The Jolly Gamesman and His Many Toys
Sleep Cycle for the iPhone
Sleep, those tiny slices of death; Oh how I loathe them – Edgar Allan Poe
Like many iPhone users, I charge my iPhone every night before I go to bed. I usually take this opportunity to use my phone alarm clock. Being jarred awake by dogs barking or ducks quacking has been the bane of my existence since I started this habit.
But, I have stumbled across an app that has been giving me a wonderful night’s sleep since I purchased it. It’s called Sleep Cycle.
How it works: You launch the app, and put your phone face down under a sheet by your pillow. Using the accelerometer, Sleep Cycle monitors your sleeping behavior while you toss and turn throughout the night. Using some sort of scienctific research from the 70s, Sleep Cycle analyzes your sleeping patterns as you drift from awakeness to dreaming to a deep sleep. The research they quote says that when you’re awoken between one of these cycles, you feel less fatigued and more awake.
So using the data the app collects, in a 30 minute window before your alarm sounds, Sleep Cycle will rouse you. It does this by using one of its built-in melodies, slowly increasing from a quiet sound up to a full volume sound, along with subtle vibrations using the built-in vibrator.
Also included is a nightly graph that shows your sleeping pattern for past evenings. This keeps a tally of your average night’s sleep. At first I was skeptical, until the other night I had a noticeably dream-filled sleep. When I went to check the in-program graphs, it did indeed show that I was dreaming all night.
A word of warning: this program will lose effectiveness if you decide to use the extra 15 minutes given from the alarm as an opportunity to snooze, and then be jolted awake by your phone’s built-in alarm. And for those of you worried about getting brain cancer from your phone being so close to your head all night, simply switch your device to airplane mode before you turn on the application.
Now I’m not sure if it’s snake oil or some sort of placebo effect, but I’ve been using this program every night, and I honestly do feel I am getting a better night’s sleep because of it.
~The Fine Print~
Sleep cycle also has some built-in social features for sharing your sleeping drafts on Facebook, or you can e-mail them to yourself.
$.99 CDN
i’ve used the iphone app for a while now simultaneously to my axbo sleep cylce alarm clock to find out how good it really is.
and i have to say i was surprised that it actually worked. but i also have to say that I find it highly imprecise and a lot of fuss with all the putting it under the linen, checking the battery, hoping it feels only me and not my partner…
I’ll stick to my trusty axbo. so much less hassle!