WakeMate review

http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/21/wakemate-review/

by shawndumas • 16 years ago

136 96 16 years ago

beefman• 16 years ago

Please fix the 'must set alarm' thing! I got one of these for my wife for Christmas. For some reason I assumed it had a vibration alarm, but that's no big deal since she'll mainly be interested in the analytics. But we definitely can't have any chance of an audio alarm going off around her wake time.

gnemeth4• 16 years ago

We do support a vibration alarm on the phone and if you only want to use the analytics you can just set an alarm for the middle of the day as a fix until we release the analytics only fix.

sgoraya• 16 years ago

> ...there's the obvious question of what the heck do you do with all this data? If you have a crummy night sleeping you're going to wake up and have a bunch of graphs and charts that basically say "Yup, you sure had a crummy night." You can apply tags to the data, things like "cat scratch" or "creepy owl outside window" to help you figure out why your evenings aren't as restful as they should be. But, really, wouldn't a pen and piece of paper achieve much the same thing?

I was about to pre-order a wakemate several months ago, but I had the same lingering thoughts above and canceled my order;

> There are a lot of people asking in comments whether the thing managed to make us feel more refreshed when waking up, and the simple answer is no. That's because, more often than not, the battery was dead by the morning or for some other reason the wristband failed to trigger the alarm.

Considering the wakemate had several delays prior to launch, looks like they should have let it bake a little longer...

latortuga• 16 years ago

Interesting review. This is the first negative review I've read of this device; I'm surprised considering the thread that was up this past weekend was incredibly positive, with beta testers giving glowing reviews. Has anybody else had issues with the battery? With the app crashing? These seem like things that would be found in beta testing and would be pretty obvious.

Reference link: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2020811

Edit: fixed the link

garbowza• 16 years ago

I've been beta testing the WakeMate for a couple months.

The battery lasts about 2 nights, and knowing this, I recharge it every night. Since doing so, it hasn't run out of batteries during the night.

The app crashed a lot initially (I'm on Android), but that was months back and the WakeMate guys were good about using the feedback data I sent to fix the bugs. It hasn't crashed for me in weeks, since I installed their latest version.

Edit: I meant I recharge the wristband every other night, not every night.

jlgosse4• 16 years ago

Thanks for posting this. I'm glad you've had a great experience so far, and I'm glad you still use the device as much as you do. You're probably our best beta tester! :)

plusbryan• 16 years ago

Agreed. This honestly seems like my experience with the early beta, which did seem pretty buggy. The production version has fixed a lot of these issues, so I'm a little surprised that this version would exhibit some of these same issues. That's too bad.

duck• 16 years ago

This shows one problem with "random" beta testers, in the fact they might not be that random and actually want to see the device succeed and thus their feedback is biased.

hueykablooey• 16 years ago

I would assume that any user interested in a product would want to see the device succeed. In fact I would say that if a user didn't want a product to succeed they wouldn't put the time in to help debug it, no?

gnemeth4• 16 years ago

The review unit that engadget was given was a beta unit. We made the reviewer aware of this and unfortunately he didn't cut us any slack.

As he mentioned we fixed the bugs that we was experiencing. Also we should not that he was using an Android unit, which was the most buggy of all the platforms. The UX on the iPhone and Blackberry for review units, was much more stable.

rufo• 16 years ago

So is the estimated and/or actual battery life better in the shipping units? That seemed to be his main complaint, and that complaint seems like it would apply equally to both iPhone and Android WakeMates.

gnemeth4• 16 years ago

We have worked quite a bit on battery life and will continue to. Right now you can use the WakeMate for 2 solid nights and then you will need to recharge.

The issue with battery estimation occurs when you do not fully charge the unit (as we indicated to him) and we are currently working on improving the estimation even further.

weaksauce• 16 years ago

Has the battery life indication been improved since the demo units? I know lithium ion battery life estimation is hard but I am curious if you have made any improvements since then. My work android phone crashes all the time and so I empathize with you for having to program for it. My personal iPhone is much more stable and I would imagine that it would be roughly the same for your app.

MichaelApproved2• 16 years ago

You waited all this time to ship the product but then you sent a very buggy beta unit to a reviewer and allowed him to review it with the worst platform?

