Zeo Personal Sleep Coach List Price: $249.99 Sale Price: $249.00 Used From: $239.95 Average Rating:

Description

Your quality of sleep is central to your quality of life. Zeo is designed to help you analyze your sleep and improve it, so you can be your best every day. Zeo tells you how you really sleep, and helps you find ways to improve your sleep. It's composed of a lightweight wireless headband, a bedside display, a set of analytical online tools, and an email-based personalized coaching program. The Zeo Bedside Display puts last night's sleep data at your fingertips and will store up to two weeks of data for easy viewing. Sleep With Zeo Step 1: Wear the Zeo Headband You begin by wearing the Zeo Headband each night. The headband uses our patent-pending SoftWave sensor technology to accurately and safely measure your unique sleep patterns through the electrical signals naturally produced by the brain. As you pass through different levels of sleep--lighter to deeper and back again--the Zeo Headband tracks how you are sleeping. Step 2: Review Your Sleep Data on the Bedside Display The Zeo Bedside Display puts last night's sleep data at your fingertips and will store up to two weeks of data for easy viewing. When you wake up, it gives you a personal sleep score - your ZQ - and shows a graph of your Light, Deep and REM sleep over the course of the night. The bedside display will also present you with information about last night's sleep and how it compares to previous nights. The optional SmartWake alarm feature will look for a "natural awakening point" based on your sleep patterns to decrease the grogginess associated with waking from Deep sleep. When SmartWake is selected, Zeo will find a time to wake you within a half-hour of your set time, never later. The result should be a slightly easier way to wake up The Zeo Headband accurately and safely measured your unique sleep patterns. Easily upload all of your sleep information to the myZeo Personal Coaching website, and begin to spot trends in your sleep that you have never been able to see before. Using Zeo's online tools, you can begin to understand how your ZQ and morning feel scores change from night to night. See Sleep Data Step 3: Upload and View Your Sleep Data Your personal sleep discovery doesn't stop with the bedside display! The Zeo Bedside Display allows you to store your sleep information on an SD memory card (like the memory cards used with digital cameras). With your SD card and its USB adapter, you can easily upload all of your sleep information to the myZeo Personal Coaching website, and begin to spot trends in your sleep that you have never been able to see before. Sleep Journal Uncover the links between how you live--including exercise, diet, stress, and environment--and how you sleep. Available both online and on paper, your Zeo Sleep Journal allows you to record lifestyle, environmental, and consumption factors that can disrupt your sleep. You'll learn about the 7 Sleep Stealers and how much they can affect your sleep data each night. You can also define your own lifestyle factors to record. The more sleep stealers you track, the more insights you'll find about how your actions may be affecting your Sleep Fitness. Sleep Tools Using Zeo's online tools, you can begin to understand how your ZQ and morning feel scores change from night to night. You'll also spot any connections between your daily lifestyle choices and your nightly sleep and find out for yourself some of the cause and effect patterns in your sleep. A sleep graph shows how much time you spent in Deep sleep, in Light sleep, in REM sleep, and awake. The Cause & Effect Tool helps you explore how your lifestyle may be affecting your sleep quality. Sleep Fitness Assessments help you track your progress in each step. Personal Coach Step 4: Start Your 7 Step Sleep Fitness Program, Your Personal Guide to a Better Night's Sleep The 7 Step Sleep Fitness Program is a guided self-discovery process for your sleep. This personalized sleep coaching program asks you to set goals for your sleep and then provides you with customized strategies to help you to achieve these goals. In addition, you can learn more about the latest sleep research, and receive recommendations on how to track the items that are most beneficial for you. Through this program, you'll experience the power of seeing your own sleep data and learn about which factors may be affecting your sleep. You will have full control over the program to skip, repeat or start-over any step you wish. Special features of the program include: A series of personalized e-mails that incorporate effective sleep tips and advice, customized to your sleep data, lifestyle and goals. A customized action plan to deal with each of the 7 Sleep Stealers as they relate to you and your sleep. Goal-oriented assignments that are realistic and achievable, and will not require you to drastically rearrange your lifestyle or even your sleep style. Positive, supportive, and easy to understand suggestions and exercises, in everyday language that is easy to follow. The Zeo Sleep Information Center is an online library for sleep information and science. In addition to offering another kind of self-guided, personal coaching tool, you can use the Sleep Information Center to discover what sleep is, and why it's important. Zeo Reveals How You Really Sleep. Without Zeo, sleep is a mystery. Are you getting the restorative Deep and REM sleep you need to be your best? How long does it really take you to fall asleep? It's practically impossible to accurately gauge your sleep quality and pinpoint which factors affect it. Everyone's sleep is different, and there's no one-size-fits-all solution for getting a better night's rest. Zeo scores your sleep quantity and quality. Imagine knowing both the quality of your sleep and the reasons behind it. Every morning, Zeo will tell you your ZQ--a number that summarizes your sleep's quantity and quality--and lots of other information about your sleep. If you can measure it, you can improve it. For the first time, you can visualize your sleep. Using Zeo's included web-based tools, you can easily see exactly how--or whether--you slept through the night. Zeo Helps You Improve Your Sleep. See what's stealing your sleep. Zeo Personal Sleep Coach will help you understand and minimize the factors that negatively affect sleep, so you can take control of your nights. You can use the visual web-based tools to see trends and cause-and-effect patterns. Get personalized sleep coaching. Sign up for the 7 Step Sleep Fitness Program to receive recommendations and actions plans tailored to you and your sleep. Zeo will help you get the most from your sleep so you can be your best. What's in the Box Zeo Bedside Display, Zeo Headband, Context Wheel, Power Adapter, SD Memory Card, Card Reader, Getting Started Guide, Headband Basics Guide, Meet Zeo Reference Manual, Sleep Journal

