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So I promised people on Facebook and Google+ that I'd write up a review of the WakeMate. I figured the easiest thing to do would be to post it here and then link this post from those sites.
The WakeMate is a wristband that tracks your movements while you're sleeping. Using actigraphy (a method also used by Fitbit), it can tell reasonably well how deeply you're sleeping at a particular moment in time. The idea of the WakeMate is that it keeps track of when you're awake and when you're in light, average, or deep sleep. All of this data is recorded by the device in the wristband, and then it syncs with your phone when you wake up in the morning, putting the data on their website so that you can look at pretty graphs.
But the main point of the WakeMate isn't data tracking--it's to make you wake up feeling refreshed. You tell the WakeMate (via the phone app, which is available for iPhone, Android, and Blackberry) what time you want to wake up by, and beginning 20 minutes before that time (the 20 minutes is adjustable, but they recommend you keep it at the default), the WakeMate will look for when you're in light sleep and the alarm will go off at that time. If there is no optimal light sleep time in that 20 minutes, the alarm will go off at the time that you specified (so it doesn't let you oversleep). The idea is that if you're woken up when your body is already naturally half-awake, you'll feel more rested than if you're woken up while you're in deep sleep.
I got the WakeMate 3 weeks ago, and I've used it every night except for one. I would say that the majority of the time, I'm not as tired as I used to be during the day, particularly when it comes to small amounts of sleep. That said, the WakeMate can't make you actually get to bed at a reasonable time, so the fact that I don't sleep for enough hours most nights makes me tired anyway, despite the WakeMate. For what it's worth, though, the alarm has always gone off as it should have, and the battery in the wristband seems to last at least 2 days (I try to charge it every day though). I do wish the alarm had a snooze feature--supposedly this is in development though.
One thing that I've noticed causes some issues sometimes is sleeping with another person who gets woken up by their alarm around the same time you have the WakeMate set for. Generally, as long as you're not woken up during that 20 minute window by anything other than your WakeMate, it seems to do okay. But if your partner's alarm goes off during that period and wakes you up, you'll move, and that'll make the WakeMate alarm go off--but you might have been in deep sleep at that time. So I think it's most effective if you make sure no other alarms will wake you up during that 20 minute period. It's fine if they go off beforehand--I just go back to sleep if that happens.
Oh, another cool feature is that you can add tags to each night, and then use those tags to compare how well you slept (based on your nightly "sleep score", which is a 0-100 number that shows your sleep quality, where higher is better). For example, I have tags for whether I'm sleeping at Mark's place or mine, and I can compare those tags and see that I have an average sleep score of 74 at his place and 82 at mine. I can also see that I have an average sleep score of 85 on nights I got massaged vs. my overall average of 77. Other useful tags could be whether or not you exercised that day, what you ate, etc. I haven't seen too many useful trends yet, but I imagine that'll change as I get more data.
There's a whole bunch of graphs, but I picked a few to screenshot and show here. The stats can't be shared with anyone besides yourself, though you can export a CSV of all of your data if you want to.
( Graphs! )
Overall, I like the WakeMate and I'm going to continue using it. Considering it's only a one-time fee of $60 (the stats stuff is all free, at least for now), I think it's a good investment. I recommend that people give it a try, though the wristbands seem to be backordered right now, so you'll have to wait to get one. I'm hoping that with time I'll be able to notice trends so I can figure out how to have the best night's sleep possible. :)
Oh, and I recommend reading the WakeMate FAQ for more details. If you have any questions, though, let me know!
The WakeMate is a wristband that tracks your movements while you're sleeping. Using actigraphy (a method also used by Fitbit), it can tell reasonably well how deeply you're sleeping at a particular moment in time. The idea of the WakeMate is that it keeps track of when you're awake and when you're in light, average, or deep sleep. All of this data is recorded by the device in the wristband, and then it syncs with your phone when you wake up in the morning, putting the data on their website so that you can look at pretty graphs.
But the main point of the WakeMate isn't data tracking--it's to make you wake up feeling refreshed. You tell the WakeMate (via the phone app, which is available for iPhone, Android, and Blackberry) what time you want to wake up by, and beginning 20 minutes before that time (the 20 minutes is adjustable, but they recommend you keep it at the default), the WakeMate will look for when you're in light sleep and the alarm will go off at that time. If there is no optimal light sleep time in that 20 minutes, the alarm will go off at the time that you specified (so it doesn't let you oversleep). The idea is that if you're woken up when your body is already naturally half-awake, you'll feel more rested than if you're woken up while you're in deep sleep.
I got the WakeMate 3 weeks ago, and I've used it every night except for one. I would say that the majority of the time, I'm not as tired as I used to be during the day, particularly when it comes to small amounts of sleep. That said, the WakeMate can't make you actually get to bed at a reasonable time, so the fact that I don't sleep for enough hours most nights makes me tired anyway, despite the WakeMate. For what it's worth, though, the alarm has always gone off as it should have, and the battery in the wristband seems to last at least 2 days (I try to charge it every day though). I do wish the alarm had a snooze feature--supposedly this is in development though.
One thing that I've noticed causes some issues sometimes is sleeping with another person who gets woken up by their alarm around the same time you have the WakeMate set for. Generally, as long as you're not woken up during that 20 minute window by anything other than your WakeMate, it seems to do okay. But if your partner's alarm goes off during that period and wakes you up, you'll move, and that'll make the WakeMate alarm go off--but you might have been in deep sleep at that time. So I think it's most effective if you make sure no other alarms will wake you up during that 20 minute period. It's fine if they go off beforehand--I just go back to sleep if that happens.
Oh, another cool feature is that you can add tags to each night, and then use those tags to compare how well you slept (based on your nightly "sleep score", which is a 0-100 number that shows your sleep quality, where higher is better). For example, I have tags for whether I'm sleeping at Mark's place or mine, and I can compare those tags and see that I have an average sleep score of 74 at his place and 82 at mine. I can also see that I have an average sleep score of 85 on nights I got massaged vs. my overall average of 77. Other useful tags could be whether or not you exercised that day, what you ate, etc. I haven't seen too many useful trends yet, but I imagine that'll change as I get more data.
There's a whole bunch of graphs, but I picked a few to screenshot and show here. The stats can't be shared with anyone besides yourself, though you can export a CSV of all of your data if you want to.
( Graphs! )
Overall, I like the WakeMate and I'm going to continue using it. Considering it's only a one-time fee of $60 (the stats stuff is all free, at least for now), I think it's a good investment. I recommend that people give it a try, though the wristbands seem to be backordered right now, so you'll have to wait to get one. I'm hoping that with time I'll be able to notice trends so I can figure out how to have the best night's sleep possible. :)
Oh, and I recommend reading the WakeMate FAQ for more details. If you have any questions, though, let me know!
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