SleepTracker Pro: Wake up energised and alert
Hey, lazy bones! Yeah, you with the narcolepsy! Come and check out the watch that wakes you up in a good mood every single day
Crave hates getting out of bed in the mornings -- that's what afternoons are for. It's not that we're lazy, it's because the hours before 2pm are cold, dark affairs that are more conducive to hibernation than writing a daily gadget blog.
So you can imagine our joy when we spotted SleepTracker Pro-- a watch that claims it will wake you up feeling energetic and alert every day. It works by sensing when you're at your most awake and only triggers its vibrating and beeping alarm when you're nearly up anyway.
Here's the theory: we all have 'almost-awake' moments throughout the night. Sometimes these are triggered by loud noises, pets jumping on your bed, partners snoring or deep internal guilt, which make you wake up, fidget and fall quickly back asleep. SleepTracker's internal movement sensors detect these moments and adjust the alarm time to wake you up when your body is ready to be awake. To avoid oversleeping, you force it to wake you up within a specific window of time -- 20 minutes either side of 7:15am, for instance.
We've been using it for the past couple of weeks and it does actually seem to work. The cynic inside us likes to think the effect is only psychosomatic, but who cares? When we've worn it we usually wake up feeling far more alert and energetic than when we don't. It doesn't come cheap, but £105 is a small price to pay for not feeling like you want to smash someone's face in every morning.
Check out more pictures and details of how it works over the next few pages. -Rory Reid
As a watch, the SleepTracker isn't bad. The large digits are easy to read -- even when you're half asleep -- and It tells the time, which is a bonus. There's no stopwatch, world time, calculator or any of that nonsense.
The SleepTracker Pro senses your 'almost-awake' moments by monitoring movement. Mild 20-second bouts of twisting and turning are registered as disturbed rest. Longer bouts of movement, such as when you visit the bathroom, are disregarded.
Data captured by the SleepTracker Pro can be uploaded to your PC via this clip-on USB attachment. The accompanying software lets you view your unique sleep history, your best sleep sessions and so on.
A SleepTracker Pro on its box, this morning.
We've tested the SleepTracker Pro for literally hours. And once we finish writing this article, we're going back to the 'lab' to continue the research. Zzzzz.