Role
Design Lead (Industrial, UI, Experience, Graphic)
Client
Innovative Sleep Solutions
Sector
Consumer Health
Year
2005,2009
Challenge
4 years before the Fitbit, and a decade before the Apple Watch. Develop a wearable sleep monitor that tracks quality of sleep, wakes up the wearer at the optimal time, and gives actionable data for sleep and wellness.
Impact
Sleeptracker™ was named one of Time Magazines Most Amazing Inventions of 2005. It has also received CES design and engineering showcase honors, and a Housewares Design Award in Chicago. The Sleeptracker™ has appeared on CNN, USA Today, HGTV, Wired, Forbes, Popular Science, and was ‘prescribed’ on Dr. Phil.
However, the pinnacle of this project has been personal emails from consumers.
“I have a chronic illness and getting a good night’s sleep is really important to my health. This Sleeptracker really improved the quality of my sleep and helped me change my habits to help me sleep.”
-Terry Clarke Ashland, KY.
Psychology 101
I remember sitting in my General Psych class learning about sleep cycles, and the physical changes associated with them. During Deep Sleep heart rate, breathing, and brain activity all slow. But during the few minutes of REM, the body is as active as when it is awake. I started sketching concepts for an alarm clock system that would wake someone up in this ideal window.
For the next few years, I searched patents online trying to find someone with an appropriate technology. In 2004 a patent was granted that did just that. I called the inventor to find that he lived about 5 blocks from me.
Start-Up Support
As Innovative Sleep Solutions was at that time a small start up, I became the single person design house, developing packaging, website, online content, user manuals, and promotional assets.
Emergence of Quantified Self
During the development of the Second Generation hardware, we explored not just what data to share, but why people would want it in the first place. This led to the understanding that unless that data could assist in a better nights sleep, it wasn’t very insightful. The user interface was designed with this in mind, incorporating other factors that were known to impact sleep.
