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There are a number of products on the market that claim to be "better alarm clocks" that allows you to feel more refreshed when you wake - even if you sleep a few minutes or tens of minutes less.

There are two claims:

  1. that one feels more refreshed if one wakes during the REM phase of a sleep cycle, and

  2. by monitoring movement as one sleeps, devices can determine the sleep cycle.

Examples of products that make such claims include:

SleepTracker’s SmartStart Technology monitors your sleep stages throughout the night and then uses that data to determine the exact moment when you should be awoken helping you feel refreshed and energetic. 1

Do these alarm clocks really make you feel more refreshed? Is such a thing feasible?

Wertilq
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Larry OBrien
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  • Where can you get one of those devices that logs your sleep pattern to a computer? – SteveGSD Jun 25 '11 at 03:48
  • Skeptics is for claims researching the evidence behind the claims you hear or read. It is not for idle speculation. Have you heard or read someone claiming, or is this just mere curiosity? If the former, could you provide us with a link to the claim or expend on the context where you encountered it? It would be helpful. – Borror0 Jun 25 '11 at 04:05
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    I have added links (not comprehensive) to products that make these claims. – Larry OBrien Jun 25 '11 at 04:37
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    You *have* to add a link to what I thought was the most prominent of all! [Zeo](http://whatiszeo3.myzeo.com/hp/3/whatiszeo.php): "Zeo is designed to help you analyze your sleep and improve it, so you can be your best...Zeo will tell you your ZQ — a number that summarizes your sleep’s quantity and quality...If you can measure it, you can improve it...Zeo Personal Sleep Coach will help you understand and minimize the factors that negatively affect sleep, so you can take control of your nights. You can use the visual analytical tools...to see trends and cause & effect patterns." – Hendy Jun 25 '11 at 04:43
  • It would be quite awesome if this worked (unfortunately, it also makes the products smell of scam...) – Sklivvz Jun 25 '11 at 20:06
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    If you look at one of the top amazon reviews for Zeo, it says that it reported that he was asleep and had REM / light sleep cycles even though he was wide awake the whole time. – SteveGSD Jun 25 '11 at 21:22
  • You forgot WakeMate (http://wakemate.com). It's a wrist thing you wear in bed and it communicates with an Android / iOS device movements as you sleep. Got one the other day. About to use it and sleep for the first time :) – Chris Dennett Jun 26 '11 at 05:31
  • @Chris Let us know how it works. – John Rhoades Oct 10 '11 at 14:20
  • The software on the iPad has never worked for me, it keeps crashing during sync when it's supposed to wake you up, then the app crashes when you open it. If you uninstall the app then reinstall it, it works, but the 'hours slept' on previous nights shows (null). I sent an e-mail asking for help and they tried to help me for a while, even issuing a software update (that did nothing to fix the bug) then they stopped contacting me for some reason, after saying that they might use me to beta test new versions. Meh. – Chris Dennett Oct 10 '11 at 14:57
  • I have been using Smart Alarm Clock (for Android) since February 2010 and I must admit that it has been working very well about 95% of the time. Out of the other 5%, I'll say that probably 3% is because I only had less than four hours to sleep. Sometimes it even works when I had only between five and six to sleep. Pretty amazing in my opinion! – ChrisR Nov 03 '11 at 14:31

2 Answers2

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This article may be enlightening.

The most accurate method of measuring someone's sleep cycle is to use a bunch of electrodes attached to a person's head - I did this once. It's difficult to sleep this way because the gunk gets in your hair and restricts your movement in the night. However, measuring a person's movement during sleep - which is what all of these devices are doing is also very accurate.

This paper, claims to be able to accurately detect REM sleep from actigraphy and pulse monitoring.

Waking at the right cycle during sleep reduces sleep inertia - the feeling of grogginess. Here's a source explaining sleep inertia.

It is possible to fairly accurately monitor sleep cycles using activity, and waking up in the certain sleep cycles reduces grogginess, so their claims are plausible

Wertilq
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Catherine Holloway
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The gold standard for measuring or monitoring sleep is Polysomnography (PSG for short).

However as Catherine says it's quite a cumbersome procedure. It monitors many vitals like EEG, EMG, Oronasal respiratory rhythms. Researchers have that's why tried a lot to analyse sleep using other easily available human vital signs. Accelerometry or Actigraphy (measuring body movement) gives valuable information on the depth of sleep.

That was the essence of all first generation research starting from 1960's until almost 2004. But now-a-days, few researchers have showed that it's possible to analyse sleep into 4 NREM (Non Rapid Eye Movement) and REM and a wake phase using the Heart Rate Variability (HRV).

There are numerous devices in the market that claim to analyse sleep. Most or all of them output various measures related to sleep efficiency. I'm currently doing a literature survey on the topic. In near future, we intend to devise our own algorithm that can do this in an effective way.

Btw, I'm a bio-medical algorithm developer.

Wertilq
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paraglider
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