Sleep tech to scale up to an $80B market in less than 5 years
Think of sharing a bed with a robot or sleep on a robot bed for better and longer sleep? In a few years, this may not be as unusual as you think.
Studies show that normal sleeping hours of adults continue to drop, even when it’s commonly known that poor sleeping habits or long term sleep deprivation has been linked to serious chronic diseases and conditions like heart disease, obesity and certain cancers.
In the US, the Centre for Disease and Prevention Control reported that as much as 1/3 of American adults usually sleep less than the recommended amount of sleep. In its survey, 23.2 percent of the respondents say that lack of sleep affects their concentration during the day. On top of this, the number of people who feel that lack of sleep is bringing down their work performance has risen to 8.6%
This statistics gives a reason for the sleep technology industry to quickly progress and develop products that directly solve sleep deprivation for better health, wellness, and productivity. In fact, by 2022, the sleep tech market is expected to scale up to $79.8 billion.
At the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show held in Las Vegas, sleep-related tech companies showcased innovations that went beyond apps which analyzed sleep patterns. They developed tools that provided total sleep solutions.
One of the highlights was Sleep Number’s most advanced smart bed. The “Sleep Number 360” is equipped with biometric sleep sensor technology that picks up body movement while sleeping. It detects tosses and turns and automatically adjusts part of the mat’s stiffness and pressure depending on each movement. The user can check the data on how the bed moved during sleep and how its movements affected his/her quality of sleep the next morning.
Meanwhile, for people who are always on and do not have enough time to sleep, “NuCalm Power Nap” provides a complete set of gadgets based on neuroscience technology that allows anyone to take a 20 minute-power nap equivalent to two hours of restorative sleep.
It contains four items: a comb cream that stimulates relaxation, a cranial electrotherapy stimulation (CES) device, an app, and an eye mask. Once you wear the CES device, headphones (plugged into your smartphone) and eye mask, you will be lured into a short slumber session. Twenty to 60-minute power naps are said to increase work productivity, reduce stress, and recover from fatigue.
A French start-up, on the other hand, offers this sleek and fashionable-looking headband called “Dreem”. But don’t be deceived by its looks alone. Dreem uses state-of the-art technology developed from the company’s knowledge and experience in neuroscience and sleep science.
The headband serves as the control center that records and analyzes all data from its brain activity or “electroencephalography” (EEG) monitoring. It works with other sensors that track movement, heart rate, and breathing.
It then uses bone conduction technology where sound is matched with the sleeper’s brain activity to get him/her into deeper sleep. According to its website, sound simulations to increase the power of slow waves, which is characteristic of deep sleep quality, is proven effective by neuroscientists by 43% on average.
“Can you be spooned by a robot?” is the statement that got people talking about Somnox. Developed by students of Delft University of Technology, this sleep robot is far from the stereotypical cold metal robot image. Somnox is designed for comfort — peanut-shaped, no edges, and completely covered in fluffy material. The device resembles a hug pillow and is meant be held close to the body while sleeping.
When you hug the Somnox robot, it slowly starts to move similar to a person’s breathing stomach to influence your own breathing rhythm. It automatically synchronises your breathing to that of the sleep robot which makes it easier for you to reach “a meditative state of mind” that makes you fall asleep right away.
Somnox can also play slow-paced music which is known to encourage slow brainwaves. This eventually leads the user to a semi-hypnotic or relaxed state and reduce stress.
In Japan, companies like Neurospace provides a comprehensive sleep improvement program that uses sleep technology and big data in cooperation with medical institutions.
In April 2018, they collaborated with KDDI Corporation and started experiments in sleep technology with the goal of improving sleep quality.
After building an AI-equipped sleep analysis platform, they distributed sleep measuring devices and smartphone apps linked to the platform to KDDI employees. By visualising an employee’s sleep as numerical data, daily behaviours and sleep techniques that are best-suited to that employee can be put into practice.
This system is expected to increase productivity at work, and more so, allow the company to be aware of the employees’ sleep status and manage its personnel with higher consideration to their health.
And it doesn’t stop there. The sleep data can be linked to KDDI’s HOME IoT service that adjusts the house environment such as temperature, humidity, and brightness, while the user is asleep. Through this, they will be able to conduct trials to measure further sleep improvement.
We still have a long way to go when it comes to getting a good night’s sleep. And with our lifestyles becoming more and more fast-paced and demanding, the advancement of sleep technology, backed up by medical science and proper data, plays a very crucial role in providing real solutions in maintaining the health and well-being of our modern society. Sleep tech and IoT can definitely go beyond influencing our productivity and ways of working. With quality sleep, we can all live better and longer.
Text: Christine Roque
Original text (Japanese): Ayako Sogo
