Luna – Hack your sleep | Hacker News Reader

Luna – Hack your sleep

lunasleep.com

347 pointsmaghis151 comments

This looks really cool. I wonder though if my bed would not then be dependent on your servers at some point as I consider such a product as a long-term investment. For example, can it live without the server-side aggregation? Would you consider opensourcing parts of the server to enable people to use their own servers in the long run? Would you consider adding a respectable API that follows the ideas of for example, the philips hue? http://www.developers.meethue.com/philips-hue-api

It's nice that you mention because we inspired both our API and architecture to Philips Hue: the REST api is served by both our cloud servers and by the device locally.

The app connects to the unit via wi-fi when you are home, which means you can control the product even if the internet (or our service) is down.

Opensourcing a lot of our stack is part of the plan, we take a lot from OSS and we want to give back. As far as the hardware, we'll make sure it's a pleasure to hack on, remember that we have to do it every day :)

It's a really cool idea and great job on getting this far; I think I might order one.

Does that mean both the device and your cloud have apis, or does it mean that an app which communicates only with the device can do the same things as your app which talks to both?

Any 3rd party app can do everything our app can do, the APIs we use internally are the ones that will be publicly available.

That sounds incredible, I'm excited!

This is a commitment that inspires cooperation. The quantified self community needs gadgets like these, but also open platforms that encourages tinkering.

I just purchased a Luna Developer Pack[1].

[1]http://lunasleep.com/extras/

Nothing but respect for that. You've pushed me over the edge and I've preordered one now :)

How much of this do you have working already? I've been using Zeo and miss them a lot, tracking sleep phases or heartrate through this seems very ambitious.

Also, some physical switch for microphone could be nice..

We never record the audio from the mic, we are only capable of detecting loud sounds or a sustained vibration (snoring).

This is a very valid concern because I used to own a Zeo headband that did a lot of the same stuff, and when the company went belly-up the cloud service disappeared, leaving all their customers with a useless bedtime fashion accessory.

Really encouraging to hear the developer's reply that the their APIs will be accessible over wifi and that they'll even be open-sourcing some of their stack. Wonder if they specifically learned from what happened with Zeo. I'll definitely consider this as a replacement.

Actually Zeo had a very nice serial connection and I never uploaded any of their data, pushing it in realtime to my HA system. But yeah, I cry a lot that they are gone, it's almost impossible now to get a headband replacement.

> product as a long-term investment

Having an internet outage (or DDOS attack) render your "smart" home appliance unusable should be considered unacceptable product design. That said, heated mattress pads on the market now have a finite lifespan. The heating elements gradually lose their ability to heat, necessitating replacement after a perhaps 3-5 years, give or take. Unless they've engineered a much longer-lasting heating system, this significantly limits the window of risk.

If they have engineered a pad with significantly longer-lasting heating elements they should trump that fact LOUDLY, as it'll be a big plus to existing fans of heated mattress pads.

+1 on the API.

My first instinct (being the geek that I am) upon seeing this was it looks great. And having lived in England the majority of my life, with cold houses and heating turned off at night - heated underblankets are a necessity.

But as I read through the feature list, I couldn't help feel uncomfortable. Am I the only one that finds this deluge of technology into every aspect of our lives abhorrent?

Every single day billions of people stare into a screen. You can control your whole life on it. Your lights can come on when you come home (Hue), the temperature indoors is regulated (Nest), and now my partner and I can have regulated heating on either side of the bed. Those who have watched Black Mirror will see where I'm going with this.

I can't help feel that while there is nothing wrong with this product - in fact it's kinda cool - is it really something the world needs?

Anyway, best of luck to the team. It seems like a good product. You can't please everyone :)

As long as most of the features are default "off", I think it's fine. I bet most people would just use the scheduled warming, and maybe the smart wake based on sleep tracking.

Agreed. If the features are optional, then this sounds fantastic. If they're not, well, they should be.

I used to be into tech and gadgets and all that neat stuff until I realized I spend more time setting up, customizing, and configuring it than time saved because of it. I've since just defaulted to books for entertainment, my ipod, and just my single laptop. I really don't own much else. It's kinda nice.

