Wakemate (YC S09) helps you kiss groggy mornings goodbye

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/24/wakemate-sleep-aid/

by aberman • 17 years ago

289 143 17 years ago

congratulations guys! the demo unit I tried is amazing. pre-ordered for sure

aberman3• 17 years ago

I was fortunate enough to know these guys while they were building the wakemate prototypes, and even luckier to have had the opportunity to sleep with one (of the devices) for a week. It has made a tremendous difference in how I feel when I wake up. Congrats guys!

sounddust3• 17 years ago

Can you give us some more details about your experience with the device?

aberman3• 17 years ago

Yeah, no problem.

I didn't get to use one of the new, super sleek, production quality ones. I used an early prototype that slipped inside a wrist band (like tennis players wear). It was actually still pretty comfortable to sleep with - I didnt even feel it after the first night.

It definitely woke me up at the optimal time in my sleep cycle. The alarm app was a really simple web app, and the bluetooth was simple. It was cool to see my sleep analyzed with all our different metrics and quality rated. The sleep analytics software was pretty simple, but definitely did the trick.

SandB0x• 17 years ago

On my window this wrapped so the first line read

I was fortunate enough to know these guys while they were building the wakemate prototypes, and even luckier to have had the opportunity to sleep with one

Joking aside, if this actually works and you value your time it should pay for itself more or less straight away. I'll be watching closely.

edit on re-reading it looks like the parent noticed that too...oh well.

SwellJoe5• 17 years ago

Does it support polyphasic sleep? And is there an Android version?

stjarnljuset2• 17 years ago

"The device has modes for both ‘power naps’ (which last around 30 minutes)"

I'm guessing polyphasic sleepers can use this, but no idea if they provide support specifically for polyphasic sleepers. Just curious, are you a polyphasic sleeper?

"WakeMate is launching with support for iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Windows Mobile, and a standard Java app for non-smart phones"

SwellJoe5• 17 years ago

I've tried polyphasic sleep a few times over the past 15 years, and always went back to normal. But I'm about to give it another try, and all of the circumstances that made it difficult in the past (live-in girlfriend, office to go to and an expectation of availability throughout normal office hours, or school+work, etc.) are no longer a factor, so I think it will go better this time. I'm also about to shake up a bunch of other aspects of my life, so going polyphasic will fit right in.

gnemeth3• 17 years ago

There is no polyphasic sleep feature, but you could definitely use it track your sleep cycles and optimize your polyphasic sleep. Yes there is an android version.

forensic4• 17 years ago

Polyphasic sleep for knowledge workers has been thoroughly debunked by real science.

http://www.supermemo.com/articles/polyphasic.htm

The science has been done. The tests are clear. Polyphasic sleepers suffer performance losses in mental tasks compared to normal sleepers. In particular, it significantly impairs long-term memory coding.

Charlatans like Steve Pavlina always refused to do even basic scientific testing. His results simply can't be trusted, especially since he has a massive vested interest in it being effective.

If there is some reason you need to sleep less than 3 hours per day, then polyphasic is the best way to do that. However you will always have reduced performance compared to those who get a full 7 hour sleep.

If you want a sleep schedule optimized for creative/intellectual performance, free-running sleep is the best available. Piotr Wozniak has plenty of science of his website showing that this is the case.

SwellJoe5• 17 years ago

The science has been done.

I'm afraid I don't see any citations in that article for studies done specifically on polyphasic sleep. I see citations for the natural length of the human day (24.2 hours), sleep deprivation effects, maximum waking time for humans, etc. But nothing but unbacked, though strongly held, assertions about polyphasic sleep. I may have missed it, but every time the article goes into discussion of polyphasic, it seems to talk around the issue when providing citations, and explicitly to the issue when it is clearly the authors opinion. It has the feel of a religious tract, rather than a scientifically sound article.

I'm not saying the author is wrong. I've never had much luck with polyphasic sleep, as I mentioned above, and I'm certainly not going to argue that it's a great idea without having had any success with it myself or at least having seen good science on the matter. But, if this is the best "science" there is to offer suggesting it does not work, then I don't think I'm convinced.

