Technology to Help You Sleep
Tech Talker explores several gadgets and apps that can help you wake up and go to sleep easier.
In this week’s episode I’m going to be covering sleep technology.
I was talking with my friend Ellen who is a nurse. She was telling me about a lamp that she uses which is designed to simulate sunrise. Ellen uses it because she often has crazy shift hours, which will require her to sometimes sleep all day and work at night or wake up super early!
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This started a whole conversation about sleep technology and inspired this episode.
Wake-Up Light
First off let’s talk about Ellen’s lamp. This device is made by Philips and it’s called the Wake-Up Light. You set a time that you want to wake up and it will gradually brighten with simulated sunlight. This allows your body to wake up naturally, rather than scaring you awake like most alarms.
The lamp has other features such as playing soothing sounds to help you wake up and of course, it can also be used as a regular lamp. It uses a replaceable halogen bulb.
Since I don’t have strange work hours, I’ve never needed it. But for someone like Ellen, who routinely wakes up at 1am to go to work, it’s a lifesaver and worth the hefty $99 price tag.
The Lark
Next up is the Lark. This little device is great for couples where each partner has to wake up at different times (or for the hearing-impaired). The Lark is a wristband with a built-in clock. You set an alarm time and it vibrates to wake you up. This way, it only wakes up the person wearing the wristband.
The Lark is controlled using your smartphone, and if you get the Lark Pro, it will track your sleep schedule and offer recommendations. The Lark is $49.
Let’s say you don’t want a $99 lamp or a $50 wristband to help you sleep and wake peacefully, but what about a $0.99 app?
Sleep Cycle
There’s an awesome app for the iPhone called Sleep Cycle and SleepBot for Android. This app tracks your sleep cycle throughout the night using the motion sensors on your phone. As you sleep, your body naturally goes between light sleep and deep sleep (or REM sleep).
While you’re in deep sleep, your body doesn’t move a whole lot. However, during light sleep you tend to move a lot more. Before you go to sleep you set your alarm and accelerometers will pick up and track your movement and then determine the optimal time to wake you up.
I used the app for a long time and it worked really well. I was never startled asleep like with my dumb alarm clock!
The only thing that I didn’t care for about this app was that it required you to keep your phone on your bed. If you knocked your phone off the bed, it would have no way to track your sleep patterns. Other than that it’s pretty awesome in how well it works. You can even see a graph of your sleep on a particular night and compare it to other nights.
This function could be pretty useful if you notice a disruption in your sleep at a particular hour every night that you may not remember or know about. This was the case for me. I saw a disruption at 4:30am almost every night and couldn’t figure out why. It turned out to be the sprinklers next door coming on and causing the disruption!
Bedtime + Screens = Bad Sleep
Ironically, technology isn’t always good for your sleep. In fact, my number one tech tip for sleeping well is: Don’t use your screen at least 15 minutes before you go to bed. That’s right, this tech tip involves you not using tech!
The artificial light from whatever device you use has been shown to disrupt the melatonin levels which are what help to regulate your sleep. Often people who use their screens right before bed have a harder time going to sleep, and may not sleep as well throughout the night.
If you don’t believe me, check out the article Can’t Sleep? Blame the Tablet.
With that here are your 4 Quick and Dirty Tips for getting a better night’s sleep and waking up rested:
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Check out the Phillip’s Wake-Up Light if you want to wake up easily with simulated sunlight. -
If you have to wake up a lot earlier than your significant other, try out the Lark wristband, which vibrates to wake you quietly.
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If you want to track your sleep patterns, try the Sleep Cycle or SleepBot apps on your smartphone. They use the phone’s built in accelerometers to track your sleep.
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If you have a hard time getting to sleep, try taking a break from your device for 15-30 minutes before you go to bed.
Check out the Well, that’s it for today! Be sure to check out all my earlier episodes at techtalker.quickanddirtytips.com. And if you have further questions about this podcast or want to make a suggestion for a future episode, post them on Facebook QDTtechtalker.
Until next time, I’m the Tech Talker, keeping technology simple!
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About the Author
Tech Talker demystifies technology and cutting edge devices so that even the most tech illiterate can understand what’s going on with their computer or gadget — and what to do when something goes wrong.