Features

• Zeo tells you how you really sleep, and helps you find ways to improve your sleep
• Accurately measure your sleep quality and sleep quanity at home
• Discover factors that are stealing your Deep, REM & total sleep
• Analyze your sleep patterns using online tools and journals
• Add sleep coaching for a customized sleep improvement program tailored just for you

Reviews

Well, since I've relied on the reviews of others at Amazon, I suppose it's appropriate that I take the time to share my experience with the rest of you. I have for decades had a devil of a time with both regular insomnia and with periods in which I didn't sleep at all for days. So the notion of a little star-trek like device to sample my brain waves and allow me the feedback to possibly sleep better seemed like a neat deal. And indeed, it was Amazon's "deal of the day" marked down to $199 on the bleary morning I ordered it last month, after several successive nights of less than 2 hours' sleep. Their featuring of the item seemed like kismet, and $200 for the possibility of improving my sleep seemed like a pittance. I've now used it for several weeks, and will be returning it. I'll try to list the pro's and cons here: Pro's: It's not uncomfortable to wear. I consider it brilliantly designed, the interface intuitive, the memory card easy to remove and replace even without looking at the slot, the way the recharging cradle seems to have a magnetic lock which enables quick and accurate replacement. The support staff are courteous and prompt in answering questions. The web interface is a nice bonus and graphic display, although I'd have preferred a simple home program. But they do let you download the info after you've uploaded it, where a subset of it could be put into an excel spreadsheet if anyone wanted to. Cons: It doesn't work and is bloody useless. I suppose your mileage may vary, and perhaps I have an unusual brain, although past MRI studies haven't shown any mutant extra lobes or anything, which was vaguely disappointing though expected. But the device just seems to make stuff up. It gives the impression of a Chinese knock-off of a working device, like those MP4 ipods you can get on ebay which work for a day and will only store three songs before the actual ram is full. Specifically, IF I am asleep, it will dutifully create a graph showing periods of REM, deep sleep, light sleep, etc. And I could look at that and go "wow, look at this great telemetry". Except that it does exactly the same thing while I'm awake. Indeed, even when I put it on with my eyes open, it immediately reports I'm in REM sleep. Last night due to an injury, I lay there wide awake for nearly two hours. Annoyingly, I was able to pick up the recording device and see, in real time, that I was in REM sleep, or in light sleep, and hadn't woken up at all. I could actually stare at it as it logged my sleep status every 5 minutes, and see it tell me I was asleep. Bottom line, it considers me to have been solidly asleep for over 7 hours last night, when I was only unconscious for three. Nor was this the first time this was apparent. The first couple nights I couldn't help noticing that it STARTED me in REM sleep as soon as I put it on. As long as I wasn't talking out loud, it didn't consider me awake. Contacting the polite and upbeat Zeo support staff via email, I noted this, and was advised that it was not good sleep hygeine to stay awake and think about things. Wow, why didn't I think of that? No, I explained, I agree that insomnia is antithetical to sleep rather by definition, the point is that your invention doesn't work. They assured me that they would contact their tech person and get back to me. Within a day I got back their tech advice: the Zeo was designed to work on normal healthy brains. If it didn't work on me, the implication went, then my brain wasn't normal or healthy enough to meet the standards of its product. So it wasn't their PRODUCT that didn't work, it was my brain. What provided a colorful backdrop for this was that although I'm a 59-year-old insomniac, the machine was giving me the "Z score" of a 20-year-old olympic athlete. A night lying there getting terrible sleep and being awake nearly constantly would show zero wakings - not even being awake when I put the thing on - And so would say that I got 8 hours sleep including 4 hours of REM, and give me a sleep score of over 90, not only counting me as being asleep the whole time, but giving me bonus points for all that REM sleep. I know, too, that it will say I'm in "light" sleep while I'm conscious, because last night, having nothing better to do, I held it and stared at it, daring it to continue to tell me I was in light sleep. But after five minutes of staring, it did. The ONLY incorrect thing it has NOT done is report that I'm in deep sleep while I'm awake. "Many times we don't remember sleeping when we really do", notes the Zeo techs. OK, true enough, but again, your product doesn't work. It considers me in REM sleep or light sleep from the moment I put it on. I suppose I could consider the philosophical proposition that I have never yet in my lifetime been actually awake, which might explain a lot; but I'm not sure why I'd dream about buying a product off Amazon that doesn't work. Frankly, since the thing is wildly inaccurate while I'm demonstrably awake, I'm less inclined to trust what it says I'm doing when I'm actually asleep. Ironically, I get worse ZQ scores when I sleep better, because I'm actually sleeping and don't lie there in the dark trying to sleep for 9 hours. I've taken to giving the ZEO display a display of my own upthrust middle finger each morning as it gives me a 95 for a terrible night of sleep and only a 64 for the best night I've had this month. So to sum up: it is apparently useless for people with brains like mine. Inasmuch as there is nothing else notable about my brain, it may be useless for a lot of people. In other words, how do you know it isn't just making stuff up? The novelty of seeing a graph of your sleep stages is cool, but there is no way to tell whether it corresponds to objective reality. Ultimately it may be a good placebo for those who have more faith in machines than in their own fallible protoplasm, but again, and to me quite salient: it doesn't work. I will note here that if the good folks at Zeo wish to tweak the product so it DOES work, I'd happily buy one even at the normal price. I hereby offer to be a test subject for them if they build a "mark II" version that will actually do what the current one purports to do. So my next adventure will be sending it back, and I'll report back if that becomes any sort of adventure. Of possible concern is the fine print: they offer a 30-day money-back trial, BUT the machine must be returned in "salable" condition the same way you received it. Say what? You can't even unpack the thing without tearing open several plastic bags, and you can't plug it in without unwrapping the cord, etc. I guarantee that although I will return it in its pristine unworking condition as good as it ever was, that they'll have a hard time reselling it without repackaging. Also, I note that unlike my other Amazon purchases, I can't just go to my account and do a return, I have to go through the company itself. So to sum up, I think two stars is a pretty charitable score for a product that doesn't work. It's a masterpiece except for that little fact. UPDATE 3/5/10: I asked for an RMA and they sent me one, but noted that I had to cover the return postage. So I decided to invoke Amazon's A-to-Z return policy and submitted a claim to make sure I got the full refund. Very quickly thereafter I got a nice note from Zeo saying they'd send me a prepaid UPS label to return it - which they quickly did - and assuring me that they would give the full refund. So I thank them, and I also thank Amazon for their policy - it never hurts to buy through Amazon when you have a choice.

I have had my Zeo for about two months. In general it works quite well. It accurately knows how long it takes me to fall asleep. It also records how much of me sleep is in Rem, Light Sleep, or Deep Sleep, and gives a ZQ score (sleep equivalent of an IQ) on how well I slept. It seems fairly accurate, but seems to get confused with my REM and Light sleep. It has reported that I was awake durig certain periods when I know I had dreams. Over all I really like this product. It is mostly accurate and helps me keep track of how various medications and other events effect my sleep.

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.

