Innovative Sleep Solutions’ SLEEPTRACKER® - The World’s First Sleep-Monitoring Watch – Tackles “Sleep Inertia”

June 15, 2006 (PRLEAP.COM) Technology News
(ATLANTA – June 13, 2006) - Innovative Sleep Solutions’ unique sleep-monitoring and wake-up device, SLEEPTRACKER®, offers a solution to what the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) today coins “sleep inertia.” With the appearance of a standard wristwatch, SLEEPTRACKER® monitors the wearer's sleep patterns to detect the best possible wake-up times - allowing the wearer to wake up more refreshed and alert.

A recent JAMA study published in today’s issue found that people perform much worse on cognitive tests in the first three minutes after awakening - a temporary condition they call “sleep inertia.” The study was performed on a group of individuals who were administered a math test upon first awakening. Previous studies have also shown that sleep inertia may affect cognitive performance for up to two hours after awakening.

SLEEPTRACKER® helps people easily make the transition from asleep to awake by waking a person during a light sleep stage. During a typical night, a person goes through several sleep cycles, throughout which varying levels of alertness are experienced. During some stages of these sleep cycles, people are in a very deep sleep from which it is hard to wake. During other stages, they are just on the brink of awakening. If a standard morning alarm sounds during a deep sleep, a person will wake tired and groggy. The opposite is true if the alarm is sounded during an “almost-awake” moment, when the person will wake more refreshed and alert.

To help people consistently wake up at the optimum time, SLEEPTRACKER® tracks almost-awake moments throughout the night and during a pre-set morning alarm window that the user chooses. When the user experiences the first instance of an almost-awake moment during that morning window, the SLEEPTRACKER® alarm goes off.

For example, a user sets the alarm for 7:30 a.m. with a 30-minute window. This means that he needs to be awoken by 7:30 a.m., but if SLEEPTRACKER® finds a moment of restlessness when he is almost-awake at any time after 7 a.m., it would sound the alarm early. The idea is that a person will feel more refreshed if awoken from a light sleep at 7:10 a.m. than from a deep sleep at 7:30 a.m. The user can choose from four window options (0:00, 0:10, 0:20, and 0:30). The larger the window, the greater the likelihood that SLEEPTRACKER® will find an almost-awake moment.

SLEEPTRACKER® not only tracks wearers' sleep, but also stores their sleep data so they can review how well or how poorly they sleep. Each night, SLEEPTRACKER® records the time of each almost-awake moment, which occurs many times per night during normal sleep cycles. Wearers can review the recorded data the next day to see how many times they were almost-awake, and thus how soundly they slept in comparison to other nights.

Through an initial development trial with a sleep physician and microelectrical engineer, it was determined that measuring lateral movement in amplitude - via an accelerometer - was the key to tracking the very brief "almost awake" moments during a sleep cycle (95+% of the time sleeping there is no movement). The SLEEPTACKER® has an internal accelerometer to monitor these almost-awake moments throughout the night.

SLEEPTRACKER® has normal watch features, including time, day, date and standard alarm settings, as well as a snooze function. It is water-resistant, has a night-glow feature and carries a one-year warranty. With four simple buttons, SLEEPTRACKER® is as easy to set as any digital watch.

"We are excited to offer the SLEEPTRACKER® to anyone who has trouble getting up in the morning," says Lee Loree, an Innovative Sleep Solutions partner. "Only a sleep laboratory could give you the kind of information SLEEPTRACKER® collects, and no other product can wake you up at your optimum moment like SLEEPTRACKER® can."

SLEEPTRACKER® is one of the 2005 Consumer Electronic Show’s Innovation and Design Awards honorees in the personal electronics category. It has a suggested retail price of $149.00 and is available exclusively at www.sleeptracker.com. There is a 30-day money back guarantee.

About Innovative Sleep Solutions
Innovative Sleep Solutions, LLC is based in Atlanta, Georgia and is the exclusive manufacturer and distributor of SLEEPTRACKER®. For more information, call 1-800-617-4509 or visit the company's Web site at www.sleeptracker.com.

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