There are a couple of devices out in the market which claim that they can track our brain waves and simultaneously wake us up when it’s the right time. By saying right time they mean that when we are ready to get up and when we are not in our sleep mode but just lazing it out on the bed. Something on the similar lines is being done by the newly launched Zeo Sleep Manager which uses a headband to track our brain waves. Sleep Tracker uses a watch to detect any movements in our body while sleeping.
This works on the cycle that the alarm sounds itself to wake up the person when people are moving between two phases- the light sleep and the rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. This is the phase where dreams or nightmares generally occur as quoted by David Dickinson, chief executive for Zeo, makers of Zeo Sleep Manager. At this stage, he says, “you’re at the surface, already almost awake.” By contrast, waking out of another phase, deep sleep, is often not so fun: You may feel groggy and confused, wondering who and where you are and why your head weighs 500 pounds.
In case of The Zeo Sleep Manager, it is available at $149 for bedside version and in $99 for device that interfaces with your smartphone. It consists of a headband that you wear to bed which does the job of measuring brainwaves and translating them into the sleep stages they correspond to: In deep sleep, brainwaves are slow; in light sleep, there are ups and downs; in REM sleep they’re corresponding to when you are awake. Depending on whichever version you have, this information is sent to a phone or a bedside station.
In case of The Sleep Tracker, it takes the form of a watch that keeps a technological eye on your body movements during the night. Depending on the kind of movements you have, it sounds off an alarm. It is available on amazon.com for $120. But the question of how accurate these sleep ticking devices are is still to be answered. Some scientists believe it is almost like replicating a sleep lab while some believe that these devices just give estimates. They may not be as accurate as people think said Dr. Clete Kushida.
