Earlier this month, Northcube AB released a dedicated iPad version of its well-liked free Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock app, which pledges to use sound analysis technology to help users put sleep-ins behind them. We’ve been busy testing the iPad app, and here are our thoughts…
Setting up this smart alarm clock involves specifying the time window during which you would like to be woken up. The app then asks that you place your iPad in a convenient position for measuring your varying phases of sleep during the night; giving the app use of the microphone, for example, means placing the device facing a particular direction on a bedside table. That done, it just takes one more tap to get the app monitoring your sleep.
The following morning, it will set off its alarm noise when it discerns that you are in a light sleep phase – meaning that you should, upon waking, feel relatively awake and therefore less likely to fall straight back to sleep. Over the mornings that the app woke us, we did feel noticeably more awake than previously – while the collected measurements about our sleeping patterns regularly made for fascinating perusal.