That said, I'm leaning towards one of the "core sleep plus naps" variants this time around rather than the 6x20 minute routine. I do enjoy sleeping. At least, I seem to, since I do it a lot, and frequently roll over and drift back to sleep in the morning. I also love a couple of cups of jasmine green tea in the morning with breakfast...it's a one to two hour ritual that makes me happy. And a polyphasic schedule would throw all of that for a loop...though I might try kicking caffeine for a while, too. I won't have an Asian market nearby from which to buy my Yamamoto tea, so I probably won't want to drink tea, anyway.

I don't read Pavlina and am unfamiliar with his arguments regarding sleep, so I don't know anything about his results.

petenixey• 17 years ago

Love the idea of this. Pre-ordered.

tptacek5• 17 years ago

Too cool a product not to play with for just $50. Of course I want a pretty chart of my sleep cycle. Preordered.

sounddust3• 17 years ago

I pre-ordered, but there was absolutely no info about whether or not it ships internationally (even after paying). Hopefully they'll be shipping outside the US!

kareemm• 17 years ago

i chatted with them on their site (chat powered by Olark.com), and they said they shipped pre-ordered wakemates free to canada. might want to check in w/ them about shipping to your country.

mhansen• 17 years ago

Free shipping all the way to New Zealand, apparently!

thalur• 17 years ago

On the home page: "For a limited time: free worldwide shipping with pre-order!"

tdm911• 17 years ago

I pre-ordered one and i'm in Australia. I figured $5 was worth the risk to see if they will ship it to me.

edit: and had i opened my eyes i would have seen the free shipping worldwide!

aka-2• 17 years ago

the free shipping to the UK and the aggressive price point was what got my pre-order. A while back I was looking at the FitBit, which specifically said 'we only ship to US right now'. FitBit should partner with a shipping specialist, since the device is small, and people like me would be willing to pay quite a lot of postage.

emmett• 17 years ago

One of the few startups where my first question when I met them was "when can I buy it"? I hope it's effective as I've heard. Pre-ordered.

lanstein2• 17 years ago

Pre-ordered. I've been groggy as all hell in the mornings for years now. I've previously been solving this problem by avoiding mornings ;)

jedc• 17 years ago

I just pre-ordered, too. This is just the right price point for me; enough to signify it's a serious product but low enough to make it an easy sell.

Now I just can't wait to get it!

ntoshev• 17 years ago

Why not just an iPhone app: tie the phone to your wrist and let the accelerometer record the movements. Would it drain the battery, or is the iPhone too heavy?

kalvin• 17 years ago

It exists. But yes, people don't like attaching the phone to their arm. http://www.iphoneappsfinder.com/productivity-apps/absalt-eas...

gnemeth3• 17 years ago

We have an app just like this, but haven't released it because a lot of people expressed concerns about not being able to charge their phone at night as well as breaking their phone. The WakeMate is a much better user experience in terms of comfort and convenience.

gizmo• 17 years ago

The "Sleep Cycle" iPhone app works by placing the iPhone next to your pillow. I never got it to work reliably, even though the motion detector is sensitive enough.

vaksel• 17 years ago

so how come wakemate can get their product built and shipped in 6 months, and techcrunch is still working on the crunchpad since 2008?

Especially when you consider that wakemate is doing something a little bit more complicated than just throwing a bunch of common components together?

tptacek5• 17 years ago

Probably because (1) Wakemate has simpler price constraints, and (2) because the software integration required for Wakemate is simpler than for that of an entire general-purpose computing device?

ladyada• 17 years ago

A big part of it is power supply (a tablet ps is extraordinarily hard to design whereas this can run on a large coin cell or AAA battery), and display (blinking LEDs are easier to get a hold of than nice color LCD with good touchpads).

pclark• 17 years ago

Pre-ordered.

dbz• 17 years ago

You think it's a good gift as well? I mean. If I am saving five bucks for pre-ordering...

dot• 17 years ago

Pre-ordered. Can't wait to try it.

The techcrunch post has an error, by the way. It says you get $5 off when you pre-order.

elai• 17 years ago

When I looked at the actual pre-order page, it doesn't seem like that is so. You pay $5, then you pay $45 later. Or you pay $50 when it comes out. What incentive is there, especially with an unreviewed product such as this? Will they tack on a subscription fee to use the device like the fit bit?

gommm2• 17 years ago

The biggest incentive I think is the free worldwide shipping if you preordered (at least for me living at the other side of the world)

RevRal• 17 years ago

I have had issues with sleep for a very long time. Problem is: I love to sleep. I can sleep 10-12 hours a day, no problem.

