September 8th, 2009
Catch some Zs with the Zeo personal sleep coach
Labor Day is over, which means the end of long weekends. If the thought of being back to the 9-to-5 grind is making it hard to sleep at night, then maybe the Zeo personal sleep coach can whip you back into snooze-shape, and help you get back to restful slumber.
The Zeo analyzes your sleep patterns to figure out what habits or behaviors are either making it harder to get a good night’s sleep, or, on the other hand, is helping to make your sleep more enjoyable. It comes with a headband which you wear at night, and a bedside display.
I have yet to try the device, but the basic gist of it is that you wear the headband each night. The headband uses Zeo’s SoftWave sensor technology to measure your sleep patterns through electrical signals. Then, as you pass through different levels of sleep from lighter to deeper and then back to lighter, the headband tracks your patterns.
The bedside display inputs the data from your last night’s sleep and stores it up to two weeks for you to view your data. After you wake up, you can see your personal sleep score, called your “ZQ”,” and shows you a graph of your light, deep, and REM sleep throughout the night. There’s also a SmartWake alarm feature which looks for a “natural awakening point” based on your sleep patterns, which is supposed to decrease that groggy feeling you get when you wake up from a deep sleep. The alarm finds a time within a half hour of your set time, so you don’t have to worry about waking up late.
The bedside display has an SD card that fits into a USB adapter so that you can upload your sleep information to the personal coaching Web site.
If you have trouble sleeping, the Zeo may be worth checking into before you head for the Ambien bottle. The downside of the device is its high price of $399.
Check out the Web site for more details.
Jennifer R. Bergen is a journalist and blogger living in New York City. See her full profile and disclosure of her industry affiliations.
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