[dongle]

I was one of the beta-testers of the WakeMate, so it's been a part of my life for about a month now. Prior to using the WakeMate, I had two choices regarding sleep: establishing a strict routine by retiring at midnight every night and waking up at 7:30 on the dot, or keeping other hours and feeling groggy all day regardless of the total amount of sleep. Since I have friends and an unpredictable work schedule, I've never been able to stick to fixed sleeping patterns for a prolonged period of time. With the WakeMate I still need about 7 hours of sleep each night, however, I can take those 7 hours whenever it is convenient for me, and wake up feeling about as great as I ever feel in the morning.

The WakeMate costs as much as a week of coffee from a café – try it out.

[brianmwang]

So what exactly does the WakeMate enable you to do to get refreshing sleep on an irregular schedule?

[mike_h]

When you're on a regular schedule, your body gets in a rhythm where you'll usually end up waking up at the exact same minute every day, even without an alarm.

When you don't maintain a regular schedule (or you're in sleep debt), your body can't do that. So your alarm may start buzzing in the middle of "deep" sleep, and you get stuck with sleep inertia.

Smart alarms like this try to compromise by waking you up in "light" sleep, or ideally in moments of wakefulness that you'd otherwise pass up and go back to sleep.

(If you're not familiar with the concept of sleep cycles: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Sleep#Sleep_s...)