Most of the holes we plug with technology can be solved with growing a thicker skin. Toes cold? Tuck them in. Still cold? Get up and crank the heat.

Amen. Not to mention the time factor of finding the product, earning the money to purchase it, and disposing of it. Ironically, the amish seem to have a better grasp of when you should be implementing technology than most other groups.

Just because it's not something that's necessary, doesn't mean that it's bad or "abhorrent". I want to live in a future with cyborg bodies and star trek doors and if you don't, well then I feel sorry for you.

It's not the technology, it's how society uses it. I don't want cyborg super-soldiers operating under a repressive extrajudicial Section 31-type agency with Star Trek doors coming after me.

That's an interesting one - I like the idea of technology allowing a more inclusive society; enhancing mobility to some people to get them to the shops, allow other people to use steps; maybe one day those who wish to regain their sight or maybe get it for the first time. However -- as with everything in nature -- it also has a dark side.

First, which is far more a philosophical addition to my previous point - it's defining a norm. To some extent this is unavoidable; it is essentially saying that to be at a normal functional level you need sight, be able to walk, etc. So the question is - is a more inclusive society one that is setup for a whole spectrum of people or one that enables people's bodies to bring them to a functionally 'equal' footing? It's probably somewhere in the middle.

The other part, which I know I've experienced, is that the more unnecessarily engaged I was with technology -- more so with hi-tech -- the more detached I was with the actual world around me. So, for instance, walking around outside listening to music in headphones; walking around outside with a mobile phone (especially a smart phone). Nowadays, unless I have a damn good reason to take it with me (The only one that comes to mind is playing a set), I go around outside with clothes and maybe bags and leave everything else at home. On the rare occasion I've found that a mobile phone might have been useful, but those occasions are mainly when I've relied on a car to take me beyond walking distance. The cycle of reliance.

Since placing this limit on myself, It's challenged me to be more engaged with the environment around me, more mindful in myself and I've found this has made me much happier and my environment more colourful. Trying to strike the balance is good, and I enjoy walking the tight rope. However cyborg bodies starts entering a whole new domain - the idea of being chained to technology because it's a part of my body seems horrible to me; there would be no relief from it.

If people want society to go that way, fair enough. However, I personally won't encourage unnecessary integration with bodies because that's not the world I want to live in.

More than Black Mirror, it reminded me of Wall-e, where humans have become so atrophied from not doing anything. I need a device to rid me of the burden of locking the door, or putting on some PJ's. Ironically the constant use of screens and devices emitting blue-light even in bed has a more direct (and detrimental) impact on sleep quality than all those sensors, and the small cognitive-bandwidth gain, will. And of course, I reserve the right to change my mind later.

Naturally, there's an app for that. Lux solves the nighttime light temperature problem for Android. (Similar to the desktop program F.lux.)

I hadn't heard of Lux before, but I've been using Twilight on my Android and I like it. Will have to check out Lux to see if it's better.

I recall choosing Lux over Twilight based on features and reviews, but that was a couple years ago. Let me knowwwhich you prefer!

I liked the idea initially, and for people struggling with hypo/hypersomnia or bad sleep in general it's probably going to be very useful to objectively measure the effect of lifestyle/dietary/medication changes.

Then I read that the bed will be listening to my wife and me. That's really creepy. Together with all these 'AIs are going to kill us all articles' it reminds me of the Amazon Echo thread [1]... it carefully studies your sleeping habits, switches off the lights, locks your doors, and waits patiently for you to fall asleep...: http://youtubedoubler.com/eqOJ

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8569219

Yeah, monitoring your heart rate and breathing is a short step away from cataloging your sex life, or at least the part of it that takes place in bed, which is where most people like to get it on.

I am not that enthused about this whole 'quantified self' movement; it strikes me as Taylorism applied to leisure activities and now sleep. I have no confidence that the data will remain fully under user control; rather, incentives will appear that encourage people to grant non-revocable access for consumerist 'rewards,' which in turn will be employed to create consumer anxiety about suboptimal life patterns, which can be assuaged for the low, low cost of only $x/month.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_management

I like technology a lot, but I don't care for the idea of being cocooned by it 24/7.

