This morning I found a surprise in my Encore Pro data from last night, an unexplained data gap which appears to be less than five minutes long. Here is the chart where the data gap can be seen just before hour 6.
From looking at the Encore Pro chart in conjunction with the oximeter data chart shown below, it can be seen that a desaturation event, by far the worst of the night, is also associated with the data gap. This strongly suggests to me that the machine actually turned OFF, rather than the gap being a mere data anomaly. There were additional apneas after the data gap, but these resulted in much smaller desaturations than the apnea occurring concurrently with the data gap.
Again, as on previous nights, the gap seems not to have resulted from a power outage, because absolutely nothing else in the entire house went off (and there are three computers and an alarm clock which normally do indicate when a power glitch happens). I'm still of the opinion that the machine is somehow doing this, and I even have a suspicion of a possible mechanism (although as yet unproven).
One of the things that occasionally happens with this machine is that the machine fails to recognize the SmartCard. Because I read the card daily, I suspect that either grime has built up on the card contacts or the contacts have just gotten a little worn. That by itself is only a minor annoyance when putting the card into the machine. It is somewhat more annoying though when, in the middle of the night, my wife wakes me up and tells me that the machine is beeping (because it no longer recognizes the card). This has happened a few times already, and I normally have to get up, turn on the light and fiddle with the SmartCard until the machine recognizes it again. (BTW, the machine never wakes me directly, because I can't hear the beeping.)
At any rate, my hypothesis is that perhaps the machine starts beeping, but that my wife, in deep slumber, manages to sleep through the beeping, as do I. My suspicion is that the machine eventually turns off of its own accord, and then somewhat later turns itself back ON after it detects my breathing.
If anybody has another explanation for this phenomenon which takes into account all the stated observations, I'd like to hear it. (BTW, auto-OFF is not enabled.)
Regards,
Bill