You couldn't wait a bit to send a final version?

jlgosse4• 16 years ago

I would think that Android is a lot better than the BlackBerry, but mostly because I've spent time developing and sleeping with both. The BlackBerry is a serious pain in the ass to develop for, so it has been tough.

TimStevens4• 16 years ago

Hate to do this here, Greg, but...

I specifically asked whether devices were shipping to customers and you indicated that they were, at the same time that you sent me a replacement WakeMate unit. If this is not final hardware I reviewed then what is being sent to consumers?

Secondly, you never expressed any concerns about my testing on Android and I was quite clear with you about the issues I was having, and even delayed the review so that I could use a more recent version of the software.

Finally, when you contacted me and offered me a WakeMate in the first place the subject was "WakeMate review unit" and inside that e-mail you repeatedly used the word "review."

I'm sorry, but I can't cut any slack on a reviewable product that is shipping to customers.

I'd also ask that if you have further concerns you contact me directly rather than posting here.

Sincerely,

-tim stevens (dude who wrote the review)

edw519• 16 years ago

This reminds me of one of my favorite movie scenes, from "Annie Hall" when Woody Allen's character has a disagreement with a man in the line for a movie:

MAN IN LINE: It's the influence of television. Yeah, now Marshall McLuhan deals with it in terms of it being a-a high, uh, high intensity, you understand? A hot medium ... as opposed to a ...

ALVY (More and more aggravated): What I wouldn't give for a large sock o' horse manure.

MAN IN LINE: ... as opposed to a print ...

Alvy steps forward, waving his hands in frustration, and stands facing the camera.

ALVY (Sighing and addressing the audience): What do you do when you get stuck in a movie line with a guy like this behind you? I mean, it's just maddening!

MAN IN LINE: Wait a minute! Really? Really? I happen to teach a class at Columbia called "TV Media and Culture"! So I think that my insights into Mr. McLuhan-well, have a great deal of validity.

ALVY: Oh, do yuh?

MAN IN LINE: Yes.

ALVY: Well, that's funny, because I happen to have Mr. McLuhan right here. So ... so, here, just let me-I mean, all right. Come over here ... a second.

Alvy gestures to the camera which follows him and the man in line to the back of the crowded lobby. He moves over to a large stand-up movie poster and pulls Marshall McLuhan from behind the poster.

MAN IN LINE: Oh.

ALVY (To McLuhan): Tell him.

MCLUHAN (To the man in line): I hear-I heard what you were saying. You-you know nothing of my work. You mean my whole fallacy is wrong. How you ever got to teach a course in anything is totally amazing.

ALVY (To the camera): Boy, if life were only like this!

[Alvy, fast forward to 2010 and Hacker News. It is now.]

(I don't mean for this comment to judge either person's opinion, just that I find it so interesting that you never know who's going to drop by Hacker News and join the discussion.)

gnemeth4• 16 years ago

Tim - sorry for any confusion - lets finish this discussion offline.

sdoowpilihp• 16 years ago

There is a lesson to learn somewhere in all of this.

jamesaguilar2• 16 years ago

I don't understand why you would send a unit you weren't happy with to a reviewer. If you knew the unit was buggy, unless you wanted a bad review, why send it out at all?

levirosol• 16 years ago

You can review the down hill roller coaster for yourself with a quick google search, but the summary is "just two more weeks! we're so sure it will only be two more weeks!" for the last 9 months (giving them a 4 month buffer since that's what was originally promised).

Now we top it off by chastising a reviewer in public?

Really?

brown9-22• 16 years ago

Would you guys care to elaborate on some point in the future just what it was about the Android platform that let to your app being the "buggiest" on it of the three?

Your experience might contain some good tips or lessons learned for other Android developers.

jlgosse4• 16 years ago

I disagree with Greg 100% on that statement. It has been a real pain working with the Android bluetooth APIs, but the same can be said for the BlackBerry APIs as well. They work great for something that is persistently connected, but since we don't actually stay connected all night, managing the bluetooth connection can get messy very quickly.