You forgot the smart wearable devices that track your GPS location, heart rate, pedometer, and graphs all your daily activities into a neat little dashboard that's accessible in the cloud. Don't forget to get order all your groceries online!

I don't understand why as someone in the technology world you would arbitrarily draw the line here. We've all been working on stuff that the world could do without. Why wouldn't you have drawn the line years ago when personal computers became a big thing?

The line is not arbitrary; it's nuanced. We're discussing replacing everyday objects with Internet Things that are designed as closed appliances, often monetizing the passive data that you, merely by living, create.

Building the Internet of Things is different from what many of us do which is creating technological toys, digital tools, automated business processes, knowledge bases, communications tools, and digital publications. To offset the enormous costs of these types of works, people pioneered monetization of data we presumed to be private, in many cases. We've made this bed and now, with Internet of Things, we literally will lie in it.

You're not alone. There's a group of people that this will sell to, and that's fine, but I'm not one of them.

I can use any one of the following tools at my disposal to regulate my sleep temperature: a blanket, a fan, an air conditioner, a heater, a window, less clothing, more clothing. Some people in the world don't have the luxury of ANY of these, much less all of them. The last thing I need is a new device to piss me off and do something poorly that I've managed to do just fine since I was a toddler.

And yeah, the video got creepy toward the end. If at some point in my life I can't be bothered to turn off the lights and lock my door before going to sleep, I've become something I really don't want to be.

I see a lot of devices being announced that all end data back to the cloud. I'm not comfortable with this.

I hope that there will be a push by people for local cloud configurations. One should not have to depend on the availability of the Internet in order for things to work.

To wit, the Nest has been completely wonky for me since the last update.

Yeah, not sure why geeks seem to have this thing about sleep optimization. Whether it's a wristband to monitor your REM cycles, or a little app to track your sleep habits, or polyphasic weirdness, or now this thing to regulate sleeping parameters. It all points to some kind of psychological issue that many programmers seem to have.

For people who tinker with the maddeningly complex systems of software how can the "engineering problem" of sleep be that hard? Just get your ass into bed at a decent time, and then give yourself eight hours. In fact given the flexible schedules of many tech jobs it should be easier for us as a profession to be rested than, say, a baker who has to get up at 3:30am.

But like I said it may be a psychological thing, a mental association between sleep and giving up. "You'll have plenty of time to sleep in the grave" or whatever the saying is. So we want to feel we have control over this aspect of ourselves. Hence the gadgetry smothering a simple idea of just laying down, turning off the phone, and covering up with some comfortable blankets. In fact I think I'm going to go do that right now. Goodnight, HN. :)

Do you know what it's like to almost never feel fully rested and not being able to do anything about it? My problem is that I just won't fall asleep within a reasonable amount of time on some days. I am willing to try anything because the ROI would be huge.

One thing that has made a noticeable difference has been exercise though.

You answered your own question partly. It's simple, exercise and don't sit in front of a computer screen all night. Yet most people won't do this and complain that they have "insomnia" (the word has been overused to the point that going to bed past midnight now makes you an insomniac) and seem to think they now need pill/technology.

I've noticed my sleep quality is strongly correlated with my room temperature, but being in a moderate climate I find that I need my bed and room colder to sleep better. Looks like this only provides heating.

Agreed. Would definitely need the "cooling" version.

It integrates with nest to control the thermostat.

Beyond that ... get a lighter weight blanket?

In Spain even just sheets are too much :) Airco or sweat.

It's a real challenge if you live somewhere warm. Even using only a sheet and with a fan blowing directly on me I still want/need colder. Here in NC it'll often be 85-90F and humid, even at night.

This is obviously not a nightly solution - but a family member of mine moved from our northern US state to Africa for a time and swore by the following strategy to stay cool: utilize evaporative cooling by wetting/wringing out a lightweight sheet and use a fan to blow air over your bed.

