Dubbed SmartSleep, Philips’ newest sleeping gadget is essentially a soft foam headband that you slip over your noggin before laying down to rest. It goes a little further than other sleep gadgets that simply monitor the quality of your sleep (although it does that too through a companion app), by kicking into gear once it recognizes the user has entered slow-wave sleep, a phase defined by relaxed muscles and slower heart rate and breathing.
It does this through a pair of sensors inside the headband that detect this shift and, using algorithms built with the help of neurologists, then comes up with customized audio tones to enhance its effects. These tones are played through integrated speakers, and their timing and volume is customized by the algorithm specifically to boost slow waves, apparently making them deeper, longer lasting and more rejuvenating overall.
Philips does say this is the first and only “clinically proven” wearable solution to improve sleep quality, but it provides only some pretty vague info to back up that claim. Apparently, an undisclosed number of test subjects whose lifestyles don’t allow them enough sleep used the device for two weeks, and afterwards, 70 percent of them reported feeling less tired.
And that’s the target market for the SmartSleep, people who sleep between five and seven hours a night most of the time and simply wanted to get more energy out of that downtime. Philips says the test users were shown to have increased energy, higher alertness and a better quality of sleep.
Philips’ SmartSleep headband plays customized tones to drive you into a deeper sleep [New Atlas]