In my experience (since I developed the entire BlackBerry app, and did a lot of work on making the Android app a lot more stable than it was), the apps are working great right now, and they get better every day or two. I mean, I push updates to the app VERY often, and our users have no problems with it, besides the occasional bug, which I generally fix in the following hours.

My only real comment on the matter is that writing code that works well with Bluetooth is REALLY hard, so if you can keep a persistent connection when the app is open, try to go that route.

livando• 16 years ago

Fair review, but I'm still pumped for mine to arrive. I don't mind supporting smart people trying to innovate, and I'm betting the app will be getting better all the time.

bloggergirl• 16 years ago

I totally agree. WakeMate is way more cost-effective a solution than any of its competitors... And the 'personal sleep analytics' (or whatever) could really help busy people make better sense of the practical ways to improve their sleep habits.

As with all cool things -- esp. cool startups -- a little patience can help. Greg and the WakeMate crew will surely continue to innovate and improve.

One so-so review is exactly that: one review. Plenty of other reviews to come.

invisible3• 16 years ago

I'm not saying negativity is something bad, but this guy just seems spiteful. It's a brand new product and this guy probably doesn't even need the benefit of it waking him up at a good time. He complained (sorry, repeatedly complained 20 times) about the battery, but despite knowing it only lasts 2 days he refused to charge it after 2 days. I don't get that all.

jamesaguilar2• 16 years ago

The battery bit I am with you. I don't understand for example why people complain that smartphones need to be charged every day. It's not that much of an inconvenience. Please, just plug in your phone.

On the other hand, a product's being new does not entitle it to soft treatment in a review. Even without the battery issue, it sounds like this device is not ready for prime time.

invisible3• 16 years ago

I think you're right except if you look at his review, half of his points deal with the battery not lasting 3 days. All of the other points had to deal with the app crashing when he said "I'm awake early." I doubt this applies to all phones too (even different Android phones). This also means the app/software can be improved.

  "The score is based on the failures of this thing to operate, not questions relating to data relevance or actual ability to improve sleep cycles."

Where is the actual review of, "OK, so I recharged it every night, it woke me up before my alarm, and it did/didn't work." This review is useless for that.

syaz1• 16 years ago

So very true, I'm annoyed how people always compare their lower-power phones with my HTC Desire (and previous android phones). They said they can last 3-5 days without charging and I need to charge everyday. Unless you sleep every 3-4 days, charge it when you sleep, d-uh.

boreacrat• 16 years ago

I thought this was a gadget to help you wake up at the ideal time? Seems the author of the review didn't leave this much thought and didn't write about it before commenters asked for it.

I agree with the reviewers scepticism towards the usefulness of the statistics, but I am interested in buying this to make my mornings better, not analyzing my sleeping patterns.

citricsquid• 16 years ago

Exactly, it read like the reviewer thought it was an alarm clock...

sbisker• 16 years ago

Setting user expectation is a design problem that can't just be brushed away if there is any desire in this thing going mainstream. The user will come into the device with misconceptions - it's up to the designer to manage those misconceptions and help the user through any such "user errors" gracefully. A key teaching of service design is that often it's just as appreciated - if not moreso - to guide the user through any issues gracefully, than to not let the mistakes happen at all.

Perhaps this review was just a fluke. And yes, it's a V1 - at least as far as feedback from the real world goes. But to me, a lot of the things that surprised him (that having a partner would influence the readings negatively, for instance) also surprised me. I would be hesitant to give something like this as a gift to a "mainstream" person (a "normie", if you will) right now - just because I would worry that WakeMate's manual/interface/whatever isn't yet ready to help my friend through any misconceptions they might have.

pdx• 16 years ago

If you want a software only solution, I have been using the GentleAlarm App on my Android.

It rings very, very softly (user configurable for how long), and gradually ramps up it's volume.

This achieves the exact same objective of optimal wake time. If I'm sleeping soundly, then I don't wake up until it ramps up quite a lot, but if I'm already awake or just starting to wake up, I hear it quickly.

rodh2572• 16 years ago

Pretty average review really, spent the whole time talking about a few bugs which are no doubt being sorted out. Fair enough they are warning that it is buggy but surely they could have worked around them and talked about the actual main purpose of the device in more depth, which is, waking you up at the optimal time. He basically got frustrated and didn't test that properly.