I have trouble sleeping if my blanket isn't heavy enough -- it's not a warmth issue, as far as I can tell, but rather a weight one. That, and having a warm body but breathing cold air seems to be something I like. That might be what the parent was talking about, rather than feeling too-hot in the blankets.

Same.

if you could figure out a way to get microfibers to straighten out / curl up on command (like under a DC electric field), you could make a smart blanket. it would regulate the loft of the material by making the fibers straighter or more curled, making it more or less insulating. i dont know if this is a stupid idea or not.

There's been some recent studies that suggest a cooler temperature is better for quality of sleep and improves insulin sensitivity [1]. There's another company that sells pads that can lower the temperature of the bed [2].

[1]: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24954193

[2]: https://www.chilitechnology.com/chilipad-cube

As someone who struggles mightily with sleep I can tell you it's science not preference that makes you prefer cold. I can't find the original source of this fact but here is a decent alternative[1].

> ...scientists were able to lower skin temperature less than a degree Centrigrade without affecting core body temperature. The changes were dramatic. People didn't wake up as much during the night and the percentage of the sleep spent in stages 3 and 4 (deep sleep) increased. ... A 0.4 C decrease in skin temperature caused a decline in the probability of early morning waking from 0.58 to 0.04.

[1]http://www.sleepdex.org/thermoregulation.htm

That article is wrong. The quote that you gave, is contradicted in the last paragraph of the same article: >> Recent research by Dutch scientists found that by increasing skin temperature the sleep quality in elderly people could be enhanced.

Also the study, that the article links to [0] says:

By employing a thermosuit to control skin temperature during nocturnal sleep, we demonstrate that induction of a mere 0.4 degrees C increase in skin temperature, whilst not altering core temperature, suppresses nocturnal wakefulness (P<0.001) and shifts sleep to deeper stages (P<0.001) in young and, especially, in elderly healthy and insomniac participants. Elderly subjects showed such a pronounced sensitivity, that the induced 0.4 degrees C increase in skin temperature was sufficient to almost double the proportion of nocturnal slow wave sleep and to decrease the probability of early morning awakening from 0.58 to 0.04. Therefore, skin warming strongly improved the two most typical age-related sleep problems; a decreased slow wave sleep and an increased risk of early morning awakening.

[0] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18192289?dopt=Abstract

If any of the creators are reading this, is there any chance you're going to be making this in a hacker-friendly way? I've been contemplating making something sorta like this myself (although much less ambitious) and I'd really like to be able to integrate it into other smart things that I have going in my house.

Also, just out of curiosity, what are you using for the WiFi connectivity? I've been playing with a bunch or the new embedded stuff and like to know what people are actually using.

EDIT: Also, cool, I was the one to push it over 100K: "You raised the campaign total to: $100,008!" I feel special.

You are special! Also, if you poke around their website, they sell an SDK. An expensive, limited edition SDK, but still.

That perk means a really early access to the API and the opportunity to contribute to the design (we should probably explain it better).

Yes, I'm the CTO of the company.

The product will have an open (and well documented) REST API from the day we ship. Our app and website will use the same exact API that 3rd party developers will use. Apps will have to levels of data access permission: sleep patterns only and raw data (they will have to ask access to the user).

We are taking a lot from OSS and we want to give back and contribute to the community, we will start soon opensourcing part of our stack.

As far as the hardware goes, we are doing our best to make it a pleasure to hack, it's in our interest:)

Any plans to make a none wifi version (or a way to turn that off and connect via RJ45)? Where is the wifi antenna in relation to the head?

I try to avoid sleeping to close to my phone as well as other wifi/bluetooth enabled devices as it does appear to have an affect on my sleep quality.

No plans to make it non wi-fi. The antenna is inside the main enclosure, together with ambient sensors and power supply, outside of the bed.

I know the founding team (3 out of 4 are Italians like me, all living in SF), and as a disclaimer, I am an early angel investor in the company.

