Sleepyhead vs Oscar

OK...If my OSA is under control and the current version of Sleepyhead is working well, what would be the advantage of changing to Oscar? How is it different?

No huge advantage that I can think of at the moment unless there is a particularly annoying bug in SH that isn't in OSCAR and someone doesn't want to mess with the bug. None of the bugs in SH annoy me all that much except the full screen bug and I am just careful to never hit the full screen toggle thing.

At some point in the future as new models of machines get released and they aren't compatible with SleepyHead...people will have to do something though.

OSCAR does import faster...but it's not like SH took all day to import so that part is no big deal to me.

I'll agree with Pugsy,

OSCAR is based on SleepyHead v1.1.0 and as such has inherited all it's "baggage".
The difference, OSCAR is being actively worked on eliminating known issues, and discovering issues we were unaware of, and fixing them. SleepyHead, it will not change, there will be no bug fixes.
Over time, and with each subsequent release, the difference will become greater.

It will be nice to see donations used to improve the program.

SleepyHead is no longer supported:

• No more improvements
• No more bug fixes
• No more new machines

Although it's working for you today, that doesn't mean that you won't encounter problems, bugs or data corruption in the future.

You could be one video driver, Windows update, unknown bug, new CPAP device from being able to use SleepyHead.

For the majority of OSCAR users, it has worked well and their data has migrated. One day all SleepyHead users will have to move to OSCAR or some other software. You want to do so under your terms, not in the future when doing so may be under a panic situation. As SleepyHead become less relevant you can also expect OSCAR's data migration to become less important.

I'm currently running OSCAR and SleepyHead concurrently. When I'm 100% confident in OSCAR, I'll drop SleepyHead.

OSCAR has it's own baggage at present.
If in no rush to change and playing with new software isn't a person's cup of tea...just wait a little while and get OSCAR later.
There is certainly no rush to go get it today.
It will be more polished later since people are actively working on fixing the bugs it has.
No real rush though until if/when we start getting machines that simply won't work at all with SleepyHead.

For me personally...I like to play with new stuff when I have the time and energy...so I got OSCAR and I run it along with SleepyHead when I think about it. I also use ResScan for the same reason.

But if someone just doesn't have the need or care....nothing at all wrong with using SleepyHead until if/when it becomes unusable and someone has to do something and with that sort of stuff there is usually some sort of warning. As far as I know the cpap fairies don't swap out our old machines with new machines without us knowing about it ahead of time.

I download...maybe every 2 weeks but more often its maybe once a month. I don't use any software all that often....simply no need because it's boring and I already pretty much know what I will see.
10 years of experience gives me that luxury....plus I have enough stuff to do besides pour over the data that I can't do anything about anyway and it's as boring as hell. There's a lot more going on in my life that is a lot more fun and productive that I would rather be doing.....like my garden and my flowers and trying to find a new puppy.
I do like to play with new stuff though...and for that reason WHEN I have the time or energy I will mess with all the software products but out of curiosity and not need.

chunkyfrog wrote: ↑

Tue May 07, 2019 9:50 am

It will be nice to see donations used to improve the program.

If you notice, there is no Donation link in OSCAR, there is no donation link on the OSCAR download page. That was removed when we forked. At this time we have no mechanism to accept donations and no plans to make it happen.

bonjour wrote: ↑

Tue May 07, 2019 10:30 am

chunkyfrog wrote: ↑

Tue May 07, 2019 9:50 am

It will be nice to see donations used to improve the program.

If you notice, there is no Donation link in OSCAR, there is no donation link on the OSCAR download page. That was removed when we forked. At this time we have no mechanism to accept donations and no plans to make it happen.

Are you actively seeking sites to mirror OSCAR for free?

(Just thinking of ways others might support the project.)

So, if it is not really needed, what did Mark do with the money?

chunkyfrog wrote: ↑

Tue May 07, 2019 12:21 pm

So, if it is not really needed, what did Mark do with the money?

Mark's approach may have been a bit less of a group effort.

I added OSCAR to both of my computers (both running W10) and they are working great. No installation issues at all. For redundancy, all data is synced between the two computers automatically, and I have both cloud and local external hard drive backup (I know, I am anal when it comes to backup, but I am a retired engineer). I am still using both OSCAR & Sleepyhead for the time being, but SH days are numbered on my systems. No reason to keep it.

LSAT wrote: ↑

Tue May 07, 2019 9:19 am

OK...If my OSA is under control and the current version of Sleepyhead is working well, what would be the advantage of changing to Oscar? How is it different?

At this point, there's no need to move to OSCAR, unless you just want something new.

When the next version comes out, then there will (should) be a reason to move, because it will have fixed bugs in SH, and will work better.

I advocated waiting to put the first version out there, until they had fixed bugs, until OSCAR 1.0 was *BETTER* than SH.... but that turned out to be a minority voice behind the "NOW NOW NOW" ones.... so, there's nothing much better in OSCAR.... YET.

I think the next release will be a big improvement though, because the people that are working on OSCAR care about what the users think, they care about how well the program works for *YOU*... they're not just doing it to stroke their egos and make money.

chunkyfrog wrote: ↑

Tue May 07, 2019 12:21 pm

So, if it is not really needed, what did Mark do with the money?

Spent it. not one penny was ever shared with any of the many people that contributed to SH.

I guess he was altruistic for a while.

I believe he usually did not get enough to pay for his website hosting,