Personally I like a LED “alarm” clock by the bedside, so I can tell what time it is when I wake up in the night, without fumbling for my phone or tablet computer to check. My watch is old school and doesn’t glow-in-0the-dark. Especially nice are the clocks where you can easily turn down the brightness.
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I had a alarm clock when I first started hosting, about the 3rd time I found it in the drawer I just took it out of the cabin. I have had alarm clocks go off in hotel rooms I would not want that for a guest.
But if I found something just right for the kitchen that made no sounds I may get one.
RR
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Oh that’s a good idea – I’ve recently been thinking about this because at the moment the palm tree in the courtyard outside our bedroom is fruiting and so the fruit bats are in the tree chatting very loudly with each other all night long. (Yes, their chatter sounds like screeching.) Plus we also have these frogs that make a sound at night like someone is knocking on your window. All. Night. Long. Since it’s hot, people want to sleep with windows open, but it’s hard to sleep with all the animal racket. And our ceiling fans are D/C so they’re super quiet. Offering the option of a white noise machine sounds like an ideal way of dealing with that. What brand do you use?
This one from Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07RWRJ4XW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
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We don’t have a white noise machine per se, but we have bought Apple Home Pod minis for each room. These are about $80 each and they do a lot. With the Apple Music subscription you can get them to play all kinds of music and pod casts. You can also set a timer and alarms, pose all kinds of questions, use it as an intercom and, yes, play white noise, nature sounds, you name it.
A potential disadvantage to such smart devices is a guest becoming concerned about privacy. Apple has a stronger reputation for protecting privacy but that is a general statement. It’s unclear to me how different, in terms of privacy, an Apple device is from an Alexa device. For more: The privacy risks of smart speakers like Amazon Echo, Apple HomePod, and Google Home - Proton VPN Blog
But I do understand how privacy concerns might discourage such smart devices.
Before we got the Home Pod minis we have, in the bathroom, and still do, this device, which has a wide variety of pleasant sounds and colors, though it’s currently out of stock at Amazon :
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01K5IE6CY/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
But see:
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Thank you for this! I hadn’t come across that before but that awful ticking sound is the primary reason I don’t have clocks in my listings. I’m going to have a look at them.
The other reason is the light they give off. Even a lot of mechanical clocks have glow-in-the-dark hands.
This discussion has been enlightening. I didn’t realize how many people wanted to check the time during the night. The clocks make more sense to me now.
I plug them back in and re-set them before I checkout 
Lol. I guess I don’t get the white noise thing at all. To me, they all either sound like big machines or precariously sleeping on the ground in the jungle. 
Ambient sounds like traffic, neighbors or actual aircraft don’t bother me at all but I won’t buy a fan that isn’t advertised as “noiseless”.
I’m cracking up because we provide sound machines in each bedroom. When we first bought them we wanted to make sure they worked so we tried them out. Guests really seem to love them but at least half of the tracks are called things like “rainforest”, “colorful birds” or “wild horses in a thunderstorm”. They obviously help some people sleep well but I kept waking up thinking I needed to build some kind of a shelter
Oddly, your bats and frogs sound really nice to me. I’m missing summer 
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I can understand missing summer, but you might appreciate winter more if you imagine what it’s like sleeping with this happening right outside your window. All. Night. Long.
It’s adorable, don’t get me wrong, I love flying foxes (I used to rescue and raise orphaned bats). But it’s loud.
Now add this to the soundtrack: imagine there’s a frog perched just outside your window making sounds like a tennis ball hitting the ground. Nonstop, every 2.5 seconds, all night.
I’m kind of amazed that no guest has dinged us on this yet!
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It warms my heart to imagine it! For full disclosure, I don’t have normal feelings about bats. I miss home even more than I miss summer. And I come from an area of Texas that’s known for having the most bats in North America. So there’s a thing about bats.
True, they are terribly noisy little bastards, nonetheless, we put up little houses for them on our trees to attract them to our yards 
Loads of people come to my hometown just for the bats. If I had an Airbnb down there I don’t doubt that I could charge extra if I could get enough bats in the yard. People are crazy for the bats, buying t-shirts and everything.
It’s really kind of funny now that I think about it. And I’m not sure who was in charge of the master-level spinning of our bat situation but, y’know, you may be missing out on an opportunity there with yours. 
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Years ago I was somewhere in rural Brazil.
I heard what I thought was a Caribbean type band playing drums.
It was loud!
Really, like a band.
Turned out it was a group of frogs.
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Ah, you must be talking about Austin TX. Our daughter moved there this past May and really likes it.
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I had guy a few years ago try to give me helpful suggestions. He said I needed a better bathroom fan and a clock. Funny thing is, when he said that, his wife and I together pointed out the Bose clock radio on the shelf. So he changed it to clock with big numerals. 
I didn’t get another clock or another complaint.
Also I’m noticing a big age/tech gap on this amenity.
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@lisanddavid We have these guys where I live.
I’m with you on that one. I know people who have these giant floor fans that sound like a hurricane- don’t know how they can stand it.
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I put one in my Airbnb from the start- guests ALWAYS put it in the bedside drawer. Finally I just let it stay there and added a note that guests could find the clock in the drawer if they needed one. People love the charging station on the bedside table though, I get a lot of positive comments about that gadget.
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You don’t need to know what time it is when you wake up in the night, Ken. If it’s dark out, just go back to sleep. 
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That’s what I’m going to do…leave the LED (non ticking!!) alarm clock in the beside table drawer, along with the sound machine, and put the small IKEA digital clock in the TV area. I didn’t go analog because some people can’t tell time anymore and many people seem to like the clarity of digital…easier to read.
My guests are all happy to see the wireless station that charges phone, ear buds and watch on the bedside table. I get a little “ooooh” everytime.
Is that only for apple?
Is this true? You’re the second person who has said it. It’s a bit alarming, no pun intended, to me. We use a clock drawing test (where we ask you to draw the face of the clock and then we ask you to draw the hands to show specific times on it) when testing for cognitive issues, visual-spatial issues and dementia. Unless we test and record a baseline on these kids when they’re young, they’re all going to test positive for dementia later
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Yes. This was true when I was teaching high school back in 2015 too; I’m not sure when “anymore” starts.
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