I have tried the product in its alpha version, and have followed the progress thus far. I think that what Luna is trying to achieve is extremely important. In fact, I have decided to invest because I thought that improving someone's sleep is going to have a huge impact in his/her life.

I am not aware of any other product that is qualitatively similar to this. If there are, let me know :)

Good luck, guys!

Simone, you are our favorite (and first!) investor:)

What research has been done to show this actually has a beneficial effect on one's sleep? I ask because there are many 'lifestyle' type of products that get advertised, and sound good, but only seem to have anecdotal evidence to support their claimed benefits.

More: after read-reading the project page I'm going to assume the answer is 'no' to supporting evidence, otherwise this would have been included with all the other (detailed) information already provided. So, for me at least, this falls into the 'solution looking for a problem' category; it'a an exercise in technology application that - yes - is cool, but doesn't actually solve (supported by evidence) a problem.

JT from Tuft & Needle here. I met with Andrea and the team last year. They are solid. The big difference with this tech is that it can actually impact the way you sleep as opposed to just reporting data points.

When you sleep badly you usually know it in the morning. A wristband telling me isn’t that useful. A tool that actually helps you fall asleep and stay asleep provides significantly more value.

Cool to get your opinion on this - I'm a huge fan of my Tuft & Needle mattress. Interested to see if they make a good combo.

Seems really cool but I felt my internal warning sign go off when I see the team is mostly comprised of marketers/managers/growth. Three engineers in an eight person team. It can still be a good product but I'll wait until it's on the market for some real reviews.

4 engineers actually:)

The moment I saw Matteo Franceschett being involved in this, ugh.

Some NY tech circles don't have a high opinion about this guy. He jumped from one project to another, burning bridges behind (just Google his name in re to MOWA and few others), and nowadays it seems he also likes to spam people.

A few of my colleagues received emails in regards to this wonderbra bedsheet, but none actually ever recalls signing up. That's a big red flag.

Shawn from Beep here. We're super pumped to be integrating with these guys. As someone who wakes up almost every single night either overheating or freezing this product is near and dear to my heart and I personally can't wait to get mine.

We are really looking forward to working with you guys!

This looks great. I backed a project called Beddit which is similar, but just a single strip that measures your breathing and heart rate, but it never worked very well for me. Part of the problem was it required opening up the application and connecting to the Bluetooth sensor every. damn. night. [1][2]

The only way I can integrate quantified self gadgets into my life is if they are totally hands-off, passive data collectors. I don't want to charge a fitness tracker every night and remember to put it on in the morning. The best I can do is remember stand on my Withings scale a few times a week.

[1] http://www.beddit.com/

[2] https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/beddit/id794968897

The hardware (including a bed warmer that is 100% guaranteed to not set your house on fire), controller software, sleep-tracking software + mobile apps, all for US$100k? Either we haven't learned anything from previous crowdfunding nightmares, or they have another source of funding.

Yes, we have another source of funding, from a group of awesome people that supported us believing in the project since the beginning. (you can find some of them in the comments)

This says it integrates with smart home stuff from the given companies, but how does it actually do that? What sort of features are actually available?

Also, the partner logos should really be links. I have no idea what Beep or Emberlight even are.

The product is wifi and we approach integration with partners in two ways:

- some products will be integrated directly to enable a very specific user experience (in particular thermostats and smart locks for now)

- for other products we are integrated with IFTTT so that a user can customize even the most complicated scenario (we are also looking at other integration platforms, ideas are welcome)

Aaand... ticket created for the links, by tonight those logos are going to be links. In the meanwhile:

- http://www.emberlight.co/ - turn any light into a smart light

- https://www.thisisbeep.com/ - bringing music to every room of your home

EDIT: fixed formatting of lists

> in particular thermostats and smart locks for now

But what will they actually do? What are the use cases that you're looking at?

Thermostats:

- lower the house temp when everyone is in bed (save energy + better sleep environment)

- detect whether you are likely to come home tonight or not to avoid warming up your bed if you are traveling

- letting the thermostat know what's the temp/humidity in your bedroom when you are in bed

Smart locks: you get in bed and, if you left the door unlocked, you get a push notification that says: "Your door is unlocked, do you want to lock it?"