In a couple of weeks/months when those specific bugs are sorted out this review will be absolutely worthless. I look forward to seeing a review based on how someone felt after having it wake you each morning for a while.

nroach• 16 years ago

If the product doesn't work and perform its intended task, then what's the point of reviewing the feature bullets?

I know that personally there's nothing as disappointing as reading glowing reviews of a product's potential, only to find that I a paid good money for what should have been a pre-release product. Sure, as a developer there's always a push to just ship it and get some "traction" but the flip side of that is that doing so risks alienating customers (and reviewers).

If I'm a customer looking to make a purchase, what you're implying is that "in a couple of weeks/months when those specific bugs are sorted out this [product] will [no longer] be absolutely worthless." Is that really the standard customers should expect?

It's nice to see a reviewer as a customer advocate occasionally rather than just recite the bullet points of a press release.

Havoc• 16 years ago

The theory is pretty sound imo:

REM atonia, a state in which the motor neurons are not stimulated and thus the body's muscles do not move. [From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REM_atonia#Physiology]

rodh2572• 16 years ago

I agree that Wakemate shouldn't have given them a beta unit and should have made sure things were up and running well before getting them to review it. In fact, given that there is a ton of pre-orders lined up, why even bother getting them to review it yet? You've had people waiting for a year to buy it, surely that will keep you busy for the first few weeks? Then you can drum up some more coverage.

My dissapointment mainly is that I want to know if the whole concept actually worked, did he wake up feeling refreshed? All they seemed to do was harp on about the battery life. The only health comment was the snide remark about high blood pressure, which raised alarm bells until I realized it was a joke. They could have charged it just before bed and given us a review of its main functionality and then said don't buy it at the moment as its full of bugs, but the concept works. In the comments he said he usually got 2/3 days battery life out of it.

And this is just stupid: "The other big problem? Sometimes it's nice to wake up early and just lie all cozy in bed, dozing lightly and knowing there's a big world out there full of cold air, comforted by having 14 whole minutes left before your stupid alarm goes off and you have to put warm feet to frigid floor. " A big problem with the device is that you want to snuggle up and feel good about not having to get out of bed soon?

crocowhile• 16 years ago

>talked about the actual main purpose of the device in more depth, >which is, waking you up at the optimal time.

I would not trust a reviewer of a gadget site about that. I would not trust any reviewer in fact. This is a claim on people health and well-being and if you want to be serious about that you better try to publish some study with data rather than anecdotes.

cmos• 16 years ago

Making small portable things with long power life can be difficult. Making money selling small volumes of custom hardware is even more tough.

Why not make a sensor that clip onto your pillow? Then they could be powered by a wall socket, or at the very least have a large battery once you take the necessity of size and weight out of the equation.

cma• 16 years ago

Given their history, I wouldn't trust anything from these guys that makes contact with my skin and plugs into a wall. Hell, I'd be a little worried about anything from them with a lithium battery, which could cause some major burns.

Deadsunrise• 16 years ago

I was waiting for reviews of the wakemate but now I think I'm getting a Zeo. At least it will know when I'm awake and not my girlfriend.

Logging just the movement of the wrist is almost useless. It's better to properly monitor the different phases of sleep trough the night measuring brain activity.

invisible3• 16 years ago

So you made the jump from a $60 product to a $200 product based on one review? I'm not certain either way, but if you can wait I'd wait for a few real reviews that are in-depth.

sp4rki4• 16 years ago

So this is basically a review of the battery life... The reviewer was basically too busy to charge the device every couple of days and then complains that the device runs out of juice? It's like he wanted the gadget to fail so he could write a review chastising it. Even worse is the fact that the little it did focus on the actual usage, was complaining about how he doesn't know what to do with the analytics' data.

Would it have been such a hard thing to do to charge the device once a day (as he probably already does with his phone) and report on the actual point of the device? We want to know if it wakes you up at the right moment, not if the analytics are useless for you and that you forget to charge gadgets.

andrewljohnson• 16 years ago

The reviewer posted that the device reported 11-12 hours of charge, and then it died.

