How to set up a Gro Clock (and what to do when it won't reset)

It is 9pm, the little blue screen is glowing, and the instruction leaflet feels longer than bedtime itself.

This guide covers the classic button-operated Gro Clock from The Gro Company, now sold under Tommee Tippee, the mains-adapter model described in the manufacturer’s own printed manual. The steps below follow that manual in plainer order. Newer USB-powered versions and the separate Wi-Fi Connected version exist, but they are not covered step by step here. Check what shipped in your box first. Most “won’t reset” worries turn out to be one of three specific, fixable things, not a broken unit.

Setting it up, step by step

A quick orientation helps, because this is where most people get stuck. The classic clock has just three buttons — UP, DOWN and ENTER. From the normal digital-clock display, DOWN cycles through the night screen, nap screen and settings screen (where all the icons flash). ENTER opens the settings menu: clock for the current time, star for night-time wake-up, sun for day-time nap, bell for the audible alarm, bulb for brightness. One parent, writing about her own setup, called it “quite overly confusing, even with only 3 buttons” — a common complaint, not an exaggeration. The fiddliness is real; it is not you.

All steps below come from the Gro Company’s printed instructions, restated in the order you actually need them.

1. Plug it in with its own adapter. The classic model runs on its mains adapter, listed at 230V/50Hz with a 6V/200mA output. There is no battery backup for the time in this version, so choose the shelf or dresser where it will live and leave it plugged in.

Place it where your child can see it from bed but cannot reach it after lights-out, on a stable surface outside the cot or bed, never under bedding. Keep the cable and power unit well away from the sleeping area. An adult should do the setup; the manufacturer describes the clock as not a toy, to be kept out of reach of children under 3, with the power unit and lead never left for a child to play with.

2. Set the clock time. From the digital-clock display, press DOWN until all the settings icons flash, then ENTER. The clock icon flashes first; press ENTER again. Set the hours and minutes with UP and DOWN, confirming each with ENTER. Follow the prompts for AM/PM and whether to show the digital time at night. When all the icons flash again, press DOWN to return to the digital-clock display.

3. Set the night-time wake-up. From the digital-clock display, go to the flashing-icons settings screen and press ENTER. Press DOWN once to the star icon, then ENTER. Set the morning wake-up hour, minute and AM/PM, confirming each with ENTER. This is the “stay until the sun” time. Return to the digital-clock display before the next setting.

4. Set the nap wake-up, if you use it. Start again from the digital-clock display: go to settings, press ENTER, then DOWN twice to the sun icon and ENTER. Set the nap wake-up hour, minute and AM/PM in the same way, or leave it unset if you only use the clock overnight. Return to the digital-clock display.

5. Add the audible alarm only if you need it. From the digital-clock display, go to settings, press ENTER, then DOWN three times to the bell icon and ENTER. Set its time and choose ON with UP or DOWN, confirming with ENTER. The beep is an extra; skip it if you would rather rely on the colour cues alone.

6. Switch the mode on each night. This is the “faff” part other parents mention: you still need to tell the clock you are starting sleep. From the digital-clock display, press DOWN to the night-time sleep screen (large sun with a small flashing star), then ENTER to activate it. For a nap, choose the next top-level day-time nap screen (small flashing sun) and press ENTER. These are mode screens, separate from the star and sun settings icons. Lock the buttons afterwards if your model has the key-lock, so little fingers cannot undo it.

7. Preview it with demo mode. Press and hold UP for about three seconds and the clock runs through all its colour changes on a loop, so you can see the sequence without waiting overnight.

How you know it worked: when you activate night mode, blue stars show on the face and disappear through the night. As the manual puts it, as soon as the last star goes out the clock runs through its colour-changing sunrise to say it is time to get up.

Is it actually broken? Three things to check

This is the manufacturer’s own troubleshooting, gathered from different pages of the same manual into one place. We have not tested a unit ourselves; this is what the documentation says to do.

1. The screen is frozen and the buttons do nothing. Switch the clock off at the mains, wait a few seconds and switch it back on. That power-cycle is the documented fix for a frozen display. It does not mean you set it wrong.

2. It suddenly misbehaves for no obvious reason. The manual names electrostatic discharge as a separate cause that can affect how the clock works. The fix is the same — switch it off for several seconds and it will re-set — but the cause matters. It is static interference, not damage, and not a sign the unit is faulty.

3. The time is wrong after the power went off. A brief outage just pauses everything. A longer one shifts the time by the length of the outage (the manual’s own example is that three hours without power leaves the time three hours out), and the clock does not catch up on its own. Re-enter the clock time from Step 2 above, then check your wake-up times are still as you left them. This is normal behaviour for this mains-only design, not a fault.

If the display stays blank, the buttons never respond after a power-cycle, or the times will not save at all, none of those three fixes apply, and it may genuinely be beyond a home fix. There is no hidden reset button beyond the steps above, so do not keep pressing combinations in hope.

Or is it the routine, not the clock?

Sometimes the clock is working and the morning still feels hard. Sleep consultant Erin Junker names four common behavioural reasons a wake-up clock “doesn’t work”: starting before a child can hold the rule overnight, teaching only the morning half and skipping the bedtime half, letting room play happen before the sun appears, and setting a boundary with no follow-through attached.

That is practitioner opinion, not a measurement, and it is a different question from a frozen screen. Her practical fix is to teach both halves: stars mean stay cosy and quiet, sun means get up. Keep the wake time realistic to start with, and attach a small, calm consequence that already matters to your child.

If you are still deciding whether a colour-cue clock suits your family at all, or wondering about readiness, we have covered that separately in whether ok-to-wake clocks work. It is fine to rule this category out — a clock that adds nightly faff has not earned its place.

If you are starting over

If your Gro Clock is genuinely unfixable and you would like a different colour-cue clock rather than another Gro Clock, our alarm clocks collection gathers calmer alternatives made for real routines.

References

1. The Gro Company — How to use your groclock, instruction manual for 910/3348 (PDF via Argos Support) — button sequences for clock time, night and nap wake-up times, alarm, demo mode and key-lock; frozen-screen, power-loss and electrostatic-discharge fixes; mains-adapter specification and “not a toy” caution.
2. Becca Farrelly — Gro-Clock Review: Teaching Your Child to Stay in Bed — first-hand UK account of the instructions feeling confusing, mains-only power, and the lock only working once sleep times are set.
3. Erin Junker, The Happy Sleep Company — How to succeed with the “Wake Up Clock” — practitioner view on four behavioural reasons a working clock still “doesn’t work.”