These are core use cases now, we will definitely expand the list, there are a lot of things that need to happen in a smart home when you get in bed or fall asleep or when you wake up.

EDIT: fixed formatting

Sorry but I don't support indiegogo projects any more. There are more scam projects than real ones out there and the indiegogo team doesn't give a shit about it. This makes me sad, because I like the idea of crowdsourced projects. But there needs to be a platform either side can trust which indiegogo is definitely not because scam projects attract more people and so they make more money with them.

This is pretty cool tech--if the smart alarm system works as advertised it would replace a lot of poorly-performing manual processes I currently undergo myself. Make a version with no heating element that can run on a battery and I'll buy it.

Make a version that has active cooling and I'll buy 2 and wear the extra to work.

Yes please. Been wanting/plotting 'air-con' bed for ages. Passive ventilation can't dissipate enough for chronic fever.

edit: There's also all of us in the tropics.

> SECURE AND PRIVATE

> Luna is completely secure and uses public key cryptography. Its security features include HTTPS, SSL, and 128-bit encryption.

What does a mattress need HTTPS for when it is private? Something does not add up there for me.

edit: Sorry, I missed the mobile phone controller etc. So I guess this does not phone home?

Or it does using the above mechanisms.

It does, but no raw data are sent, most of the aggregation happens on the device. We upload sleep patterns, average values for some sensors (temp/humidity, ambient light) and major events (loud sound or quick change in ambient light). We use those data for historical data analysis on the server side.

The cloud service relays commands to the cover when your phone is not connected to your wifi too (you can warm up your bed while ubering back home on a cold night).

> We upload sleep patterns, average values for some sensors (temp/humidity, ambient light) and major events (loud sound or quick change in ambient light).

That's kind of the opposite of private, no?

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/private

It would be awesome if you could disable the sending of any data to your cloud. I wish more products were self contained and wouldn't need to use a server side component. If there is sufficient storage in the mattress, a mobile phone could do the calculations when the user wants it, without anyone else knowing.

You are not Google! Use that advantage!

"What does a mattress need HTTPS for when it is private? Something does not add up there for me."

I hate this trend. I do not want 80 networked computers generating traffic and providing attack surface and privacy leaks out of my house.

I don't want a networked TV screen, I don't want a networked refrigerator, and I certainly don't want a networked mattress.

FWIW, I am interested in some intelligence in a sleep device, possibly a mattress - just like I am interested in some intelligence in a thermostate. I will not be buying this product for the same reason I am not buying a Nest device.

Putting this technology in the mattress cover is great. Kudos to you.

I'm pretty sure I'm not in the target market, though, and that this would do nothing to improve my sleep. The number one reason I sleep or don't sleep is whether or not my babies sleep :)

Improving the sleep of people by making their kids sleep, next product maybe?

We have a queen mattress with a pillowtop - so its taller than a standard queen. Would this work with the queen size Luna product?

It likely wouldn't reach the bottom of the mattress, but it seems like that shouldn't be a big deal.

It should be fine, we managed to fit it to a lot of mattresses. If you post the full height I can check.

I'll tell you what: this device is great, really

BUT: a microphone where I and my wife sleep and have sex? you either put an HARDWARE switch to turn it off (or even better, permit me to unplug the cable) or not gonna happen in my house

Audio is never recorded by Luna.

We have a microphone in the main enclosure but we don't have an audio codec which means we cannot record the audio. The only thing we can tell is whether there's been a loud noise or some sustained vibration at a specific frequency (snoring).

With the bed sensors we definitely pick up the movements of an intercourse but that is something you can only see by looking at raw data. Before sending them to the cloud, all the information about your movements get aggregated in sleep phases, this means that "sex" becomes "you are awake in bed".

A 3rd party app connected via wi-fi to the device can ask the user permission to access raw data from the device (much like facebook apps can ask for different permissions).

Just happened to be reading HackerNews at the right time and got myself a Queen at the Early Bird price!

