Sunrise Alarm Clock or Light Therapy Lamp: What the Daylight Numbers Say
They solve different problems
A sunrise alarm clock fixes one thing: an alarm that goes off in the dark. A light therapy lamp is about short days overall, used in the morning to make up for daylight you are not getting. Which one makes sense depends on when your days are dark, not just how short they are. Neither is a medical device recommendation; if winter low mood is the reason you are asking, ask a doctor first.
The sunrise alarm case, across the country
With a 7:00 am alarm, the case is strong in 1,325 places, where the sun is still 20+ minutes from rising on 60 or more weekdays; "some" in 769; and little in 1,112. The strong group is mostly towns on the western edge of a time zone, not simply the far north: San Antonio, TX, Dallas, TX, Fort Worth, TX are among the largest. The time zone guide explains why.
The lamp case, across the country
Measured by weekdays that both start and end in the dark, the daylight case for a lamp is strong in 449 places, some in 2,026, and little in 731. It tracks latitude more closely: 410 places have a shortest day under 9 hours. A 1990 survey (Rosen et al.) found winter depression reported by 1.4% of adults in Sarasota FL and 9.7% in Nashua NH; that is an association with latitude across a population, not a prediction for any one person.
If you get up earlier, or later
All of these counts assume a 7:00 am alarm and a 5:30 pm trip home, as set out in the methodology guide. If your hours differ, check your own town's month-by-month sunrise table against your actual alarm: getting up at 6:00 instead of 7:00 adds weeks of dark mornings almost everywhere.