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Wakemate (YC S09) helps you kiss groggy mornings goodbye

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Re: Wakemate (YC S09) helps you kiss groggy mornings goodbye

#81

Post by jerf »

zacharypinter wrote: post #78

I'm particularly interested in using this to help trigger lucid dreams. For the past few years, I've had a song on my playlist that I've trained myself to always ask if I'm dreaming when I hear it. The idea being that this song would play at the right time during my sleep cycle to get me to realize that I'm dreaming. However, so far I've had trouble triggering the song at the right time. Perhaps this app will be conf…

Where did you get the idea to trigger lucid dreaming with a song? I am both very musically oriented and a frequent lucid dreamer, and I rarely ever have any music in my dreams, let alone any sort of recognizable tune. I'm talking months between each such event. Unless you frequently dream about music already (as we are all different), I would suggest sticking to the more conventional triggers.

One of these events took the form of a dream that I had written the most powerful, moving song ever, one that could forcibly move people to tears due to sheer awesomeness. Bear in mind I'm not talking about an abstract assessment, but a deep belief that this was awesome. For once, I managed to actually drag the song back up to the waking world, whereupon I discovered that my brilliant song was, in two-second-long quarter notes, the following incredible melody line: C, C, D, C, repeat.

(The full moon seems like a good one to me; I get a lot of circles in my dreams, only due to my science-fiction viewing proclivities, they tend to turn into Stargates.)

Re: Wakemate (YC S09) helps you kiss groggy mornings goodbye

#82

Post by ryanwaggoner »

codexon wrote: post #72

This looks like the same technology used in the ubiquitous sleeptracker. http://www.sleeptracker.com/ I've heard complaints that it doesn't accurately monitor your sleep cycles because it uses an accelerometer which obviously doesn't work if you don't move enough. There is a product called Zeo that supposedly detects your brainwaves but then people complain about having to wear a strap on your head. http://www.myzeo.…

ubiquitous seems a bit of a stretch... :)

Re: Wakemate (YC S09) helps you kiss groggy mornings goodbye

#83

Post by codexon »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #82
codexon wrote: post #72

This looks like the same technology used in the ubiquitous sleeptracker. http://www.sleeptracker.com/ I've heard complaints that it doesn't accurately monitor your sleep cycles because it uses an accelerometer which obviously doesn't work if you don't move enough. There is a product called Zeo that supposedly detects your brainwaves but then people complain about having to wear a strap on your head. http://www.myzeo.…

ubiquitous seems a bit of a stretch... :)

Well seeing how it was mentioned all over the media like Dr. Phil, 37 Signals, and Wired, Associated Press, G4TV, etc... I would say it is far more ubiquitous than the zeo.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=sleeptracker

Re: Wakemate (YC S09) helps you kiss groggy mornings goodbye

#85

Post by physcab »

jacquesm wrote: post #70

Of all the recent YC announcements this is the first one that has me go: Yes! solve a real world problem. Runner up is the flight delay guys, but I no longer fly a lot for business so it is not as much of a factor as it used to be. Congratulations, excellent idea and a very nicely priced implementation. I sincerely hope you'll sell these by the containerload.

I wonder how lucrative the market is though. As hackers, we're naturally inclined towards products like these.

If actigraphy is an established sleep-study technique, then you have to wonder why there aren't more players.

Re: Wakemate (YC S09) helps you kiss groggy mornings goodbye

#88

Post by ladyada »

tptacek wrote: post #8
vaksel wrote: post #7

so how come wakemate can get their product built and shipped in 6 months, and techcrunch is still working on the crunchpad since 2008? Especially when you consider that wakemate is doing something a little bit more complicated than just throwing a bunch of common components together?

Probably because (1) Wakemate has simpler price constraints, and (2) because the software integration required for Wakemate is simpler than for that of an entire general-purpose computing device?

A big part of it is power supply (a tablet ps is extraordinarily hard to design whereas this can run on a large coin cell or AAA battery), and display (blinking LEDs are easier to get a hold of than nice color LCD with good touchpads).

Re: Wakemate (YC S09) helps you kiss groggy mornings goodbye

#90

Post by bobbyi »

quizbiz wrote: post #53

Why do you need a smartphone to use the product? Why doesn't the device just use wifi to call any number so that I could have it call my cell and wake me up?

Or just put an alarm in the device itself. I can see the appeal of a $50 alarm that attaches to my wrist and wakes me up at the right time, but I definitely don't want something monitoring my sleeping pattern and reporting them to somebody's server.
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