In the comments to a post I wrote about various devices designed to get you out of bed in the morning, Tim May directed my attention to the Sleeptracker Alarm Watch.
The SLEEPTRACKER watch is unique in that while it tells you the time and has a built-in alarm like every other digital watch, this one actually monitors your sleep and wakes you at the moment that your body would best adjust from moving from a sleeping state to being awake.
I didn’t post it at the time because I couldn’t figure out how it was supposed to work; however, today Tim May posted a followup comment in which he elaborates:
There’s an interview with the inventor of the Sleeptracker here. Turns out the sensory side of it’s simpler than you might expect — it just detects motion. I can imagine that working (although it’s not obvious that it would) and it’s certainly a lot simpler than somehow getting an [EEG] through someone’s wrist.
That sounds great, and the reviews seem to indicate that it works as advertised. Tim points out that there is also a group of students at Brown University are working on an EEG that you can wear to sleep.
I am like many other people who no longer wear a wristwatch now that I always carry a cell phone, so I’m not sure I could get in the habit of wearing one to sleep at night, but I can imagine this being great for afternoon naps, where I always worry about oversleeping and ending up feeling groggy the rest of the day. Assuming I can find the damn thing and put it on before I fall asleep!
