Last time, I gave a brief history of my personal fascination with sleep and a few of you echoed my sentiments of needing more sleep than the average person.
The Zeo itself consists of two main pieces: an alarm clock of sorts that actively displays your sleep cycles and a headband that wirelessly monitors these cycles as you sleep. On the first night I tried the Zeo, my excitement got the best of me. I remember laying in bed staring at the monitor which blinked in a way which indicated that I was “awake.” I closed my eyes tightly and tried to will myself to sleep, partially wishing I could stay awake to watch the monitor throughout the night. It was late and I was tired…but I couldn’t fall asleep. “Performance anxiety!?” I wondered to myself, tossing, turning, and flipping my pillow with frustration. Still no sleep. I started to worry about how, exactly, the device worked and mentally chastised myself for not researching more before I nonchalantly strapped something so close to my brain. Finally, at 4AM (at least I am tenacious), I took off the Zeo.
The next morning, I did what any normal person would do, and emailed Matt Bianchi, MD PhD of MGH’s sleep division and asked if the device was safe. His email simply said, “the Zeo has passed all routine safety standards for commercial sale.”
Not satisfied, I emailed Mollie ’06 – aka my advisor on everything related to the brain. She wrote, “My friend (who is an MD/PhD student and Knows Things) says it actually records the changes in conductance of your skin, not even really the brain waves per se, which I guess makes sense, because you just need skin contact, not brain tissue contact (ew).”
Completely satisfied with this response, I wore the Zeo that night without anxiety.
Below is data from one night’s sleep.
Oh no, I feel so exposed! Don’t judge my brain waves!
In the interest of time, space, and attention span, I will wait until the next and final post in this series to interpret the data, show you more, note my observations, and answer some questions that came up in last week’s comments (with the help of the friendly staff at Zeo.) Check back for it on March 21st!
In the meantime, get some sleep.
Slice of MIT by the Alumni Association 
March 9, 2010 at 12:01 pm
Christina, This is so interesting (and funny)! I can’t wait for your next installment.
March 11, 2010 at 5:13 pm
If it ever becomes an actual product rather than just a pre-order (as it promises to) WakeMate will be a very interesting product in the same arena.
I’ve pre-ordered it because I found it to be a better price point than Zeo and I personally wouldn’t want to sleep with a headband on. A wrist band I don’t mind as much.
March 11, 2010 at 5:15 pm
http://www.wakemate.com if you care to read about it.
March 12, 2010 at 1:09 pm
I would be curious to know how much better the Zeo is compared to other cheap applications such as EasyWakeup or Sleep Cycle that detect movements in your sleep then interpret the data to reconstruct your sleep cycle.
March 12, 2010 at 7:04 pm
campo – looks cool, albeit less sophisticated method of recording cycles, unsure what that means for accuracy. Let me know how it works out for you!
March 14, 2010 at 11:00 pm
your friend is mistaken about the Zeo. this is how zeo works:
http://blog.myzeo.com/5-steps-to-phasing-sleep/
March 15, 2010 at 10:33 pm
I took a medical device design course while still an EE undergrad at the ‘tute. The main design challenge was a cardiograph monitor. However, I convinced the Prof. to let me change it into a brainwave analyzer. Sure enough I was able to detect different wavebands depending on my state of relaxation. I was able to watch for Alpha, Beta and Theta. However, since I had no recording device setup for home I was unable to observe Delta which is the sleeping state. It is entirely possible these days to measure not only conductance but brainwaves without piercing the skin. I don’t have access to a Zeo and what their headband measures but it would be worth asking them. In either case you should have no concerns about safety. The headband is clearly powered by a battery. The detection circuitry is therefore isolated and power limited so that there are no hazardous skin currents.
Sleep well, and keep reporting on your experience.
March 16, 2010 at 12:06 am
Tom, that’s so cool. I was thinking about how interesting it would be to record alpha, beta, and theta waves during everyday activity. Perhaps to prove that MIT students think harder than say, the average bear. If you create the product, I would totally buy it!
Zeo has updated me on how their device works and I’ll be including some of that information in my post on Sunday. 🙂