I'd be quite happy sleeping like this, but it effects my personal life.

This sounds like it was made for me!

*e: Just to be sure before I pre-order. Any bluetooth enabled phone that has access to the internet will work, correct?

tptacek5• 17 years ago

It needs Internet access?

abstractbill• 17 years ago

From the article: "It then transmits your sleep data to your phone, which in turn uses its cellular data connection to upload it to the WakeMate servers."

dilanj• 17 years ago

Congrats on finding a hair-on-fire problem, and totally rooting for you guys. Just 2 weeks back I ordered an aXbo (http://www.axbo.com/axbo/CMS/CMS.aspx?Language=E) for the same purpose, but this is a much more convenient implementation.

gnemeth3• 17 years ago

The axbo uses similar technology and works well, but it is much more expensive, more difficult to use and less comfortable. Also they do not do any of the sleep analysis and personalized recommendations on how to improve the quality of your sleep.

altano• 17 years ago

I tried the axbo and it didn't work at all.

dskhatri• 17 years ago

One of the first pages I navigate to when evaluating a product is the About Us page. If I didn't know that Wakemate was a YC funded company I would not take the product very seriously. Luckily the 'How it works' page (http://www.wakemate.com/about/), and the references cited there make up for the absence of an About Us page (that would hint at your credibility - at least say you are YC funded!). I think it's worth a try! Pre-ordered one

dminor• 17 years ago

How does the data collected compare to sleeptracker?

albertcardona• 17 years ago

So myself integrating the alarm clock beeping into my dreams is just a built-in way to delay the wake-up point until it hits one of the light-sleep windows?

In any case, cool gadget.

Asa-Nisse• 17 years ago

So does it ship internationally or should we just assume this is US only right now? Clearly interested in this product but I'm from Scandinavia.

p0ppe• 17 years ago

Excellent service from the guys! Sent them an e-mail about shipping and got a reply in eight minutes - "we ship worldwide for free if you pre-order".

zvikara• 17 years ago

Thanks. Pre-ordered.

crxnamja• 17 years ago

Weird. I am actually tempted to buy one.

mmelin2• 17 years ago

One thing I don't understand: how does the wristband/app tell when you are awake and when you are asleep? The screenshot shows several spots of "time awake" during the night, how does it know this?

Preordered, anyway. I've always wanted to try this but the price point of similar gadgets have been over the "cool thing to try" level (>2-300 bucks).

It must be extremely motivating to see all of these $5 payments come into your account, too :)

pkulak• 17 years ago

I tend to move while awake and lie still when I'm asleep. It probably has something to do with that. ;)

mmelin2• 17 years ago

I don't know about you, but I move around a _lot_ during sleep. Sure, if it only knows that I'm awake if I go to the bathroom or kitchen during the night, I understand the difference. Would be interesting to know how it makes the distinction, though.

Caligula• 17 years ago

I worked at a sleep company up until 2008 and there are a lot of startups and big sleep companies getting into lowcost devices that a customer would own or rent instead of going into a sleep lab. They would do more diagnosis or pre-diagnosis rather than just wakeup timing but I think some had that feature. I know there is a watch that does this.

One tip I would do if I were them were to contact all those huge sleep lab companies and try to get them interested. Insurance covered prescribed factory sleep labs drive the industry.

flooha• 17 years ago

I think this is pretty significant advice. My daughter broke her foot one day before getting on a plane to Barcelona, where we planned on doing a lot of swimming, I had a waterproof cast cover over-nighted and they sent two. One for me and a free one for the foot doctor. The product worked so well, it literally saved our vacation and I couldn't say enough good things to the doctor when we got back. I'm sure giving the free sample to the doctor was a win for them, especially considering the doctor had never heard of the product.

iamdanw2• 17 years ago

That $5 pre-order is far too easy to do. I bought one without stopping to research other products like the http://www.fitbit.com/. Brilliantly designed pricing.

