Let me start off by saying, I promise you this isn't some paid-off dishonest review just to get you to try a product. I am not receiving any compensation from the company or any other benefits, and this is my complete honest review based on my 30 day personal use of the product.
Now that we've got that out of the way, what is this "product" that I'm talking about. Well, it's too cool of a secret, so I'm not going to tell you. Oh, right, this is a blog and I came on here just to tell you about it… OK, fine.
Thirty days ago, I was searching for "sleep tips" on Google. It's not that I have any real sleeping problems per se, but I'm always looking for ways to enhance and improve every aspect of my life, hence the title of this site, "FitBuff.com – Total Mind and Body Fitness". So, after combing through a few different sites with some reasonable tips like, "don't exercise at night", "make sure your room is as dark and quiet as possible", and disregarding the millions of sleeping drugs and pills in between, I finally stumbled across a site advertising something called a Sleeptracker Wake Up Monitor
It showed a picture of a normal looking watch, so curiously, I clicked it to see what this was all about. I spent the next hour or so reading over all the information on their official site, as well as a number of reviews, which surprisingly were overwhelmingly positive. Sure there were a fair share of critics, but even most of them only had gripes with a few technical aspects of the watch, such as size or volume, etc.
After some more searching and reading (I know, I know, but I tend to overanalyze things and make sure I'm absolutely sure before making any kind of purchase), I became increasingly more intrigued. First, a brief description of what the watch does. Basically the watch tracks your sleeping patterns and wakes you up during an ideal sleeping stage (hence the brilliant product name: "Sleeptracker Wake Up Monitor"). You put the watch on at night before you go to sleep. You can wear it all the time as it functions just like a normal watch, and is even water resistant (in case you ever fall asleep underwater…), but I personally don't wear a watch at all, so I just put it on before bed.
ALERT: Before you continue, I will tell you that the Sleeptracker costs $150. If you wouldn't be caught dead paying that much for a "little old watch", then this might not be for you. I am certainly no big spender, and I was hesitant to dish out that kind of cash at first, but my research on the product gave me confidence that it was worth it. As you'll read about in my experience below, I am fully satisfied and would gladly pay the same amount again. If you're still on the fence after reading this article, you can always try it out for 30 days, and if you don't feel it was worth your hard-earned dough, they will send you a full refund.
OK, now for how the watch works. First, you set the "Alarm Time" as you would with any other alarm. Say you set the "Alarm Time" for 7:00AM. Now you can set the "Alarm Window" from anywhere between 10 minutes to 60 minutes. For example, say you set the "Alarm Time" for 7:00AM and the "Alarm Window" for 30 minutes. This means that the alarm will go off at 6:30AM at the earliest and 7:00AM at the latest. Now, what determines when the alarm goes off in that "Alarm Window"? Well, as you sleep, the watch detects subtle movements in your body that indicate that you are having an "almost awake" moment. This doesn't mean that you actually wake up, but many times during the night, the average person goes through different levels and stages of sleep, from very deep (dreaming type sleep) to very light ("almost awake").
The watch records ALL of your almost awake moments during the night. From my personal experience, I usually have about 20 or so per night. It sounded high to me at first, but according to other Sleep Tracker users, this number is about average. Just for the purpose of making the example easier to understand, let's say you are a DEEP sleeper and only had 5 "almost awake" moments. You had one at 12:06AM, 2:13AM, 3:38AM, 5:19AM, and 6:41AM. Now, from the example above with your alarm window being between 6:30AM and 7:00AM, the watch would set off the alarm and wake you at 6:41AM (your "almost awake" moment during your "Alarm Window"). A little confusing I know, but it's actually quite simple when you just do it. Maybe they can explain it a little better for you, here's a quick overview from their site:
|
Customized ALARM Window |
|
Customized ALARM |
|
Record, Store, Review Your Sleep Data |
What if I don't have an "almost awake" moment during the "Alarm Window" I set? IF that happens, then the alarm will just go off at the regular alarm time you set (7:00AM for the example above), but like I said, the average person has around 20 "almost awake" moments per night, and in my 30 day experience, I have had an "almost awake" moment EVERY single time within my "Alarm Window" (sometimes with a window as small as 20 minutes).
The advantage of all this mumbo jumbo is that the Sleeptracker wakes you up from a light sleep rather than jarring you out of a deep sleep. Ever notice how sometimes when you wake up, all you want to do is hit the snooze button and go back to sleep, and some mornings you feel refreshed and ready to start the day? That's because with a regular alarm clock, it's a crap shoot. That alarm is going off exactly at the time you set, and it doesn't care if you're "almost awake" or if you're knocked out like Sleeping Beauty.
Now this isn't to say that the Sleep Tracker is perfect. There are times when it goes off, and I just want to roll over and go back to sleep, but in my experience, it really does make a positive difference in about 21-23 of the 30 days I tried it. I mean an actual real tangible difference, not just a subtle change. Those odds are high enough for me to continue using the watch. It's truly one of the coolest and most useful "gadgets" I've ever had (right above TiVo
Almost as useful as the "wake you up from light sleep" thing, I love just looking through my "almost awake" moments the next morning. It records all of them and lets you scroll through them to see what was going on while you were asleep. Then once you scroll through to the last "almost awake" moment, it even shows you the average time between your "almost awake" moments. Mine is usually about 20-25 minutes, which is also around the average according to other users. That doesn't sound like a lot, but it's just an average, meaning during the first few of hours of sleep they are as close as 10-15 minutes apart, then during the middle of the night (deepest sleep), they are 60-90 minutes apart, then again during the last hour or so of sleep, my body starts waking up and the "almost awake" moments get closer together again.
The kicker that really made me believe in the watch was when one night someone called my cell phone at 4:22AM. At the time, I never physically woke up nor was even aware that my phone had rung. Then, the next morning I see that I had a missed call at 4:22AM. So, I go to the SleepTracker and scroll through my "almost awake" moments from the night before, and sure enough, one of them was at exactly 4:22AM!
Finally, in conclusion, everyone's sleeping patterns and experiences will be different, and I know $150 is a lot to spend for a watch, but I really believe it's worth at least the 30 Day Trial. If nothing else, it's interesting just to see how your personal sleeping patterns work, and then you can return it for a full refund if you're not satisfied. I'll be keeping mine, and I even turned a few family and friends on to the Sleep Tracker.
If anyone reading this tries it, or has tried it, I'd love to hear your experiences with it too.
Amazon has the Sleeptracker Wake Up Monitor for $144 (a whopping 3% or $6 off the retail price!). Sweet Dreams!
1,599 views
{ 1 trackback }