Tag: sleep tracking

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Connected Objects Sleep

Aladdin will show you a whole new world of lucid dreaming

The elusiveness of dreaming has long puzzled humans for thousands of years. It’s known to be essential, but why has yet to be figured out. What’s more, the phenomenon known as lucid dreaming, where people report being active in the dreams, has seen more and more mainstream coverage.

Lucid dreaming is powerful because it can offer people something nothing else can: anything — think VR to the nth degree. And not just for fun, but with very real psychological benefits as well. That’s why the Aladdin lucid dreaming band is interesting. It uses EEG technology to apply a gentle electrical current to the prefrontal cortex (the part of the mind responsible for reasoning that’s usually dormant during sleep) to allow users to gain agency in the dream.

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Connected Objects Sleep

Mooring connected mattress pad gets you through the night to a more comfy morning

Most take for granted how easy it is to drift off but sometimes it’s harder than sleeping on a log. When considering the complicated, intricate dance of the many factors involved to do so — temperature, comfort, positioning, to name a few — it’s easy to see how so many people are affected by trouble sleeping.

The Shanghai team at Mirahome wants to help with its Mooring, a smart sleep system that uses predictive learning technology to optimize sleep cycles and improve sleep quality. Mooring takes the form of a 100% polyester, ultralight thermal mattress pad equipped with technology that enables it to monitor things like heart rate, breathing rate, and movement to generate sleep profiles over time.

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Connected Objects Sleep

Spritely connected alarm system enforces “Ya snooze, ya lose.”

Sometimes it’s just one of those days where even getting out of bed looms as a huge challenge. And by this point, it’s well known that none of the most commonplace smart devices in people’s lives really help that much. If it has a snooze button, it pretty much means the person still wrapped in their cozy comforter is not going anywhere.

Enter Spritely, the dual sleep tracker and alarm designed to help users achieve better rest and wake up on time. By placing it under a bed between the mattress and boxspring, Spritely is able to track and monitor sleep and send insights and personalized tips straight to a Bluetooth-connected iOS or Android device. And when morning strikes, Spritely wakes users up during their lightest sleep using their own Spotify, Soundcloud, or personal music libraries.

There’s no escape, either. With backup power installed, nothing will make its alarm shut off outside of staying out of bed. A bold proposal, sure, but one that’s designed to nab the determined napper. Spritely is going for $99, 17% off its eventual MSRP, and is expected to ship in December of 2016. Its campaign is looking for $100,000 by February 29th, 2016.

It’s clear: snooze is the enemy. While the ThinkPillow boasts similar sleep-tracking and body position monitoring capabilities and the feature-heavy Beddi wakes users up with similar music library integration, they both ultimately still let users press the snooze button. In contrast. Spritely is a smart decision for chronic oversleepers. Let’s see if it rises (and shines) to the occasion.

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Sleep Wearables

Oura ring puts a finger on how your sleep affects your day

Since the success of Fitbit, there’s been an endless parade of activity trackers offered through crowdfunding platforms and via traditional channels.

While many of these either treat sleep monitoring as a secondary feature or focus exclusively on the sleep experience, the Oura ring starts with sleep experience monitoring as a foundation for determining optimum activity levels. The ceramic scratch-resistant finger adornment gets an impressive three days of battery life from its tiny battery and charges in about an hour.

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Sleep Wearables

BodyEcho head band tracks vital signs to improve sleep tracking

Some estimates peg the number of Americans who experience problems sleeping at 70 million, although most would agree the number is even higher than that. Unfortunately, having trouble sleeping isn’t considered much of a problem at all and if someone decides to do something about it, the most effective technology to help is stuck in impractical and expensive sleep laboratories.

OxiRate Inc. is looking to take that technology out of the laboratory and onto your head with their BodyEcho sleep system. The system is comprised of a headband that houses a removable, quarter-sized chip almost impossibly packed with heart rate, temperature, and respiratory sensors, along with an accelerometer and an oximeter.

With the oximeter at its core, the combination of technologies allows the BodyEcho to track things like your sleep stages, sleeping positions, and breathing interruptions with increased accuracy. The data gathered can then be reviewed on a Web portal or a smartphone application so that a user can take a more active role in their sleep. An SDK in development will expand on the device’s capabilities too, so look out for those lucid dreaming applications. OxiRate Inc. is looking for $100,000 to finalize BodyEcho, and interested backers can pick one up for $100.

BodyEcho is interested in being the best possible at one thing: sleep tracking. By offering so much technology in a small package, the company is letting everyone else make it something more with the SDK. It seem like everything created with it will be a touch inventive and versatile than other headbands strictly for lucid dreaming, like the DreamNet or the Aurora. Its included oximeter is the star of the show with its ability to provide the refined data only a sleep lab can offer, but its effectiveness ultimately remains to be seen.