That doesn't sound like user error to me.

sp4rki4• 16 years ago

The Wakemate website states that the device's battery lasts 2 to 3 days depending on your sleeping patterns. Battery estimates are bound to usage in every device from the Wakemate to your laptop. The reviewer realized that for him, the device lasts two days before needing a charge, and even then kept using it for the three days. As I already said, if you realize that your smartphone only lasts two days with your usage (even though the manufacturer might say that it can last up to three), it would be stupid to keep trying to use it for three days.

It's user error to rely on estimates of 11 or 12 hours when you discover that you drain the battery faster than said estimates.

silencio• 16 years ago

I don't know about you, but everything the reviewer addressed was important to me.

Battery life being too short or being misreported means the device won't consistently work to wake me up, which kind of defeats the purpose of having something like the wakemate.

Not being able to associate my sleep data/patterns with events I know occurred during my sleep means that data is next to useless to me. I've used devices like this before to improve my sleep as well as to wake me up on time every day. If I didn't have a diary and good analytics for what I did use (which honestly, I haven't found yet so I'm rolling my own to use with an iPhone alarm clock-type app...if someone would come in and fix this problem and roll it into a nice device I'd be all over their product), I wouldn't have known a lot of information about my habits that affect sleep. For example, I wouldn't have known that it was my punctual neighbor's certain actions that disturb me every weekday at 9am, which meant that if I wake up after 9 I feel more tired and annoyed because I didn't sleep as well as I do on weekends after 9am. (I eventually worked around this problem and feel a lot more rested nowadays.)

Even the additional points the review mentioned about how it works with other people in bed matter to me. All these little things are things I think about when I look at purchasing gadgets like wakemate. Not everyone cares only about waking up...anything can try to do that from a $5 alarm clock to your phone, a significant other, and much more expensive gadgets. Wakemate has the potential to do more than just a dinky alarm clock, so I want to see what came of it.

sp4rki4• 16 years ago

The guys behind Wakemate have already stated publicly that the battery lasts 2 to 3 days (actually 24 hours) depending on your sleeping patterns. The reviewer said that the apparatus ran out of juice at the end of the third day. It doesn't take a genius to realize that he should charge the damn thing every second day. Would you NOT (on purpose of course) charge your smartphone on the second day, when you know that it just doesn't last the full third day? Instead of charging the device every second day the reviewer decided to keep pushing for the three days that he fully knows the device doesn't last for him and his sleeping patterns. Battery estimates are just that, estimates, and vary greatly depending on the amount of usage a device gets. The reviewer knew that that thing is not lasting three days for him, and the review is a sarcasm ridden piece on how he was fooled to think that it would when the website clearly states that it might not last 3 days for everyone and actually depends on your sleeping patterns.

Read the review again and you'll notice that the Wakemate does have all those things you want in an analytics package, but the reviewer dismissed it with a wave of sarcasm because according to him the only use for analytics and tags (for events, as you mention you want) are to tell you that you had a "crummy night." You will also notice that he states that the Wakemate works with YOUR movements as opposed to the movements of whomever you're in bed with, but he says this in a way that it's easy to misinterpret it the other way around. Immediately after the fact he starts complaining that the alarm might wake your significant other, which any alarm will do.

My point is not that the review speaks negatively of the Wakemate, I don't even own one and really don't care much about it, but the review was completely lopsided. It belittled every good thing the device has (the analytics, the tagging, the raw data, the fact that it works even with other people on the bed, etc) and made a big deal about something that not only is not a bug deal, but works exactly as is stated by the product manufacturer. Other than the pairing issues the reviewer had, the rest of the review read like a sarcasm ridden payed "anti-advertisement" against the Wakemate.

jes5199• 16 years ago

I think "WakeMate" is a terrible name. Before I read the explanation, I guessed that it had something to do with wakes, you know, like funerals.

ericd• 16 years ago

I knew what it was instantly from the name, so I'd disagree. It would be an oddly cheerful name for something that dealt with funeral wakes, so I don't think many people are likely to jump to that as their first conclusion.

chc• 16 years ago

I think that's really just you. That is a very uncommon usage of the word "wake" for most people, and would be especially odd in the name of an app called "WakeMate."

rue• 16 years ago

Someone might think it was an app for stalkers to better follow in your wake.

coverband2• 16 years ago

The device or the s/w might have some problems, but the team is dedicated to fixing them and not leaving their customers out in the cold, I'm willing to spare my hard-earned cash to support an innovative idea. Which I did, incidentally, earlier today after getting their "your WakeMate is ready" email.