It's a lot like Glastonbury ticketing. Deposits in autumn, full payment in January. This is extra profitable because in January many people are short on cash post-christmas and either can not or choose not to pay the full amount. You get to keep the non-refundable deposit and then sell the ticket/product again to another person.

As an aside, any idea on how hackable the Wakemate is? Presumably other devices could talk to it over bluetooth, eg a homemade arduino based alarm clock. Will the bluetooth protocol and data format used be published?

lanstein2• 17 years ago

> That $5 pre-order is far too easy to do.

as evidenced by this thread :)

spydertennis2• 17 years ago

We're definitely open to the idea of letting people play with communicating to our device.

fa• 17 years ago

I've been aiming to write a Rayleigh random number generator-driven alarm app for my iTouch (to do random-phasic sleep, e.g., countdown 20+X minutes, X drawn from a Rayleigh(20) distribution). If something like that could integrate with your app, that could be really cool. Crowdsourced sleep research :)

blasdel2• 17 years ago

Holy Fucking Shit Yes

It took me about 15 seconds from the initial onload to typing my PayPal password, and I'm normally just seething with deliberative-yuppie-purchasing-angst. My normal minimum conversion time is at least an hour of research and a week of wall-clock time.

If you can hack my purchasing process so effectively, I'm pretty confident that you'll do well by my sleep cycle. Bravo!

brandon• 17 years ago

It's so easy to do, in fact, that I had already paid before I realized that the device isn't scheduled to ship until 3 days after my daughter is scheduled to ship.

I bet my graphs are going to be REALLY interesting.

BigDamnDeal• 17 years ago

The Fitbit looked very fun, but the site didn't mention an alarm function. I'm already envisioning a long slog toward convergence, because some day I want my phone to do calorie-counting and smart-alarming. After all, I already keep it near me all day and night...

bmalicoat• 17 years ago

I asked this in the Techcrunch comments but I'm thinking it will be more visible here:

In terms of the iPhone app, how do they trigger anything without having to keep your iPhone on and in their app the whole time? Other than that I am sold.

iamdanw2• 17 years ago

The iPhone has to be on and the app open for it to work. No way around this limitation without 1) jailbreaking 2) digging around in private apis or 3) applying to be an approved accessory maker.

quizbiz• 17 years ago

Why do you need a smartphone to use the product?

Why doesn't the device just use wifi to call any number so that I could have it call my cell and wake me up?

spydertennis2• 17 years ago

You don't need a smart phone to use the product! Also, wi-fi is expensive, there's a reason we can price it so low :-).

bobbyi• 17 years ago

Or just put an alarm in the device itself. I can see the appeal of a $50 alarm that attaches to my wrist and wakes me up at the right time, but I definitely don't want something monitoring my sleeping pattern and reporting them to somebody's server.

dhimes• 17 years ago

You may have followed all the rules: no caffeine before bed, an early bedtime, and all the rest

I need something for the mornings after I don't follow all the rules ;)

Congratulations to the Wakemate team! I think you've helped me with my Christmas shopping.

gojomo2• 17 years ago

Is there any reason to suspect its timed-wake-alarm could be better than just sleeping until you wake naturally?

Also, I presume the analytics can be used without the alarm?

ahlatimer• 17 years ago

Allowing yourself to sleep wake up naturally is probably the best option, but you could easily oversleep that way. Waking up when you are at one of your arousal periods is going to be the next best thing.

gojomo2• 17 years ago

Anyone here tried the Zeo?

nixme2• 17 years ago

Yep, and I love it. See my comment above: http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=960532

WesleyJohnson• 17 years ago

Sounds really interesting. It's a shame it's not shipping sooner. I just had a 7 month vacation and getting my sleep pattern back to normal has proved nearly impossible. Some days I wake up super energized after 5 or so hours and then days like yesterday, I get 7 hours in and I wake up feeling like I haven't slept in days. Pre-ordered one for sure.

On a side note, this page is terribly hard on the eyes. http://www.wakemate.com/about/ I don't know if it's just me or not, but I think they need some more spacing between the letters??

kellishaver• 17 years ago

It does sound interesting, and for $50, I'd be very tempted to try it.

But yeah, who puts -1px letter spacing on their body copy? Ouch. Painful.

pbhjpbhj• 17 years ago

It works quite well with the Lucida Sans Unicode, if only they'd spelt the font name correctly.

joubert• 17 years ago

This reminds me of the gadgets sold in inflight magazines.

