EZwakeup

Abstract

Sleep quality affects people's work performance, mood, safety, and quality of life. Poor sleep quality reduces short-term memory, cognitive abilities, and motor skills for all age groups. We introduce EZwakeup, a system that extracts sleep quality indicators with an eTextile-based sensing system and applies feedback-guided external stimuli to smoothly wake people up from deep sleep. It does not require people to wear any external devices and can be directly deployed unobtrusively in home environment. In experiments, participants reported that they felt well rested and energetic for the rest of the day when they were awakened by the guided stimuli. This result suggests that EZwakeup might be a viable option for improving personal sleep quality and have potential in treating common sleep disorders.

Obtrusiveness of smartphone applications for sleep health

“…Based on Figure 1, we conclude that the most obtrusive systems are the ones proposed in [14], [23] and [24] due to users sleeping in an unnatural environment with perceptible sensors. On the other hand, [13], [16], [17]and [27] are systems that can be considered unobtrusive. We are aware that the nature and goals of the systems are different; however, we are only comparing unobtrusiveness, not system efficiency, which is the other half of an evaluation.…”

“…Finally, the system does not require a wearable device, it does not track activities during the day and the user can sleep in a natural environment. Low Obtrusiveness (6/7) Medium Obtrusiveness (5/7) Obtrusive (4/7) Hao et al [13] Fahim et al [16] Daskalova et al [17] Huang et al [27] Bai et al [18] Bauer et al [22] Krishna et al [11] Chen et al [15] Pombo & Garcia [19] Paalasmaa et al [20] Papakostas et al [21] Han et al [25] Ren et al [14] Min et al [23] Lawson et al [24] Kay et al [26]…”

“…In a different approach, Lullaby [26] and EZwakeup [27] use a set of heterogeneous sensors around the bed to get sleep-related data with little or no user interaction. One of the most objectionable things about these projects is that additional infrastructure is necessary to implement the systems.…”