I ordered the Zeo to learn more about my sleep patterns. The unit arrived 10 days after I ordered it (10 days into the 30 day trial period). I opened the box and the unit is a bit of packaging cuteness gone made. Yes, Apple products and the Amazon Kindle come in very cute bits of packaging that all lead you to getting to success with the product as quickly as possible. There are cute little phrases. Complex shapes to explore. Etc. The Zeo does that... and it's very over the top. There are too many pieces. Too much cute. Too much information. And in my case, missing pieces. The unit that they sent to me didn't have the sleep sensor that attaches to the headband that you wear. So, I called their technical support people. Their tech support people (on Feb 9th) said, "we'll get a replacement out to you right away." Now, "right away means to me overnight or at least 2 day shipping." I figure that the missing piece should be in my hands by Thursday at the latest. Well, it's February 22nd and still no replacement piece. So, I call customer support again. The first thing that I hear is "If this is a press call, contact...." Well, golly gosh, these guys care more about the press and fielding press calls than taking care of people who spent money on their device. So, I'm in the hold queue and then talk to someone who "can't find your order." I read her every bit of information on the page... my name, my address, the order number, the ASIN, etc. and still she can't find my information. So, she asks me to send her a copy of the invoice. I tell her, "my 30 day evaluation period is almost up, I'm not going to let you guys take more time to get me a working item unless you extend my evaluation period." She puts me on hold for 5 minutes at which time I hang up and initiate a return through Amazon. But that's not why I gave the unit a 1 star rating. I gave it a 1 star rating because you have to include the unique device ID number with the registration of the unit to access the Zeo sleep coach service. This means that Zeo has your medical information that's very, very intimately tied to your purchase of the item (you can't go out an buy a Zeo anonymously). So, Zeo has such poor control of the quality of their items and such poor systems to monitor sales, yet they are asking you to trust them with medical record information and there's no way to use their systems anonymously. No matter how good the Zeo might be when it's working, would you trust the company to have secured your medical information such that it's hacker-proof if they can't even get their basic systems correct? Given their propensity to be media oriented (see some of the other reviews on this note), would you trust them not to distribute "anonymized" sleep information (like AOL distributed anonymized search terms that included SSNs and other identifying information)? So, my 1 star rating comes down to a lack of trust for a company that is recording some very important and very intimate information about me.

I have suffered from insomnia for as long as I can remember. I'm 27 years old today, and clearly remember having problems sleeping as far as I can remember back through my adolescent school years. I haven't used Zeo's coaching yet, though I have used the product's smartwake feature, as well as it's graphing of sleep phases. I'll break this down into a few points. Positives: 1) I've found that being awoken by the smartwake feature results in reliably feeling extremely refreshed when awoken, and wholeheartedly recommend the product for that feature alone. 2) The graphing works well, but has some quirks. For me, If there is some aggravating phenomenon that would obviously hold me awake (ie: loud noises) it will count this as "wake", but on a normal quiet night, or wearing earplugs, as soon as I close my eyes at night, it counts this as "light sleep" -- but I am still awake. I have found more than once that if I am sitting in bed with my eyes closed for 45 minutes or an hour, and then open my eyes and look at the display, it recorded all of that time as "light sleep". Once it records "deep sleep", however, I am actually asleep, and the recording past that seems to be quite accurate. 3) Using this as a data source, I have started to figure out some factors that effect my quality of sleep. I try and change one variable, and see how that changes things -- timing of exercise, room temperature, alcohol, valerian or other sleep aids, etc. I was surprised to learn that most things that help me fall asleep also seem to lower the quality of my sleep, and I might as well just sit in bed trying to sleep "naturally" rather than take a sedative. 4) I learned a lot about my sleep -- when I wake up and feel completely unrested, and look down and see that even though I slept 8 hours, I got very little or no REM sleep, the phenomenon makes more sense to me now. Negatives: 1) As others have said, this product forces you into using Zeo's website to analyze your sleep data, there is no software for your own computer. If Zeo goes out of business, your product becomes nearly worthless. Even if zeo doesn't go out of business, I would prefer to be able to look at graphs and analyze the data on my own computer rather than have to upload it to a website. 2) I am a side/stomach sleeper, so wearing the headband is slightly uncomfortable at times, but all things considered, it's reasonably comfortable as long as you keep the band pretty loose. Overall, my sleep habits have improved a lot in the first two weeks of owning the product, and I'm getting much better sleep