I have a serious problem with sleep apnea, and if this gadget can help me wake up fresher, it's priced right for me.

tpz• 16 years ago

My mother suffers from severe (but now under treatment) sleep apnea and believe me when I tell you that if left untreated it could cause you far larger problems than wanting to feel fresher when you wake up.

Please, please, please see your doctor about the cause of your sleep apnea before treating its obvious symptoms with a device like the WakeMate.

coverband2• 16 years ago

Thanks for the sincere advice. :O) (I didn't want to give details for privacy reasons, but I'm already under treatment for it with a CPAP device. WM will not be a replacement.)

joshu• 16 years ago

"a wedge of silicon" - does the author not know that the green boards are fiberglass or whatever?

moconnor• 16 years ago

Why would the author know that?

fliph• 16 years ago

It's not unusual for "silicon" to be used as an all-encompassing term for computers and computer hardware.

iamelgringo3• 16 years ago

So, as a critical care nurse with 18 years of experience, and as someone who has been seeing a sleep medicine physician for multiple sleep disturbances for several years, I feel inclined to say something.

I have my doubts about the premise that if people are awakened when they move their arms, they will wake up more refreshed. If Wake Mate has done studies showing this is true rather than personal anecdote, I'd love to read it.

What WakeMate refers to on their website as "Actigraphy" is a method that sleep medicine uses to measure sleep/wake cycles and circadian rhythms by measuring arm movements. I know it has been used during sleep studies, and some of the literature I read showed this, but the studies I read showed that Actigraphy was better used in longitudinal studies. People do tend to move around a lot less when they are in bed sleeping, and they move around a lot more when they are awake. But actigraphy seems to be especially uuseful in capturing data over the course of several weeks rather than during a particular sleep cycle.

I would love to read some research on this, if WakeMate has it. What I was able to find online were these references [1]. And, it seems like they are saying that actigraphy is much better at measuring cycles of wakefulness/sleepyness over long periods of time rather than measuring depth of sleep.

Also:

These limitations rely on how to decide if someone is awake or asleep (automatic scoring algorithms) and not on the activity measurement itself. However, regarding the sleep-wake pattern during daily routine, the actigraphy seems to add more naturalistic information. Thus, it might be helpful for monitoring sleep-wake patterns of insomnia, rhythm disorders, and inadequate perception of sleep in longitudinal studies. Actigraphy might even replace the self-assessment of sleep in some circumstances as it has been reported that patients with insomnia not only underestimate the duration of sleep but also overestimate the sleep latency.22 The American Academy of Sleep Medicine23 considers that actigraphy might help the assessment of the sleep-wake pattern of insomnia patients for extend periods, thus providing data not usually measured by PSG. [2]

From what I know, wouldn't measurement of rapid eye movements be better at providing data on when to people wake up?

That being said, I do think that you guys might have a great direction in home sleep measurement.

I have sleep apnea. I stop breathing or under breath to the point of rousing me from sleep about 30 times an hour. I've undergone extensive testing for this, and it's really expensive to provide that testing ($3000 to 5000 per sleep study). A lot of nurses that I work with know that their husband snores, and wake themselves up at night. But, those nurses have a very hard time convincing their husband that they need to go see a doctor about it.

If you could provide an inexpensive way to tell a person that they stopped breathing for 30 to 45 seconds at a time several hundred times a night. It would probably be a lot easier to convince that person that they need to go see a doctor.

/$0.02

ref:

[1] http://www.aasmnet.org/Resources/PracticeParameters/PP_Actig...

[2] http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:E06qD_EZLSYJ:w... pp 84

Updates: Clarification of some statements.

irq2• 16 years ago

There is an inexpensive way to do this, actually. It's not as good as a real sleep study of course, but it works.

