Sleep Technology, What it actually is?

Never heard that before, never thought of something taking part in what could be considered as the basic necessity and a thing that comes naturally to creatures. Yes, but there do exist technologies that could take part in your sleep and its patterns. Nearly one-third of the population isn’t getting adequate sleep making them prone to obesity, heart diseases, and other similar issues. A study conducted by Center for disease control and prevention (CDC) reported. In 2011, a similar kind of survey was conducted by the National Sleep Foundation (NSF) to know how many of the respondents have sleeping problems and nearly 87% of the participants replied in affirmative and lack of sleep is considered as a core public health issue. They also reported that lack of adequate sleep and poor sleep quality has affected their activities in the last week for at least once if no more.

It seemed obvious that technology would enter this arena too and recent research contributed to this fact and companies started to work on how to use technology for making sleeping patterns of individuals any better. This has made the global market of sleeping aids boom that could reach to a level of almost $80 billion by 2019. Consumers, too, on the other hand, seemed reluctant initially have now started to subscribe for every best possible opportunity that could help them sleep.

It’s a misconception that you need to have some kind of sleep disorder in order to use sleeping aids. The growth of this industry has been fueled by positive feedback from consumers and most of them never cached any sleeping disorder. In another survey conducted by National Sleep Foundation and Consumer Electronics Association, more than 60 percent of the participants showed signs of being aware of their sleeping patterns, half of them said they were made aware of this and nearly 40 percent of them said they felt healthier as a result. There still has room for growth in sleeping aids technology with nearly 70 percent of the consumers below the age of 45 have not yet adopted it, leaving a big margin for improvement.

Technology has contributed a lot in the way of thinking of a normal consumer with the use of smartphones making it one of the easier and respondent ways of tackling any issue. They need an app for almost everything nowadays. People have become fond of getting instant feedback on whatever they do and things such as fitness trackers and smart alarm clocks have contributed greatly to the sleep tech market. Apps like Sleep Time and Sleep Cycle use motion sensors in a phone to track your sleeping pattern and wake you up when you enter the lightest sleeping phase. Similarly, different fitness trackers and smart watches have this technology incorporated the same way. Samsung Gear S2, Fitbit, and Apple Watch are among those but there exist some many more specialized devices for the achieving the same.

Sleeping is another one that happens to be using three different senses to promote sleep. The auditory sense is stimulated by producing soft natural sounds, the visual sense through imitating moonlight and the olfactory sense though diffusing soothing scents to create a calm and serene environment stimulating sleep. Your movements during the night can also be tracked by a thing called Beddit Sleep Tracker, which is thin strip sitting on top of your mattress. iFit is also working on a similar kind of product that slides under your mattress, thus keeping a track of how you breathe, your heart rate, and how efficient your sleep is. Witlings Corporation has launched an app accompanied alarm clock Aura that is just more than an alarm clock beside your side table. It has a lamp, speaker, and optional sleep sensor to keep a track on your sleep and tries to improve the environment you’re sleeping in. Aura comes with an uncanny ability to stimulate a sunrise, gradually increase the blue light and then produce the sound to wake you up. There is a hormone produced in the body called Melatonin, which is also called the sleep hormone which when depressed makes you wake refreshingly wake up and ready for the day. At night, the reverse scenario happens when the lamp produces an orange light fostering Melatonin production making you fall asleep faster than normal. It also keeps a track of your room’s temperature, sound levels to help you improve your sleep even more. All of these devices are duly connected with your phones through apps so your smartphone will give you all your snoozing details.

There is a tough competition out there due to the scope tag it carries with it. People won’t stop sleeping and they’ll need all kinds of technology coming with it. Recently Casper, an e-commerce company started to sell innovative foam mattress and eventually rose around $55 million. You just need to click on the website and your shipment will arrive in a few days carrying an astonishingly small box on your doorstep. Helix Sleep, on the other hand, provides a similar thing but the products are customizable. Users are requested to figure out what is the best memory foam mattress quality and answer a questionnaire to create a customized mattress matching their sleeping needs and preferences. They can alter the firmness, cooling and other customization options for each side. Sleep Number have created and IT Bed having built-in biometric sensors that quantify your sleep and makes suggestions as to how you can improve your slumber through the app associated.

The technology is still considered to be in its early stage but with all the benefits that it carries it will eventually become the norm rather an exception in the coming years. People generally trust the reviews of family friends and relatives especially with products that are not that cheap they tend to wait for the most convincing review.