Five tech gadgets that will help you get a good night’s sleep

The connection between sleep and technology goes both ways. It’s dangerous and yet helpful.

Ariana Huffington, one of the world’s most influential women also echoes this very sentiment in her book, ‘The Sleep Revolution: Transforming your life one night at a time.’

She believes that though the ubiquity of technology and its addictive nature has made it much harder for us to disconnect and go to sleep, the relationship between the two is however not all bad.

Now, it is possible to get the most out of technology, thanks to the horde of products and apps that are designed to help improve our sleep.
And, people are making the most of it. As it turns out, technology is not only making us learn more about themselves but is also playing a part in helping us track our sleep. The numbers are proof. According a 2015 survey by Sleep Number, about 58 percent respondents said that they wished they knew more about how to track and get better.

Thankfully, for us, there are a lot of tech products that are willing to see us off as we set foot for our journey to dreamland.
Here’s listing five of them (Ariana Huffington wrote about them in her book) that you should know about-

1. Sense: Sense is a non-wearable sleep tracker that will sit by your bedside promising to track not only your sleep but how light, sound temperature, air quality and humidity affects the quality of sleep. Also included is an alarm designed to gently wake one up during the lightest phase of their sleep cycle.

James Proud, the founder and CEO of Hello, the data science and engineering company behind the product claims that this gave them a more complete understanding of how to improve things. He also told Ariana Huffington that the data comes from a bedside orb that monitors the room conditions, a small ‘sleep pill’ that attaches to one’s pillow and lastly, an app for the phone.

2. Chrona: This product created by a company called Ultradia is essentially a memory-foam insert that you slip inside your pillowcase where it starts tracking your sleep based on the movements of your head and torso. Pretty damn cool, right? There’s more. The company’s founder Ben Bronsther claims that his goal is to build Chrona onto a device which can act as a full-fledged home sleep lab for users sans uncomfortable wires or overnight stays in labs.

3. Samsung Gear S: The Android smartwatch too includes sleep-tracking in its fitness app. Jawbone’s UP3 band tracks steps, meals, heart rate, and REM sleep, light sleep and deep sleep. Additionally, the app’s Smart Coach feeds one the insights, data and guidance they need to actually change their behaviour and get a better night’s sleep.

4. Aura Sleep System: Released in 2014 by Withings, a French maker of smart products and services, this includes a bedside device, which is eleven-inch long and monitors sound, temperature levels and light apart from emitting sound and light to help users go to sleep and wake up.

5. Fitbit: How could the largest maker of fitness –tracking wristbands stay far behind? The device not only measures the time one spends in bed into three categories- asleep, restless and awake, but it also lets the user set sleep goals and track their sleep history.

Image credit: Indiatimes