Go to eBay and search for "usb pulse oximeter". They're about $100. Wear it overnight (tape helps) while the software graphs your blood oxygen level.

If you have sleep apnea, at some point during the night, your oxygen will dip significantly and your pulse will spike at the same time. It is easy to see this event on the graph. Depending on how much of a dip there is, and how often it happens, determines the severity of your sleep apnea.

I have sleep apnea myself and have had a real sleep study done. I use the pulse oximeter at home to verify the effectiveness of whatever sleep apnea treatment I'm using at the time (cpap machines, different kinds of cpap masks, dental devices, etc).

aik• 16 years ago

Very interesting. Is this basically what you're talking about?

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/New-Fingertip-Pulse-Oximeter-OLED-USB...

I may need to get one of these.

tptacek3• 16 years ago

Erin thinks I do this, too. I flat-out don't believe her (oh, I know I snore, but she's concerned about the health implications, not the snoring). Here's my logic: I'm 34, I get 4-6 hours of sleep a night, and I'm never drowsy during the day. If apnea was messing up my sleep, wouldn't it stand to reason that I'd feel like hell?

(I'm asking because you've given this a lot of thought.)

Are you still a trauma nurse by the way? You are my hero.

irons3• 16 years ago

If people with sleep apnea uniformly thought they felt like hell, the diagnosis would be easy. People adjust to all kinds of crazy things, so it's not easy, but another person in bed with you telling you that you periodically stop breathing shouldn't be ignored.

There's a big difference between steady snoring and interrupted breathing, even if you're not noisily gasping for breath. I'd say my quality of sleep is only about 15% better since I started using CPAP, a meaningful difference if by no means night and day, but I'm also less likely to die of a heart attack in my fifties or sixties.

iamelgringo3• 16 years ago

re: current gig.

I'm still working ER in a lovely part of Silicon Valley. I stopped doing trauma several years ago. With any luck, I'll be able to stop boot strapping in the next 6 months, and leave nursing behind for good.

re: sleep apnea

The problem with Sleep Apnea, is that you adjust to how you feel. I thought that one of my biggest problems was the shift work that I was doing. I would have jags, where I would sleep 4 hours, and then be up for 12 to 16 hours. Turned out, after a couple of sleep studies I was waking myself up after 4 hours because I was suffocating repeatedly while I slept. When I woke up after 4 hours it was because my body had jolted itself awake with a surge of adrenalin, because I had desperately needed oxygen.

Sleep apnea is correlated quite highly with nasty long term diseases like pulmonary hypertension, heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, and obesity. Your whole cardio vascular system is over worked because it struggles with oxygen deprivation for 1/3 of each day. It also messes with your endocrine system (stress hormones, insulin production, adrenalin production, etc...) because your body isn't able to get a full 8 hours of rest and recharging. Instead, it's is constantly stressed ( releasing adrenalin and cortisol) throughout the night, and it leads to things like constant hunger throughout the day.

Since getting treatment, I've lost about 30 lbs, my blood pressure has dropped 20 points. A bigger personal benefit, was that I found that I was able to get into programming flow a lot easier (not as fuzzy), and I was able to program for several hours at a stretch longer than I was able to 2 years ago.

And, I find that I don't need to have a cup of coffee to get myself through the day. I don't drink caffeine at all, now.

trevor99• 16 years ago

I had sleep apnea for 18 years of my life and the only indication was chronic snoring. When I had my sleep study done my blood oxygen content was fine but they found I was waking up 20 times per hour (every 3 minutes) and I only got 3 minutes of stage 4 deep sleep per night. (think about that)

I was already getting straight A's in school and was captain of sports teams in high school, but the first night I slept with a CPAP machine after that study, I woke up and felt BRAND NEW. It was insane. My whole body from head to toe felt more rested and restored. My life has since gotten a lot better and I've felt more outgoing and healthy.

If you have any shred of a doubt I would get tested. Heart attacks have run in my family and I think it has a lot to do with sleep apnea.

patrickgzill• 16 years ago

FWIW if you search around, you can get a sleep study for under $1000, at least in my area (outside Philadelphia, PA).

