Not sure if you have obstructive sleep apnoea? A new gadget that you sleep on could tell you ahead of time.
Withings has been busy. The first approved ECG wearable in Australia might be the big announcement on the cards for the French company this week, but it’s not the only one popping up.
While the Withings ScanWatch will track your health, another gadget being released by the company has the ability to do that, as well, but it will work while you sleep. Literally.
It’s all in the name, with the “Sleep Analyser” providing a system that can monitor your body and track heart rate, sleep cycles, snoring signals, and movement to work out the health of the sleeper. The technology is a little different from Withings’ other wearables, monitoring breathing patterns to work out whether pauses are suggestive of apnoea, grading not just your snoring but the frequency of your snoring, with sensors there to keep tabs on both breathing rate and heart rate, and providing that information via the app.
A pneumatic sensor handles some of the heavy lifting there, tracking movement through your mattress, an area known as ballistocardiography, which allows Withings to monitor the chest of one person through a movement of forces generated by the heart. For this to work, the Withings Sleep Analyser stays plugged into USB throughout, monitoring as you sleep, but talking to a phone or tablet using wireless connectivity through.
The approach is one that reportedly allows Withings to have its sleep apnoea information deliver similar results using the Apnoea-Hypopnea Index, also known as the “AHI”, which can provide an understanding on whether you’re within a range of risk for obstructive sleep apnoea.
With around 5 percent of Australians expected to suffer from severe sleep apnoea, plus a further 20 percent from moderator forms, it’s a problem that affects numerous Australians, and which may end up having a gadget such as this assist. In use, people with the Sleep Analyser receive a “Sleep Score” that grades them on their sleeping patterns, and may even work with Withings’ other gadgets to deliver more insights in the process, helping to improve their sleeping routine overall.
Perhaps most interesting about the Withings Sleep Analyser is that it works under a mattress, and largely just sits there working when you go to sleep. There’s no need to switch it on, and basically when it detects body movement and snoring, it is essentially whirring into action.
However while it works for most mattresses, Withings told Pickr that it wouldn’t work for all, citing specifically waterbeds as one that could cause a bit of a problem. We’re checking whether that also extends to particularly springy beds that might cause excess noise or movement, and Withings is checking for us, but if you have a recent and firm bed, there’s a good chance the technology has the ability to track what’s going on when you sleep .
To try it, though, you’ll need to part ways with a couple of hundred bucks, which is what the Sleep Analyser will cost when it launches next week, with the Withings Sleep Analyser found at JB HiFi in Australia from November 9 for $199.
