Personal Sleep Coach

The concept of this product is awesome. As someone looking to improve my sleep, I love the idea of being able to automatically track the quality and duration of sleep each night.And in that respect, this device appears to work. One night, I slept for 7+ hours and woke up exhausted. When I checked my Zeo results, it showed that I had very little "deep sleep" that night. Another night, I got 4 hours but woke up feeling pretty good. The Zeo results showed me that I actually had a lot of "deep sleep" that night.The idea is that by keeping a daily log of many factors that can effect sleep, you can use the correlation between that info and the actual sleep results to make changes to improve sleep quality.However, there are three things that caused me to return this product after giving it a try for one week. For me personally, the device was a little uncomfortable. One note is that I frequently sleep on my stomach with part of my forehead resting on the pillow.Second, one night I got up and walked to another room to watch TV while leaving the headstrap on. I sat in a high backed chair facing away from the room with the clock. The clock in the other room faithfully recorded for hours through the wall. I'm not sure how the headband communicates with the clock, but it's pretty powerful. I don't want that transmitter running only centimeters from my brain for hours EVERY night. It's probably harmless, but why risk it.Third, in order to use Zeo's daily questionnaire/log, receive coaching, and even transfer your sleep results to your personal computer; you have to register with the Zeo website and upload all your information to the website. This feels intrusive.If Zeo or some other company reads this, here are my suggestions to improve this product.1.) Make the headstrap even more comfortable and unobtrusive.2.) Get rid of the fancy clock all together. Just have the headband store the data directly to the headband. You could have storage in the headband (or provide a slot for mini-SD cards).3.) Allow the data to be transferred directly to one's computer -- using mini-USB to the headband directly (or with mini-sd).4.) Provide the questionnaires, analysis, and coaching as software that the users could install and run on their computers.5.) Give the users an OPTION to upload their data to a website IF they want. (Provide some sort of extra incentive if you really value the data.)6.) Lower costs. (suggestion #2, may help with this)Now that's a product I would buy and recommend.----Also, a note about returning the product... I was forced to call someone during business hours to initiate the return. The rep was friendly. But when I explained my concerns about the product and gave her suggestions for product improvement, it was obvious she didn't care.After I shipped the product back, I checked the tracking number and saw that Zeo had received the return in only two days. After a week of not hearing from Zeo, I sent an email. Here part of Zeo's response "Your return has not yet been processed, which means it has either not arrived to us, or it has arrived and is waiting to be checked in. Refunds will be processed within 30 days..." It took two weeks after they received the product to return my money.Overall, not a terrible experience but definitely room for improvement.

This clock has attached a strap that fits comfortably around your head with sensors attached. The sensors communicate information to the clock, telling the amount of sleeplessness or various types of sleep that occurs during the night. Great concept when it works. Mine didn't work upon delivery. I called support, and spoke to a very supportive gal called Susan. She assured me that occassionally one didn't work and she would send me a replacement directly. Exactly one month after I placed the order the replacement strap had not arrived. I called and asked for a RMA and returned the product. I really think what they developed has merit for the curious but I fail to see how with that knowledge you can change your sleeping habits without using additional conditioning tricks. For that I would rather spend $29 on a how to sleep better book/tape.

I've been using the Zeo now for two weeks, at the recommendation of my Doctor. I've been getting treatment for almost a year now for adrenal fatigue symptoms, and after improving my diet, taking lots of supplements, learning yoga, meditation, having weekly acupuncture, doing more exercise and taking a 6-month sabbatical from work, I am still not that much better. Throughout this whole time, I thought I was getting for the most part, 7.5-8 hours of nightly sleep. After using the Zeo, I was truly amazed and annoyed to see that I am really only getting 4.5-5 hours, 6 on a good night. And, I am only getting half of the REM and deep sleep I should be getting for my age. The only good news is this finally explains why I'm still so exhausted every day, and that discovery alone is pretty much worth the price of the Zeo.I'll admit the headband was not fun to wear the first few nights, but after a week I was used to it. I turn the clock face away from me so I won't look at it when I wake during the night, but sometimes it's irresistable. When I wake at 2:00am, I want to know how much light, REM and deep sleep I've already gotten for the night. The Zeo tells me I fall asleep within 15 minutes on average, and am awake for 4 hours on average. This makes sense because I usually am awake from 2-5am or so, and end up having to stay in bed a full 12 hours just to get 5 hours of actual sleep. My current sleep scores are in the 20-30 range. I can't even fathom what I would feel like if I actually got my scores in the 70's which is supposed to be average for my age group.The most useful part for me, aside from a more realistic view of my sleep, is the data collected by Zeo and then exported to Excel. I don't use the website that much. I used it in the beginning to look at the sleep graphs, and saw that most of my REM and deep sleep were happening in the first third of the night, at around the same time each night. But the data, once exported to Excel (which can, in fact, only be accomplished by uploading to the website first, then exporting to a file), has given me the chance to show a daily and weekly graph of my total, REM, deep and light sleep together, so I can easily and quickly see what influences it from day to day. You can do this somewhat on the website but you have to look at multiple screens and it takes forever. Below my graph, I type different notes about what different things I've tried. For example, I was increasing my dosage of 5htp each night last week, and saw from the graph that my deep sleep slightly improved, REM actually decreased a bit, and wake time increased dramatically (and I really felt horrible.) Needless to say, I stopped the 5htp and am now taking much less, only in the morning. I can also see a day-to-day trend of how the iodine supplement I have just re-started is helping my sleep. It has increased my deep sleep and REM and I feel better, even though my overall sleep time is not that much more. I printed a week and a half's worth of the numerical data and the corresponding graph all on one page, and showed it to my Doctor along with my explanations. He was very interested and now we have a list of various other supplements and tactics I'll be trying. I've gone through this before, but with out the detailed feedback, you never really know what's working and what's not. The exported data also provides sleep phases in 30 second increments, for anyone who really wants the detail on time of deep sleep and REM within each sleep cycle, for example. On the website and clock the data is shown in 5 minute increments and it looked like I got no deep or REM at all in the early morning, until I looked at the 30-second increment data and saw that I do get some in the early a.m., it's just in 2-3 minute increments at a time.I don't know that I will keep using Zeo every night once my sleep improves, but I have had bad insomnia on and off enough times in my life that I know I will want it for diagnostic purposes again some time in the future, since the causes are not always the same each time for me. And it's a nice looking clock anyway.--UPDATE--I've now been using the Zeo for 6 months. I've continued to experiment with different supplements, etc. to see the Zeo's feedback on my sleep. I've found a few things that help somewhat, but the most helpful has been the consistent daily feedback. If I don't use the Zeo I get up when I think I've slept enough but feel exhausted, and have probably only had 3-4 hours of sleep. With Zeo, I can see, when I wake up, that I've only had 3-4 hours of sleep, and I will then read for a bit until I get tired then sleep another hour or so. This makes ALL the difference in the world. I have averaged 5.5 hours of sleep per night over the last 6 months which still isn't stellar, but my energy has finally returned and I feel "normal" and healthy again.