With thousands upon thousands of apps already on the market and increasing in number by the day, it seems that every base is covered. There are practical apps, amusing apps and gaming apps that can keep you entertained for hours on end.
When an app comes along, however, that’s actually good for your health and requires you to do nothing more than place it beside your pillow at night, well, that sounded a bit too good to be true for us.
Such an app does exist and it goes by the name of Sleep Cycle. Sleep cycle is essentially an alarm clock for your iPhone, but to describe it in such simple terms fails to do justice to its appeal or its effectiveness. The app analyses the different stages of sleep that a user goes through every night, from the jaw open, drool dripping down the side of your mouth deep slumber to the tossing and turning, wake at the sound of a fly landing beside you, lighter form of shut eye.
Although everyone’s sleeping patterns are different and some people require more time in the cot than others, many of you will have noticed that even when you sleep for what is deemed a recommended number of hours, you will still wake up feeling like a zombie while on other occasions, you will feel as fresh as a daisy despite only grabbing a couple of hours rest.
This, according to developers LexWare labs AB, is entirely dependent on what stage of sleep you are in when your sleep is brought to an end by the dreaded sound of the alarm. If it’s during a stage of deep sleep, it will adversely affect your mood for the rest of the day, but if it is when you are only resting your eyes, you will leap out of the bed and be ready to face whatever the world can throw at you.
The idea behind the app is to ensure that the user gets the most effective night’s sleep possible, by programming the app so that the user is awoken during the lightest form of sleep and thus won’t see fit to throw the offending handset against the nearest wall for daring to interrupt their fantasy liaison with Angelina Jolie.
Sleep Cycle uses the accelerometer in the iPhone to track which stage of sleep you are in by analysing breathing patterns and body movements and in the words of the developers, it then uses “a 30 minute window that ends at your set alarm time to wake you up when you are in the lightest sleep phase… a natural way to wake up where you feel rested and relaxed.â€
The ring tone used to lull the user out of their slumber will gradually increase in volume and vibration in this thirty minute window and peak when it arrives at the selected alarm time. Simply connect your phone to its power source and place it beside your pillow. The app will take two days to calibrate itself with the sleeping patterns of the user and from then on will be good to go. It will keep a record of your sleeping patterns, a handy tool, for example, if your doctor ever requested details for health related issues.
So there you have it, an app that ensures that you will wake up on the right side of the bed every morning. It’s the stuff that dreams are made of.
Sleep Cycle is available to download from the app store (http://itunes.apple.com/ie/app/sleep-cycle-alarm-clock/id320606217?mt=8) for €0.79. An alternative version of the app, Smart Alarm, is available to download for Android handsets. For more information go to http://blog.smart-alarm-clock.com/.
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