I see you've already answered that the mattress cover itself cannot vibrate, and that the alarm will actually be through the app.

Rather than increasing the volume of the alarm gradually, I'd much prefer being woken up like geoelectric by my phone vibrating or perhaps triggering another wifi enabled alarm that vibrates.

1) Will your app make the phone vibrate as your alarm goes off (perhaps with increasing intensity as you get closer to your waking time)?

2) Does anyone know of a wifi enabled vibrating alarm that could be put under a pillow?

Yes, there a checkbox that enables the vibration when the alarm goes off. I am not aware of a wi-fi enabled vibration alarm, that would be an awesome product.

Anyone know how the alarm works? I've been using a vibrate-only alarm on Sleep Cycle with the phone under my bottom sheet to avoid waking my partner. Can this be configured in the same way somehow?

We currently don't have a built-in motor for the vibration, currently we are using the phone as an alarm, informed by the data coming from Luna.

We have an experimental feature that consists in gradually increasing the volume of the alarm sound till we notice you are waking up: the goal is to keep it just loud enough to wake you up but not your partner. This is obviously assuming your phone sits on a nightstand on your side of the bed.

Any chance you could integrate it with a Hue or similar to do a light-based alarm, given it has wifi?

Of course! We are already integrated with some smart lights (Philips Hue and emberlight), we plan to integrate with more. We are also integrated with IFTTT for the devices we are missing.

This would be fantastic!

Light is essential for me to get up properly. I currently have an alarm that gradually ramps up a lamp in my room to full brightness. It works well, but the downside is that it only stays on full brightness for a set period of time which I can't change. I want my alarms to continue to pester me until i'm actually out of bed! regardless of what time it is while completely removing my sleepy self from the equation of mashing buttons.

Luna sounds like a great fit.

That can still work, as long as I can set the phone to vibrate-only. Otherwise, I wonder if anyone makes an IFTTT-driven device to do it.

Question for the creators:

I have small children who wake me up almost every night at inconsistent times. Am I going to get much benefit out of a Luna, or are my broken sleep habits going to render Luna less effective?

I didn't know you can "hack" something by buying a product.

Dang, I just bought a dual zone heated mattress cover. Absolutely love it except for the fact that it's all manual; you can't turn it on remotely or schedule on and off times (although it automatically shuts off after a fixed 10 hours). I often go to bed later than my wife, so have to sneak in to the bedroom 15 minutes before bed to turn my side on (or leave it on unnecessarily, or get into a cold bed, defeating the whole purpose).

This is actually less expensive than the one we bought, and obviously much more feature rich.

You probably got a "SoftHeat" (made by Perfect Fit maybe?), I love them, they are really good quality. One of the problems they have is that they are not aware of the temperature and after a few hours usually get too hot and really uncomfortable. When using them I usually wake up feeling too hot and have to turn them off.

Yep, it's a Soft Heat. And yes, the dial goes up to 10; I set it to 2ish before bed, then turn it down to slightly less than 1 before falling asleep. That's usually low enough that I don't get too warm in the night, but I have occasionally woken up and turned it off. (I can't even conceive of someone setting it higher than 3 or so...)

Given that we just got it I'll probably hold off on this project for now, but I definitely see an upgrade in the future!

I love this idea. I used to use an electric mattress pad to have a nice toasty bed to get into. Combining that low-tech device with motion sensors and wifi connectivity is outstanding.

Just the ability to automatically log when you go to bed and when you get up is nice, from a lifelogging perspective. Add the ability to have a much more accurate picture of when you're asleep and when you're awake than any wrist band could provide, and couple that with the alarm functionality. Very neat.

Since I can't find it anywhere on the site or the IndieGogo page [1]: how much of this works now, and how much is just an idea? Is there a video of the "pre-manufacturing prototype" in action? Pictures? Anything?

[1] https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/luna-turn-your-bed-into-a...

There are a few videos around showing demos we gave with pre-production prototypes (http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/27/luna-smart-mattress-cover/) unfortunately, given the type of product, it's a little hard to show on video but if you are based in SF you could swing by our office for a private demo (bring your pajamas:)).

