Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock

[/url]

Any one use the sleep cycle alarm clock? It is interesting as I am a heavy sleeper and really done remember much of what went on in my night. This I can time align with the sleepy head grafts and have an idea what my body was doing at a particular time in the night. It a nice alarm to wake to also.

I have a Zeo; similar in function. The principle is valid, and could be useful in your case.
It is not a substitute for good sleep hygiene, but a tool to observe your sleep architecture.
You may need to adjust your bedtime to place a light sleep phase close to your wake up time.

I see the Zeo uses a strap attached to your body to help with measurements. Probably better. The Sleep cycle alarm is a free app that just listens to your sleep with the phones microphone. It doesn't seem like it should work, but does to some extent.

Would like more information on the zeo and what benefits this provides

Do you make your own new straps?

The Zeo is no longer supported, even if you can find one for sale.
Only the bedside model is usable on its own.
Someone made an Instructible for making new pads for the headband.
Too bad the owners could not make it.

chunkyfrog wrote:The Zeo is no longer supported, even if you can find one for sale.
Only the bedside model is usable on its own.
Someone made an Instructible for making new pads for the headband.
Too bad the owners could not make it.

Yeah, but I'm not mechanically inclined.

Mechanical aptitude is only part of the equation.
Motivation is another, probably the more essential of the two.

I used a Zeo for about six straight months before both the device quit and the company went bankrupt. It was a great tool to monitor sleep and things that messed it up. For those of you who are not familiar with the device it measured brainwave activity all night and recorded it on a SD card where the user could upload the data to Zeo and then look at detailed reports of upto 2 weeks. For even more data, the entire database could be downloaded and then imported into Excel. I then printed 8x11 charts that covered the entire period. The Zeo system measured sleep/awake, light, deep, and REM sleep. It was not used as a medical device and could not measure short changes in sleep such as SA.

During the time that I used Zeo, I was able to find many things that would wreck my sleep, many of which I would have never found without it. Many prescription drugs caused sleep destruction as well as many OTC supplements. Some took months to see a graduaul change that could only be seen when looking at weeks of data, and then comparing any odd trends, such as decreasing REM sleep for example, to changes in medications. One that really messed up my sleep was a strong pain medication that slowing reduced my REM sleep from 90 minutes a night to less than 30 over 6 weeks. If not for Zeo I would have never been able to connect the two. I showed the charts to my pain doctor and he was shocked to see proof that a pain medication can damage REM sleep. He added that he had been told that this can happen, but had never seen any proof.

Anyway, if Zeo was still working I would still be using it. I have posted many times on other medical boards that if a person is having sleep problems the first place to check is their medications.

sptrout wrote:Anyway, if Zeo was still working I would still be using it. I have posted many times on other medical boards that if a person is having sleep problems the first place to check is their medications.

I agree with that statement... meds are the FIRST place to look and add your sleep/pain meds to that list.

Isn't there a company that bought Zeo's techology last year and has some new whiz bang sleep monitor coming out soon?

Sir NoddinOff wrote:Isn't there a company that bought Zeo's techology last year and has some new whiz bang sleep monitor coming out soon?

Zeo just went bankrupt and did not have any buyers that I know of. As I remember, Zeo was invented, and took to market, by some college kids. I don't think that they advertised much, if at all. Not sure how I found the product, probably on another medical board that I am a member of. It was a great idea and with the ability to save large amount of sleep data to their database, was a very useful tool.

I have been watching the sleeping tools market ever since Zeo went down. I have seen nothing that comes even close. There are some "touchless" products coming available, but nothing that I have seen comes close to Zeo, which actually monitored brainwaves all night.

I hope you are right about a buyer for Zeo's techology; sign me up!

Sir NoddinOff wrote:

sptrout wrote:Anyway, if Zeo was still working I would still be using it. I have posted many times on other medical boards that if a person is having sleep problems the first place to check is their medications.

I agree with that statement... meds are the FIRST place to look and add your sleep/pain meds to that list.

I agree, but I have found that it can be very difficult to put sleep problems together with medications. It usually took days, and in the pain med case, weeks to prove a connection. Another example, I was prescribed Zanaflex (a muscle relaxer) to help with back pain and to use its side effect to help with sleep. It took me almost 4 weeks to figure out that it was waking me up every night at 3AM almost to the minute. I would wake up and be wide awake the rest of the night. I could list several other examples that had similar effects that were caused by OTC stuff.

Wikipedia states "At least some of the assets were acquired by ResMed" Not sure which ones but soon after they announced their own S+ Sleep Tracker. I haven't heard much about it since initial promotions.

Sir NoddinOff wrote:Isn't there a company that bought Zeo's techology last year and has some new whiz bang sleep monitor coming out soon?

The S+ bears little resemblance to the Zeo. I have not read anything to show that the s+ is significantly better than the Gear4 Renew I bought for $20.