Sleep Cycle: Anyone try this app?

[gwilks98]

http://brainposts.blogspot.com/2011/01/sleep-cycle-review-of-iphone-alarm-app.html



Sleep cycle is a software app that uses movement during sleep to time your iPhone alarm. It is designed to reduce the likelihood that your alarm will go off during a period of deep sleep or REM sleep. If you have some movement around the time your alarm is set to go off, the alarm will be set off. So say you want to wake up no later than 7 am. Beginning at 630 am, sleep cycle with monitor physical movement. If you begin to move during that 30 minute window, the alarm will sound. I found the app easy to use and the primary function worked well--each time the alarm went off I was easily able to hear it and didn't feel like I had been awakened from a deep sleep or during dreaming.



I am thinking about splurging just to give it a try. Maybe I can use it as leverage to kick the g/f's cat out of the bed. :)

[nate el bueno]

I'm an Android user and to this day, I've never paid for an app, but I would definitely buy this. That's a fantastic idea.

[cruelpupet]

Hmmm...how would it differentiate between you and a sig other, or a cat that occasionally hops on the bed?

[attgig]

so, do you have to wear the ipod? if it's using the accelerometer, isn't that the ipod itself moving? not a camera or anything like that, no?

[attgig]

oh...wait. i c.
http://mdlabs.se/sleepcycle/
http://mdlabs.se/sleepcycle/gfx/screens/1.jpg


and with two people from their FAQ:

How well does Sleep Cycle work with 2 people sharing a bed?
We have done a lot of testing in order to make Sleep Cycle work with two persons in bed. The short answer is: yes, Sleep Cycle works very well with two persons in bed. It could be a problem if the person using Sleep Cycle weighs much less than the other person but in normal circumstances it works very well.

There are two cases regarding this issue:

1) Sleep Cycle has a hard time detecting your movement.
In this case the movement of the other person will not be registered at all so there really is no issue. Sleep Cycle will work in a mode that uses all movement detected for the sleep analysis.

2) Sleep Cycle detects a lot of movement, from you AND the other person.
In this case Sleep Cycle will adjust it's algorithm to only register larger movements. The small movements fill be filtered. Since the other person is further away from the device these movements are smaller and will be filtered out.

Our extensive testing show that this works well.

[gwilks98]

there were some other reviews that stated that a phone left on the nightstand still reported movement. Hmm....now I'm skeptical.


The other thing I'm worried about is the radiation in relation to my head while I'm sleeping. My father died from brain cancer. I wonder if this will work on an ipad...(I could turn the radio off on it, as I have to have the phone on for work.)

[cruelpupet]

Still doesnt answer the cat/dog variable.

[attgig]

lock the cat/dog out of the room :)

and it says that it does work with an ipad. check that website's faq.

[Devhux]

I've been skeptical on how the phone solutions like this would work due to reasons stated above.

For me, I'm quite happy with the watch I have that accomplishes the same task (and very well, I might add). At $150 though, it's certainly a heck of a lot more expensive than one of these apps.

[cruelpupet]

I've been skeptical on how the phone solutions like this would work due to reasons stated above.

For me, I'm quite happy with the watch I have that accomplishes the same task (and very well, I might add). At $150 though, it's certainly a heck of a lot more expensive than one of these apps.


Whats the watch? does it go by heartbeat or bodytemp?

[Devhux]

It's called Sleeptracker. It does use an accelerometer, but since it's worn on the wrist, it stands to reason that it's more accurate than having a phone beside you.

I like being able to go through and see how well I slept based on the accelerometer data as well (the watch tracks this and shows each time it happened during the night as well as an average). For those who want to compare this over a period of time, it does come with software as well and a custom USB cable for connecting the watch.

[attgig]

so, i downloaded it, and have used it a couple times...
#1 critique....queen bed with my wife... doesn't leave a lot of free space for the ipod... i've knocked it off the bed more than once
#2 it does feel my wife's movements (she wakes up earlier than me, and it always shows a lot of movement then... i dunno, maybe i move too when she gets outta bed, but it makes the app recognize movement, even when i'm deeply sleeping.
#3 critique.... if i get a bit of insomnia (lying in bed for about an hour), i think it kinda messes up the app
#4 it's worked a couple times i think, but i still didn't really want to get up.
#5 a few times when i didn't sleep much, i hit the snooze a lot, and it would peak and valley really quickly... hilarious.