability that will allow you to listen to NOAA Weather Radio if you want.3) AM/FM: We live in a large city and this radio gets very acceptable reception from FM stations. I can only receive 1 or 2 AM stations, but I honestly don't know if there are any more than that in our city. I decided it was worth the extra cash to get the Reecom model with FM radio so the unit would allow me to listen to local radio stations in the case of an emergency in addition to the NOAA stations. With several presets, it makes switching between channels very simple.4) Alert selections: This radio allows you to set what type of alerts will set off the alarm and turn on the radio broadcast. It's simply amazing how many different alerts are possible, most of which don't apply to our area. However, it is nice to have that feature since one never knows where they will live or visit. Even if you don't have the radio set off the alarm, the display has lights that flash to let you know an alert is in effect for your area. It also lists the type of alert and the time remaining in the alert. The alert tone is loud, but can be adjusted as well. We keep the radio in a central part of our small home and have the alert tone on a lower setting. It is plenty loud enough to hear over whatever is going on during the day and would definitely wake me up at night.5) Power supply: This radio comes with an AC wall plug and also works off of AA batteries. Many folks try to gather emergency gear that all work off of AA batteries, so this is a great feature. It also allows you to have emergency alert and radio contact when the power goes out. One could also invest in a solar battery charger and some rechargeable AA batteries and be in excellent shape in a real disaster.As far as the look of the unit, it won't win any awards for its attractiveness. It's a very utilitarian piece, which is fine, but it won't look nice sitting on your living room shelf. It's about the size of a cigar box. The construction is acceptable for what its intended purpose is, which is to be a radio for home use. It is not intended to be used for any sort of rugged use, and my suspicion is that it would not hold up very well to very rough use or abuse. Overall, I am very pleased with this radio and I am glad I spent the extra money over other popular models out there. I fully believe my family's safety is well worth the $60 price tag.