_cbsz• 17 years ago

Does it work with iPod touch + home WiFi?

blasdel2• 17 years ago

Not directly on the first-gen iPod Touch, since it doesn't have bluetooth, but the later ones do with OS 3.0 and up.

You could load the analytics app without it, but you'd need some device with bluetooth to trigger the alarm. Someone will inevitably release desktop apps to interface it, especially since all Macs ship with bluetooth and tiny USB dongles for your PC cost about a dollar.

RyanMcGreal• 17 years ago

Techcrunch needs an editor. That article was full of typos.

unohoo• 17 years ago

>>The wristband tracks the movement of your wrist through the >>night, which it can use to analyze your sleep patterns.

How is wrist movement co-related to sleep patterns ? Is there any scientific study / data out there that explain the co-relation ?

Co-relation of pulse rhythm is more obvious - cant say the same about wrist movement.

Anyone care to explain ?

gcheong• 17 years ago

They have a paper about the actigraphy technology they use on their website under the "How It Works" link.

martythemaniak• 17 years ago

This seems brilliant. I've wanted to try the SleepTracker, but its a bulky, expensive watch and I never went for it. I'm pre-ordering this :)

http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/stresseraser_and_sleeptra...

jacquesm• 17 years ago

Of all the recent YC announcements this is the first one that has me go: Yes! solve a real world problem. Runner up is the flight delay guys, but I no longer fly a lot for business so it is not as much of a factor as it used to be.

Congratulations, excellent idea and a very nicely priced implementation.

I sincerely hope you'll sell these by the containerload.

physcab2• 17 years ago

I wonder how lucrative the market is though. As hackers, we're naturally inclined towards products like these.

If actigraphy is an established sleep-study technique, then you have to wonder why there aren't more players.

codexon2• 17 years ago

This looks like the same technology used in the ubiquitous sleeptracker. http://www.sleeptracker.com/

I've heard complaints that it doesn't accurately monitor your sleep cycles because it uses an accelerometer which obviously doesn't work if you don't move enough.

There is a product called Zeo that supposedly detects your brainwaves but then people complain about having to wear a strap on your head. http://www.myzeo.com/

Anyone want to share their experience with these sleep aids?

andrewhyde• 17 years ago

I've used the zeo for a while. Love it, but in the end I move the headband off my head in my sleep (active sleeper) and would wake up with no data 1/3 of the time. That is frustrating. From what I read this is true for about 10% of users.

As far as the Zeo goes, it is a great product. Very interesting future (there are some obvious 'this is a first release' flaws) but overall, it rocks. Knowing to the minute how much you slept with REM and deep sleep markers is quite interesting and fun.

I've got an extra in Boulder if anyone wants to try it out.

nixme2• 17 years ago

I bought the Zeo a couple months back based on reading about here on HN.

What a huge difference in the morning! I used to be the kind of person that needed a 20 min hot shower to properly wake up. Now I wake up mostly alert and almost never groggy.

I noticed the change most this week since I flew to Philly for Thanksgiving with family and don't have my Zeo. The last few mornings without it have been hit or miss.

The pretty graphs and statistics were interesting for the first couple weeks, especially to compare how alcohol and caffeine affect my sleep, but the novelty wears off. The smart wakeup is by far the best feature and if the Wakemate can do a similar job, it'll be a cheaper solution that I can take on the road.

ryanwaggoner• 17 years ago

ubiquitous seems a bit of a stretch... :)

codexon2• 17 years ago

Well seeing how it was mentioned all over the media like Dr. Phil, 37 Signals, and Wired, Associated Press, G4TV, etc... I would say it is far more ubiquitous than the zeo.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=sleeptracker

Confusion• 17 years ago

which obviously doesn't work if you don't move enough.

That's interesting, because I suspect I may be one of those. Any idea how many people have that problem and if I can determine upfront whether this product will work for me?

billjings• 17 years ago

My father and I both enthusiastically tried the sleeptracker when it first came out. I am horrible for waking up in the morning, and this did not help one bit.

