Battleangel

I noticed that Gizmodo (and here) was raving on about the SleepTracker again so I had to make a note of it.

How does SLEEPTRACKER work?
SLEEPTRACKER continuously monitors signals from your body that indicate whether you are asleep or awake. Because you wear SLEEPTRACKER on your wrist like a watch, its internal sensors can detect even the most subtle physical signals from your body. SLEEPTRACKER finds your best waking moments, so that waking up has never been easier.

What is an “almost-awake” moment?
Almost-awake moments occur throughout a night’s sleep. Sometimes an almost-awake moment is triggered by an outside influence like a loud noise or a dog jumping on the bed, but usually these moments happen around REM sleep. When you are almost awake, you may move around, or sit up to look at the clock, but then you usually drift quickly back to sleep. You probably won’t even remember having been awake. Almost-awake moments are very brief, usually lasting less than 20 seconds.

What is SLEEPTRACKER monitoring?
SLEEPTRACKER looks for and records brief periods of movement that are associated with almost awake moments or very light stages of sleep.

Source: Sleeptracker.com

There is also another product in the works called the SleepSmart, which fits around your head and measures EEG. But the idea of monitoring sleep cycles is the same.

It doesn’t take a brilliant neurologist to tell you that waking up from a deep sleep isn’t the best at either staving off grogginess or beating back grumpiness—enter the SleepSmart, a prototype alarm clock that monitors your REM sleep phases via a headband you wear when you sleep (we’re totally hoping the gear is as right), and only wakes you up during a lighter, off-REM point in your sleep cycle. With that out of the way we know nothing much can be done about bedhead, but is it too late to put in a feature request to make sure we don’t wake up in a puddle of drool?

Source: Engadget

Newscientist and several other publications also reported on this.

All in all I’d love to get my hands on something like this. Even if the science behind it is not new exactly, it’s another piece in the puzzle of bridging man and technology. Something that will one day let us control and monitor our physiology to perfection. Sceptics will say that a SleepTracker is redundant, and it is, if you don’t have something to do and can sleep in all morning until you feel like getting out of bed. And then there are those that are so used to their daily routines, which remain a constant, that they have no need for a tracker. But for the rest of us, this slightly augmented reality is a positive thing.