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Sleepless in Silicon Valley

economist.com

51–60 of 120 posts

Re: Sleepless in Silicon Valley

#51
post #20

Re/ oura rings... anyone else paranoid of a private company having access to intensely personal data? If I were an insurance company I'd be lobbying the shit out of these guys to see how much they'd charge me to get my hands on it. (and yeah, I read Oura's privacy agreement already... was less than impressed)

Of course, but this is just another in a long train of abuse-potential. The technology isn't the choke point for protecting our rights, and individual consumer choices will never be revolutionary enough to alter the terms of consumption.

Re: Sleepless in Silicon Valley

#52

My sleep tracking now consists of putting my APAP on to counteract my sleep apnea, falling asleep within seconds because I'm like Pavlov's sleeping baby dog because of the machine, and then waking up and seeing what the machine says re: how long it has been pushing air in my nose. It works surprisingly well, actually. If I only got 6.5 hours of APAP last night, then I will pretty reliably go to bed a little earlier t…

I'm curious - How do stomach sleepers adjust to these masks? Or does sleep apnea only affect back sleepers? It would be impossible for me to sleep wearing a mask.

Re: Sleepless in Silicon Valley

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I care if my scale at home is accurate. I don't want to know if my weight is going up or down, I want to know what I currently weigh so I can decide what I need to do about it.

Cant you just use the mirror for that?

Hard to use a mirror in your sleep.

Re: Sleepless in Silicon Valley

#54
post #48
post #24

Another view on the Oura thing: https://www.medpagetoday.com/practicemanagement/informationt... It's rather skeptical. Choice quote: [...] The SRI researchers studied 41 healthy adolescents and young adults (average age 17). Sleep data were recorded using the Oura ring and standard PSG on a single laboratory overnight. Metrics were compared using Bland-Altman plots and epoch-by-epoch analysis. The ring accurately det…

I was using a Fitbit Charge (the one before the just released one). One night I was awake looking at my phone from 1-3am and it said I was asleep. Took it off and put it into a drawer right then.

On the contrary, my Charge 2 is generally pretty accurate in terms of when I'm asleep vs awake.

Re: Sleepless in Silicon Valley

#55
This is a great example of how quantitative facts decide over the qualitative evaluation of all things in Silicon Valley - including deeply personal matters like sleep and even relationships. I've been living in Silicon Valley for a while now and I can't believe my eyes and ears sometimes!

Re: Sleepless in Silicon Valley

#56
post #35
post #24

Another view on the Oura thing: https://www.medpagetoday.com/practicemanagement/informationt... It's rather skeptical. Choice quote: [...] The SRI researchers studied 41 healthy adolescents and young adults (average age 17). Sleep data were recorded using the Oura ring and standard PSG on a single laboratory overnight. Metrics were compared using Bland-Altman plots and epoch-by-epoch analysis. The ring accurately det…

I have a cheap Mi Band 2 and I'm impressed with how well it measures when I'm sleeping and when I'm awake. I don't know how good it is to measure deep sleep. I does not pretend to measure REM. Are there any weareable device that measures it well?

I use an Apple Watch and an app called Pillow and it does a plausible job of guessing when I went to sleep and when I woke up. It also identifies light/deep sleep and REM, but I have no way of telling how accurate. It seems to detect awake periods at night as well as I can remember them.

But ... I kinda assume it's a crapshoot and I use it more as a novelty and an estimate of total sleep than any kind of accurate representation of sleep cycles.

Re: Sleepless in Silicon Valley

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My problem is when this company fizzles out in 2 years and stops servicing or supporting their product. If Apple make made something like this, I may bite.

They do, it's called the Apple Watch. I find if I charge it in the morning and night while I'm brushing my teeth, the battery lasts all day. And there's a few apps that do good sleep reporting. I like AutoSleep and SleepWatch

But you have to have an iPhone to use it.

Re: Sleepless in Silicon Valley

#58
post #26

Hmm another sleep article. I'll share what I do. After being in the Army for a while, and waking up at 430 and going to bed at close to midnight for a long time during the week (there's no real "sleep schedule" overseas though) I've been working on tuning my sleep cycle for the seasons to great success. Over the last year I've been slightly altering my alarm each night based on when sunrise is (plus going to bed earl…

Can you add more details on how you handle seasons? This is something I've been wondering about. Do you shorten/lengthen your sleep? Or just shift it to always wake up at sunrise? I think shifting seasons might be one "natural" thing which our biology is not "naturally" attuned to, and a fixed-length day would probably be better (maybe we'll have it in the future on a space colony, by I digress).

I think it's as simple as I sleep more in the winter and less in the summer and about the same between spring and fall. Not anything crazy. It's probably an average of ~7 hours in the summers and 8+ in the winter. I live in a high latitude city and last year I figured I'd just try it, given how much more light we get in the summer. Work is a little hard to accommodate in the winter sometimes, but otherwise I think I'll probably do this for the rest of my life.

Re: Sleepless in Silicon Valley

#59

My sleep tracking now consists of putting my APAP on to counteract my sleep apnea, falling asleep within seconds because I'm like Pavlov's sleeping baby dog because of the machine, and then waking up and seeing what the machine says re: how long it has been pushing air in my nose. It works surprisingly well, actually. If I only got 6.5 hours of APAP last night, then I will pretty reliably go to bed a little earlier t…

I'm curious - How do stomach sleepers adjust to these masks? Or does sleep apnea only affect back sleepers? It would be impossible for me to sleep wearing a mask.

There are masks and pillows specifically designed for stomach sleepers. But stomach sleeping is somewhat uncommon, and plenty of people who sleep in more conventional positions can't adapt to sleeping with a CPAP, so you probably just have to find out yourself.

FWIW, I have sleep apnea and I'm a strict side sleeper. I also had a real tough time getting used to sleeping with something attached to my face. Sometimes I still take it off if I'm awake too long during the 2-4am time period, but most nights I sleep through without even noticing. I use a nasal mask, though, I absolutely have not ever been able to tolerate a full face mask.

Re: Sleepless in Silicon Valley

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter so much how accurate it is, as long as it's consistently inaccurate. I don't care if my scale at home is perfectly accurate. I care about knowing that my weight is going up/down.

I care if my scale at home is accurate. I don't want to know if my weight is going up or down, I want to know what I currently weigh so I can decide what I need to do about it.

Your example seems to disagree with your premise. If someone tells me I weigh "9239" this means nothing to me, unless in context of whether it's going up or down, and how it is related to others of my height (and age and gender, perhaps).

I don't care that I weigh some multiple of an SI unit, or some fraction of a car. I care about my weight relative to others and my history.

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