Hi guys! I’m one of the creators of SiestApp, a smart alarm for iOS that monitors your nap’s sleep pattern and wakes you up at the perfect moment. There are plenty of ‘sleep cycle’ type apps out there, but we wanted to create something a bit more specific around short naps (or siestas, as they are commonly known here in Spain). The key is to optimize the amount of rest time, without entering a deep phase of sleep that would cause you to wake up feeling worse than when you lied down.
My part in this has been centred around the UI/UX (I can’t program to save my life). If you have any questions or suggestions, I would love to hear from you here in the comments. :)
Can you explain how the product should be different for short naps? What does an optimal nap look like?
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Hunter
@EAWharton the science behind this is pretty simple. A sleep cycle consists of five phases, SiestApp will wake you up before you enter the third and fourth phases of sleep. The health benefits that the second phase of sleep provides is rest and restoration of brain activity, which makes it incredibly valuable. In a nap, we want to get as much of this second phase as possible, whilst avoiding phases three and four. A regular alarm that wakes you during one of the latter would make you feel unrested and in a bad mood. Therefore, an optimal nap is based on the quantity and quality of phase two sleep that you manage to cram in your nap.
@andrewpyott
Sorry. I understand the general benefits of sleep cycle focused alarms. I was just wondering how a naps focused alarm differs from a night of sleep focused alarm.
Thanks!
Hey @andrewpyott I was curious because I've been using user Sleep Cycle for a while now. So, I took the time to have nap today at the office (Thank you guys;)) . my feedback:
- I love the simplicity and the UI. Sleep Cycle UI sucks seriously but they have my data...
- The main problem is that you can have a nap everywhere (on the couch at the office, on a train, at the beach...), so it's hard to be sure that you put the device at the right place. I'd give more insights on this.
- You should tell the user to turn on the airplane mode because notifications, emails, tweets will just stop you nap before your app!
- I wouldn't use one app for my naps and one other app for my night unfortunately.
They are plenty of things to do in this domain. Hope you will keep going and innovate in this field! good luck.
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Hunter
Hi @SoleneMa, thanks for taking the time to give us such awesome feedback :)
- Sleep Cycle is obviously the big fish in this pond, and we agree on the ugly UI thing. Data is super important, and we're looking to implement this in a forthcoming iteration.
- Noted.
- We had this indication in an earlier version of the app, but dropped it in pro of simplicity. Probably a good idea to bring it back.
- This is probably the big challenge here. Our aim was to target sleep phases rather than cycles, as there are apps out there with more traction that already do that. I guess the way of competing would be to offer something that the 'Sleep Cycles' don't.
We've only just got started, and with all the cool feedback that we're getting (from users like yourself), we'll see what direction we can take this in. We definitely agree that there's space for products in this niche, we've just got to find the right keys to press.
Thanks for being awesome!
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Lydia