The article asks why they did not put the alarm in the watch - the sleeptracker chooses that exact strategy and it did not work well for either of us. One, the alarm was not that loud (probably cannot be that loud in such a design). Two, if you had your wrist under your pillow it was inaudible. And three, the alarm is trivially accessible and easy to turn off - not a good thing for an inventive and persistent snooze buttoner like myself.

The product was a huge disappointment to the both of us. The price point and design for this product are encouraging - I will probably try it out.

zacharypinter2• 17 years ago

I'm particularly interested in using this to help trigger lucid dreams. For the past few years, I've had a song on my playlist that I've trained myself to always ask if I'm dreaming when I hear it. The idea being that this song would play at the right time during my sleep cycle to get me to realize that I'm dreaming.

However, so far I've had trouble triggering the song at the right time. Perhaps this app will be configurable enough to play an MP3 when I'm in REM?

jerf• 17 years ago

Where did you get the idea to trigger lucid dreaming with a song? I am both very musically oriented and a frequent lucid dreamer, and I rarely ever have any music in my dreams, let alone any sort of recognizable tune. I'm talking months between each such event. Unless you frequently dream about music already (as we are all different), I would suggest sticking to the more conventional triggers.

One of these events took the form of a dream that I had written the most powerful, moving song ever, one that could forcibly move people to tears due to sheer awesomeness. Bear in mind I'm not talking about an abstract assessment, but a deep belief that this was awesome. For once, I managed to actually drag the song back up to the waking world, whereupon I discovered that my brilliant song was, in two-second-long quarter notes, the following incredible melody line: C, C, D, C, repeat.

(The full moon seems like a good one to me; I get a lot of circles in my dreams, only due to my science-fiction viewing proclivities, they tend to turn into Stargates.)

zacharypinter2• 17 years ago

I don't usually have any music in my dreams. However, I have frequently found myself incorporating outside noise into my dreams (a television left on, a radio alarm clock that plays the morning talk show, my cat meowing, etc).

Using a song as a trigger for lucid dreaming seems like a reasonable enough way to send myself a signal, though I honestly don't have much to back it up.

pronoiac• 17 years ago

Perhaps this app will be configurable enough to play an MP3 when I'm in REM?

... so you can listen to REM while in REM?

johns• 17 years ago

Can I get one with GPS?

lunchbox• 17 years ago

Can someone in the know comment on the soundness of the scientific principles behind this product?

prodigal_erik• 17 years ago

I really like the idea, but putting "(works on all phones)" on your front page is kind of shady if the actual requirements are bluetooth and internet access and third-party app support. No phone I've ever owned has all those features.

pavlov• 17 years ago

Those features have been practically ubiquitous on GSM phones for about five years (except for the cheapest 3rd world models). That's as close to "all phones" as you can get.

Frazzydee• 17 years ago

Then put a star next to "all phones" and add some fine print that bluetooth is a requirement, and app requirements. I'm guessing it's been written for java/symbian/iphone/blackberry? Also a good idea to write the phones tested on.

Not every phone has bluetooth and can run third-party apps, especially if you bought a cheap non-branded phone. Also, not every would know it's necessary for a device like this.

Even better, why not allow us to download the app now?

nollidge• 17 years ago

Yes, most phones have internet access, but I strongly doubt most people have that included in their monthly plan - I know I don't.

So do I have to pay extra charges for that? How much data is being sent? Can I view stats on my phone? Can I tether my phone to my computer to look at stats?

I can't find any of these answers on their site. Which is frustrating, because this almost sounds like something that would interest me.

tdoggette• 17 years ago

I have a prepaid phone, and it has one of three-- sort of. It's got a browser that opens occasionally when the phone's in my pocket and drains my minutes, but I wouldn't describe it as any sort of actual internet access.

JeffL• 17 years ago

Sounds awesome, but I don't use a cell phone. =( How hard would it be to get it to work with a laptop?

Shamiq• 17 years ago

They're planning on opening an API.

dasil003• 17 years ago

Love the idea, too bad I have a baby :)

gommm2• 17 years ago

Just bought, having live chat like this on the first day is a very good idea that I'll have to keep in mind when launching a new product... And as others have said the 5$ preorder in exchange for free shipping is a great way to make us impulsive buyers.

