The experts often have a hard time agreeing on anything. Be it the economy or who should have won an Oscar, there’s always contradiction in our fast-news society. The impact of our generation’s rampant development of technology is no different. According to commentators, the geniuses tinkering away with their machines in Silicon Valley are either going to be the destruction of everything we hold dear, or they’re going deliver humankind to a tech-inspired utopia. So which is it?
Well, like everything else it’s probably going to be a bit of both. Technology has certainly had a interesting impact on how well we all sleep. Firstly our addiction to screens with their devilish blue-light and overstimulating interactive content has resulted in more and more of us failing to get the shut-eye we so badly need. But then tech is also providing us with increasingly sophisticated ways to help us get to sleep. Unfortunately, the nerds have yet to come up with a button than when pressed will knock us out cold for 8 hours – but i’m sure they are working on it.
Until then we are going to have to settle for the products below. Take a look and you be the judge, is tech going to save our sleep?
The Nightingale
Many people whose sleep is broken by noisy neighbors or creaking pipes at night will pop on a pair of headphones and listen to some tunes or a podcast or two. With mixed success. The Nightingale takes a far more sophisticated attitude to drowning out those pesky nighttime noises and helping us get the rest our body so badly needs.
The little device plugs into a wall socket and uses a fancy bit of sound-masking tech to throw a ‘personalized sound blanket’ over any external ambient noises. This is unbelievably good news for anyone who lives above a busy late nightspot or shares a wall with a noisy neighbor.
The Moona
The Moona is a smart pillow that promises to induce deep sleep in anyone lucky enough to lay their head upon it through the use of nifty temperature control technology.
So, if you are one of those people who is constantly flipping the pillow in search of the cool side it could be time to get your hands on the Moona. The system works by utilizing a memory foam pad filled with cooling and heating liquid that communicates with a water-filled hub positioned on your nightstand.
By starting cool the pillow helps to cool your body down and induce sleep, then as your body temperature slowly cools naturally the Moona will reheat or cool according to keep your body at just the correct temperature throughout the night.
If after you’ve spent all your hard-earned cash on these snazzy pillow you find you still can’t drop off, then head on over to the Sleep Advisor and see what those in the know have to say.
The Philips SmartSleep might look like one of those sleep masks your grandma might wear but it is far far cooler than that. The SmartSleep isn’t really designed to help our drop off to sleep but it is designed to improve how well you sleep once your eyes are firmly closed.
Equipped with a heap of sensors the SmartSleep detects first when you’ve first fallen asleep and secondly when you’ve entered deep sleep. The device then begins to emit tonal frequencies that the company claims improves slow wave sleep. Slow wave sleep being the stage in your nightly sleep cycle in which your brain waves and breathing have hit their lowest levels.
Why go to all this trouble? Well, Philips state that increased levels of slow wave sleep will do wonders for daytime alertness and the ability to maintain focus. They also have a number of medical trials that appear to back up this claim also.
The Sleep Number 360
If you’re one of those people who still think memory foam is cutting edge technology, then you’re going to appreciate smartbeds. They’ve been around for a few years now and with each passing release they seem to get ten times smarter.
On top of a very smart pile is the Sleep Number 360. Powered by SleepIQ technology (whatever that maybe) the 360 utilizes two smart air chambers to provide continuous real time adjustment for optimal body comfort. Inbuilt snore detectors silently raise the users head by up to 7% to relieve the symptoms. The bed even has a inbuilt warming function to ensure no toes get frosty through the night!
Add to that the usual biometric sleep tracking and companion app that will analyze your nightly data and coach you on how to get a better snooze the following night. The future of the bed is here, and it’s good.
So, what do you think? Is tech going to save our sleep? Do you have some favorite gadgets we missed? Share in the comments below to receive a coupon for 25% off any Rascal purchase at one of our clubs.
