sleep aids
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Endel's Apple Watch app generates soothing sounds on your wrist
If you primarily use your Apple Watch for all its health and wellness-related features, you'll want to check the new app from AI music startup Endel. Technically, Endel has been available as an Apple Watch app for a while now. Where this new version differs is that it's a standalone app, meaning you don't need your iPhone to transmit the sounds the app generates to the Apple Watch. Endel claims it's the first company to create a way to algorithmically generate stress-reducing sounds on a smartwatch.
This procedurally generated Twitch channel wants to help you sleep
When you think of Twitch, you probably think of staying up too late watching people stream their Fortnite matches. However, a newly-launched channel wants to offer the opposite: a stream that helps you fall asleep.
Free Sleep Sounds - get some shut-eye or relax with this free app
Free Sleep Sounds (free!) joins a pretty crowded field of apps designed to help you sleep, relax or meditate. The app contains 25 well-recorded environments in stereo in categories like Ocean, Rivers and Streams, Wind, Fire, Birds and more. A unique feature is the ability to created blended mixes of any of up to six tracks, so you could hear wind along with the crickets. The app can run in the background. Free Sleep Sounds also shows you some nice images taken around the world to accompany the sounds. There is a sleep timer, and the tracks nicely fade out so they are not jarring. I tried Free Sleep Sounds with headphones as well as on a Bluetooth Stereo speaker, and found the audio quality quite good. Using this ad-supported app is easy enough, but it has the most intrusive and obnoxious ad placement I have seen in years. The screen bounces with notifications, and many of the ads are animated and distracting. It is the LAST thing I would want to see in an app designed to help me relax. If you look at the screen at all, anxiety replaces any soothing effects the soundscapes are designed to create. At times I wanted to throw my iPhone out the nearest window. The same developer offers a paid app that is actually a pretty good deal. While it is on sale for US$0.99, Sleep Sounds HQ offers more than 600 relaxing sounds. Some of the categories are a bit weird, like Industrial and Trains; not the kinds of soundscapes I would think of first if I needed to get some rest. Still, there is so much to choose from and the lack of ads makes Sleep Sounds HQ seem the better deal. I would suggest trying the free app and see if you like the sounds and features; if you do, migrate to the paid version. I am sure that was the developer's intention in the first place... My favorite sleep/relaxation app is still Naturespace. It's a free app with a lot of in-app purchases, but the audio is first rate, and the free version has some great soundscapes. Naturespace is designed for headphone listening and has special settings for earbud listeners, but it sounds fine over external speakers. Sleep Sounds and Naturespace both provide natural sounds, which I prefer to synthesized soundscapes. Free Sleep Sounds requires iOS 6 or later. It's not universal, and it is optimized for the iPhone 5.
WakeMate sleep-aid recalled due to 'exploding' USB charger, gives new meaning to being hot in the sack
Early this morning, Perfect Third Inc. -- makers of the less than perfect WakeMate wristband -- issued a recall for the sleep analyzer's USB charger, which apparently has a tendency to go up in smoke, and we don't mean disappear. An e-mail sent out by the company's CEO at 12:30 AM states, "we were informed by a customer of a safety incident with the black USB chargers." A little vague if you ask us, considering the video we received shows the device "smoking after exploding." The recall ensures that the WakeMate itself is perfectly safe, and that the Chinese-manufactured USB cables are at fault, but if you ask us, anything that is supposed to help you sleep soundly shouldn't put you in danger of catching fire. [Thanks, Ringram and Nick]
SnorePro might stop you from snoring (but probably won't)
We'll level with you: the Snore Pro sets off a few snake oil alarms -- it does, after all, claim to fix a problem that has been seemingly incurable from time immemorial. The device (which is not exactly cool looking) apparently has a two-pronged approach to help snorers kick the habit: first, it delivers an "electronic stimulation" to the wearer's skin causing a sleep disturbance (which the company compares to a nudging spouse). Secondly, it claims to record each and every snore. The recorded data theoretically provides the user with feedback about their progress and gives them clues as to why and when they snore. We don't know when it's going to be available or how much it will cost, but we hope it's less expensive than the weight loss pills and the real estate pyramid scheme software we just ordered.