I confirmed with them that worldwide includes China too (so many companies do not ship there that I've become wary) so will be getting one :-)

zmimon• 17 years ago

Too bad they aren't shipping until January. I would definitely buy one as a present if I knew I could get it for Christmas.

latortuga• 17 years ago

I hope you guys get enough orders to start shipping because I just put in my preorder. Very interesting looking product and chatting with a cofounder at 1 AM is a huge plus.

jordyhoyt• 17 years ago

It would be really cool to see what they could do for those who would like to wake up with their partner. If both could wake up without being groggy, that would be amazing. I'd imagine you might need a bigger window of possible wake up time.

oscardelben2• 17 years ago

It also depends on how many 'good times' for waking up you have in 20 minutes, and how much they last. For example if you have 2 minutes optimal waking time two times, you might have a 1% chance that a given moment is optimal for both of you.

FreeRadical2• 17 years ago

Often the time you have to wake up is dictacted by factors out of your control (get to work/lecture/event at a certain time)

FreeRadical2• 17 years ago

Can the downvoter let me know why this is down voted when it's a valid/decent point?

aka-2• 17 years ago

i'm not the downvoter, but the device does let you specify limits for when you have to be up.

ashishb4u• 17 years ago

with all this stuff they could have come up with sleepmate... take care of my sleep hours, hint me that i should sleep and stuff!!!

malditogeek• 17 years ago

Awesome idea, awesome product. Just pre-ordered mine :D

danielrhodes• 17 years ago

Just a question that popped into my head: why choose to release the product on so many mobile platforms? That becomes very expensive development-wise, whereas the most active platforms cover most of the target market.

Steve0• 17 years ago

What kind of battery does it use and how do you charge it? How long before it needs to be charged. Your website is quite informative about the science but seems to leave out this basic operation information. Looks cool anyway, with free shipping to Belgium I'll definitly order one.

jasongullickson• 17 years ago

That is slick...both the device and the purchase process.

My wife and I discussed something similar using EEG measurements but couldn't find a practical way to apply the electrodes in a consumer-grade product. This is a good example of solving that problem obliquely.

Pre-ordered.

carterac• 17 years ago

Can one of the Wakemate people please respond?

First off, I love this product. But before I click purchase, I want to know: how good of a proxy is the wrist accelerometer for brain wave activity?

Someone else asked this already but I didn't see a response. Ideally, I would love to know what the quantitative results were from your testing. For instance, if sleepers rate their grogginess after waking up every day, what kind of an improvement do you see in those ratings? What is the distribution like? Are there a certain percentage of people who don't respond to the Wakemate because for some personal reason their wrist movements don't correlate with brain wave activity?

I think this data would help sell a lot more of these since that's definitely what made me pause - and I was very ready to purchase.

Thanks!

brown9-2• 17 years ago

You might be better off contacting them directly:

  Questions? Comments? Send an email to contact@wakemate.com, or call us at 1-800-951-4761

http://www.wakemate.com/about/

zargon• 17 years ago

I have been using a Now & Zen alarm clock for the last 3 years. http://www.now-zen.com/ (It looks like they are now calling the one I have the 'zen timepiece.') I was fed up with electronic noises. These clocks have a brass bowl that produces very pleasant gongs to wake you up. And it doesn't jab you awake like most all other alarm clocks I could find. It gongs and then waits a few minutes. If you haven't gotten up after a few minutes, it gongs again, and waits a couple more minutes. It gradually gongs more frequently over a period of 10 minutes.

Sometimes I am up at the first gong and sometimes it takes several. Now, hooking up my bowl gong to the wakemate could make for a great combination.

yumraj• 17 years ago

Sounds very cool. Though the only problem is that if I were to rely on it, I will most likely be late everyday to drop my kid to school :D.

On a different note, if this is bluetooth, whats preventing it from working with a computer etc. Why only phone??

cschep• 17 years ago

I think it sets a time you will be up by, you just might get woken up earlier. Heck you might even be on time to drop your kid off if you can get that little bugger out of bed as well. :)

alexpm• 17 years ago

very cool

ive always had trouble with sleep, and especially functioning in the mornings

rksprst• 17 years ago

This seems great, but what about couples that sleep together. Each person might have a different "optimal stage" of waking up. Did you guys offer any solutions for that?

Wakemate (YC S09) helps you kiss groggy mornings goodbye

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