True, the hospitals rip you off by charging $3000 or more; but there are privately-run places that will charge less.

irons3• 16 years ago

I have my doubts about the premise that if people are awakened when they move their arms, they will wake up more refreshed.

The reviewer stated as fact that any arm movement during the 20-minute wakeup-window would trigger the alarm. I'm still holding out some hope, based on what I've read about it, that the device is not quite that easily convinced. Mine arrives tomorrow.

DrStalker• 16 years ago

My question is "how does this compare to a $2 iPhone app like Sleep Cycle?"

Those apps (I assume there are clones of the one I used) measure the overall bed movement to track sleep depth, and have worked very well for me. Will wrapping something around my wrist do any better?

flip• 16 years ago

Seems like the WakeMate guys are desperate to burn bridges. There are proper channels for addressing negative reviews... This isn't one of them. It's difficult for me to maintain interest in a company that doesn't respond to criticism with a promise to do better in the future. Oh well.

kin• 16 years ago

Hmm, typical Engagdet review IMO.

First off, the battery is a non-issue to me. If it lasts 2-3 nights then I'll charge it every night like I do every other device I have, which is what most people do to my knowledge.

Second, if I'm trying to analyze my sleep statistics, I don't think I, nor anyone else can resort to pen and paper to effectively study several nights of sleep and the many factors to sleep.

Next, if you're sleeping with someone else and intend to wake up, how is the method in which the Wakemate wakes you any more intrusive than a regular alarm? In fact, it is a regular alarm. I'm sure he simply imagined a vibrating wristband and so was disappointed with a regular alarm. Which is fine, but, vibration could also just as easily annoy others. It's personal preference and not poor design.

Finally, what irks me most is that he complains about the Wakemate setting off when you're already awake. Complaining about this tells me he doesn't know what the Wakemate is. It wakes you up at the optimal time such that he feels refreshed. If he's already awake and wants to chill in bed, that's a personal preference. Though I personally would enjoy doing the same it is precisely this habit that causes me to fall asleep again and then wake up at a non-optimal moment and end up not feeling groggy. The point is to wake up refreshed and I feel he missed the point there.

ljf3• 16 years ago

To those focusing on the battery and issues raised by reviewer...

Yes, as the device kept telling him it could last for longer. If I had a car that I found only really went 100 miles on a full tank, but kept telling me it was half full still, I would be pissed, and I would focus on that.

This is a gadget review, not a life review. You dont see their other reviews taking on how items affect your life, just the quality and appropriatness of the product. Why did you think this would be different.

In all, if I were reviewing a car that had this many issues I would not focus on what the drive is like, I would not be doing my job if I didnt address the failings of this item. It seems loads of people here want the reviewer to just ignore these issues.

What do YOU want from your reviewers?

bostonvaulter2• 16 years ago

Has anyone compared this to a Sleep Tracker Pro?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0026RHFPS/ref=oss_product

rdl2• 16 years ago

I want something with EEG sensing like the Zeo, but which talks all night to my computer, vs. having to download to an SD card. Then, based on if anyone has added morning meetings to my schedule, or traffic is heavy, or flights are delayed, it wakes me up gently by increasing ambient lighting in the room, temperature, music etc. If I don't wake up, it can become increasingl insistent, and most importantly, if I go back to sleep without getting up, it can escalate.

Or, get a pet which expects to be fed in the morning.

moogatronic• 16 years ago

First part of this you can do with the Zeo - They have programming API's that allow you to use a port on the Zeo for real-time data access. The rest of your requirements are up to you to provide!

rdl2• 16 years ago

Whoa. Thank you so much -- I didn't realize the Zeo could actually talk to anything in real time.

I've done most of the other parts several times; maybe I should make a packaged service in January. There are probably plenty of people with macs, maybe with big TVs attached, in bedrooms, with Internet access; adding the Zeo and some kind of computer-controlled lighting (optional) isn't much to ask.

Unfortunately having to mess with a serial port is so 1995. I wonder if anyone will make a simple serial to bluetooth dongle so the whole thing can be done from an iphone/ipad, or if it will end up with serial to usb to PC.

WakeMate review

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