Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Dream Alarm Clock

OK, so in the midst of all the show prep, I heard about a new alarm clock app for the iPod and decided to try it. It is pretty amazing.

This alarm clock uses the motion sensors in the iPod to determine how deeply you are sleeping, and connects to weather services on the internet. This lets you tell it to wake you when certain parameters are met:

1. Have I actually slept enough?
2. How deeply am I sleeping right now?
3. Is it warm out? Calm wind?

You can use all of these parameters to set intelligent alarms.

Here are the setting I'm using right now, and they're gaining me something like two hours a day.

1. It knows whether I've slept enough and wakes me later if I haven't.
2. "around" means that it will wait until it senses that I'm sleeping lightly before trying to wake me, regardless of how long I've slept.
3. The failsafe. If I didn't sleep well and I'm sound asleep, but it's now 7:00, it will wake me anyhow, using a more raucous sound.

At the end of the night, it saves a log of how deeply you slept. You can look back at old logs to remember how well you're sleeping and see if changes in diet, exercise, or something else caused a change in your sleep pattern. Pretty cool stuff.

And then there are all of the other parameters like if someone tweeted you. I can't imagine how to use that, but I'll bet it's useful to someone!

This is a pretty cool app, and has done a great job so far at helping me to wake up after I've gotten enough sleep instead of turning over and going back in to unneeded REM for another hour and waking up late and groggy.

2 comments:

Alsan said...

so, do you have to sleep with your I-pod? motion sensors?

Unknown said...

Yeah, but I already keep it next to my pillow. I use an audiobook version of The Mabinogion if I'm having a hard time getting to sleep. (Ancient Welsh legend. Give it a try. It works every time!) I have also used it as my regular alarm clock for quite a while. And then there's the security of having my todo lists right there to capture items that would otherwise keep me awake.