Health before all

Healthy living involves life rules that include a balanced diet, regular physical activity and good sleep quality. The doctors announce that without this restorative sleep, it is several dysfunctions of our body that can be favored. We often mention the risks of heart or kidney disease, an increase in blood pressure or a favorable ground for the development of diabetes or stroke.

This is where products like Withings Sleep get into the dance. It is indeed difficult to know if we slept well. Indeed, even if the awakening sensation makes it possible to get an idea about the night that has just passed, this sleep tracker makes it possible to measure it. This is a fleece that slips under the mattress. Thus installed in your nocturnal intimacy, it measures your sleep parameters.

Under the washable fabric cover, there is the sleep sensor system. It consists of electronics and an inflatable “pocket” that will be in charge of “feeling” not only when you go to bed or you get up but also to follow your night cycles. Only one long cable goes out of the device: the power cable (to the USB standard).

 

Easy installation

The installation is easily done by sliding the Withing Sleep under the mattress. While other solutions must be slipped between the mattress and the sheets, this allows Sleep to be completely “transparent” and also to hold well. He does not fear thick mattresses. It is best to install that level you torso because it is the heart and lungs that provide all the information useful to the device.

Once the device is installed you will be guided by the Withings application. You will have to connect it electrically. Do not panic it’s the direct current as received by the objects powered via a USB socket. In a classic way for smart health connected objects it will also be an opportunity to bring this smart health smart health connected object on your Wifi network and indicate for which person it is intended.

To know how to manage YOUR bed, an initial calibration is requested. During this step, you have nothing to do except wait. The Sleep operates its pump to inflate the air bag that composes it and tell you that everything is ready. He can then watch your nights and also your naps. The pump will never be heard again afterwards. The system does not make noise, does not feel, does not vibrate. He forgets himself.

 

Measured sleep

Among the characteristic measurements performed by the Withings Sleep is a detailed sleep analysis that includes:

• duration and interruptions,
• sleep cycles (light, deep or paradoxical)
• the detection of snoring.

The sleep cycles are analyzed according to the vital signs (heart and respiratory rhythm) and your movements. All these parameters are detected through the mattress by the pneumatic sensor. unlike some solutions you have nothing to wear on you. It is a great everyday comfort not to have to sleep with a bracelet or with a system to recharge.

This data is then automatically synchronized (via your health home Wi-Fi network) with the Withings Health Mate application. This allows you to visualize your sleep score.

The sleep scrore is a 100-point note that takes into account 6 parameters:

• duration
• depth,
• interruptions
• regularity,
• sleep time
• time to rise.

In addition to this raw data, Withings’ analysis of its evolution allows you to obtain recommendations and tailor-made advice. The application proposes, if you wish, to follow a program of coaching “Ritual of sleep” with the aim to improve the regularity of its sleep in the long term.

It’s pretty hard to know if the system is doing its job well. It is impossible to wake up to check that he has measured the phases of my sleep or if he has measured the duration of my snoring. For snoring, Mrs. brings me confirmation some mornings. For science I gave of my body. I also found a system that could possibly contradict Withings Sleep. So I slept with the smart health connected Fitbit Versa watch several nights. The results are extremely similar, whereas they are not at all measured in the same way. Regarding the duration of sleep the 2 devices have more divergent opinions.

 

I noticed a remarkable point with Withings Sleep used for several months with our bedding. The device was installed on a double bed on the side where I sleep. According to the sunsets and sunrises that can be done at different times between the 2 sleepers, Withings Sleep only included my data. No untimely triggers when Mrs. goes to bed or gets up before me. Nocturnal sunrises are only identified if they are mine. A good point that should be noted and that sets it apart from solutions proposed by some colleagues.

A tracker built into the Smart health home

Withings Sleep does not stop monitoring your night health. This sleep tracker integrates your falling asleep and your alarm clock in your smart health connected health home. Withings benefits from the experience of using Aura. In order to allow this tracker to extend its services, Withings offers for Sleep compatibility with the IFTTT platform. This allows you to create “custom health home automation experiences“.

The connectivity with IFTTT allows a simple way to propose to the user of this solution to be able to control his house, or his smart health connected objects, by going to bed or getting up. Withings boasts of offering a simple way to put your phone in silent mode at bedtime or to open automatic shutters when you wake up.

In practice the connection between IFTTT and Withings Sleep makes it possible and easy to have a practical solution to light a path when you get up at night to go to the bathroom. The solution is also effective to put the house in thermal comfort of night. What triggers the actions in IFTTT is actually lying down in the bed, not your falling asleep. In the morning it is the fact of getting out of bed that will trigger the actions you have reserved and not your awakening.

Of course it is necessary that the user has a health home automation system open and compatible with the cloud policy engine that is IFTTT. IFTTT-compatible smart health connected objects will take advantage of it very easily. The fact of going through the cloud imposes a trigger time between the action of getting up or going to bed and the effect on a light bulb for example. Nothing too nasty, you can count on 6 to 8 seconds of latency.

Your sleep data can also be exported from Withings cloud using IFTTT. The list of data that can be exported is complete:

In conclusion

Withings Sleep is a very simple and non-invasive solution for those who wish to measure the quality of their sleep. He will also be able to contribute to bedtime and bedtime detection to communicate these events to the smart health connected health home. It may be useful for relatives of people requiring close monitoring at health home. Relatives can be reassured to know them in bed or conversely to receive information about their lifting. Any change in habits concerning them may indeed be an important surveillance point.

What I like in this product is that it is completely forgotten once installed. The only thing to remember is to redo the calibration the day you change bedding. It’s pretty limited as a constraint. Then, it seems reliable. I have not tested the solution with lots of bedding but on our double bed (slatted base + memory mattress) he only listens to the sleeper who is directly above him.

Withings Sleep is available at the price of $94 at amazon.

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For the record, I started testing the product at health home around April at a time when Withings had joined the health branch of the Finnish Nokia group and for which there were insistent rumors about the sustainability of it .