Thanks! That's reassuring to see. I would definitely put that up somewhere on one of your pages. A history of lies in Kickstarter/Indiegogo hardware projects have led people like me to be skeptical of these things.

I need one of these in a Twin XL size.

(I can't be the only nerd who needs an 80" long bed, but doesn't have enough room for anything wider than a twin.)

I hear you but given our stage we are trying to keep the project to as few SKUs as possible. BTW we are about to announce Cal King and we'll definitely expand the selection if we see demand.

Help us find more like you! :)

How much does the efficacy of this device dip when you share a king sized bed with your significant other and two 25-ish pound dogs?

kick the dogs off! i'm sure they aren't helping you sleep :)

ha I'll let you take that up with them directly...

That's the problem I have with sleep trackers like the apps on phones or Pebble. They worked great when I was single. Now I'm married with a dog and a cat, and suddenly the graph is basically a straight line of something constantly moving throughout the night.

The pad is dual-zone (you and your SO will be tracked separately) and the sensors are designed to pick up human data. A dog, if sleeping in a very specific position, might throw off one night of data but most of our analysis are based on historical data and one night alone is not going to impact them in any significant way.

But yeah, kick the dogs off :)

This looks incredible! I've been waiting for this product for a while now. If we had a different upvoting system (http://www.overcomingbias.com/2015/01/trade-quarks-not-votes...), I'd use all my upvotes on this article.

I think think of few funny ideas using their open API and data. Late night achievement unlocked!

Can't wait to see what the community builds on top of this!

Please, god, no. I'm tired of this gamification craze, and the last thing I want gamified is my damn sleep. The only achievement should be getting a good night's rest, and if we need fake internet points to entice us to get it, then I feel sorry for our culture.

No fun allowed huh?

Just started a technical AMA: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2u3q93/iama_cto_of_a_s...

I like the idea and the price isn't too bad either on it's own, but then I would have to get wifi lamps and a wifi coffee machine and a wifi door lock... I think I'll pass for now

A good night of sleep is invaluable to the performance of any athlete, especially serious athletes. Extremely positive feedback from all my athlete friends. Good luck guys!

Disclaimer: Proud investor in Luna :)

Polyester, how wonderful. Any benefit this provides is cancelled by using polyester instead of some good breathable material. I think I'd rather use a "dumb" wool cover.

There are many reasons why we picked Polyester, the number one being that our product needs to be washable.

If you look at the tech specs section on http://lunasleep.com you'll notice from the drawings that a mattress pad is composed of multiple layers, if we use natural fibers for all the layers, say for the filling (batting), the product would never dry and could grow mold (that's why ALL the heating pads on the market and most mattress pads are made of polyester).

One thing we could do is think about a premium version with the top layer (and maybe the bottom layer?) made of 100% cotton. Such a product would cost a little more (about $30) and take a little longer to dry completely after washing.

Would you guys be interested in such a premium product?

EDIT: formatting

Tiny thing: with the first picture I see on the web page showing a bed cover, I immediately assumed incorrectly that luna was a bed cover, not a mattress cover hidden out of sight.

One of our first design goals was to build a product that would disappear in the bedroom and that did not require any active input from the user (you never HAVE to pull out your phone to use it). The mattress cover form factor served our goal so well that we realized it was hard to show a product designed to be invisible. That definitely poses some challenges, we have to show it on top of a mattress and make sure people understand that we are not selling a mattress for example...

The cover itself is made entirely out of synthetic materials which has implications for quality of sleep. I love the idea but the cover portion needs to be natural fibers IMHO.

What implications does synthetic materials have on sleep quality? Are you referencing some study or is this just anecdotal arguing from nature?

It's mainly the thermal component, which synthetic fibers aren't very good at. As far as studies go there are many on the effects of thermal regulation on sleeping, which synthetic fibres are very poor at. Wool in particular vastly increases sleep quality for these reasons and is used in the medical industry.

I've seen this come up from just an idea to full-on production and these guys know what they're doing.

Was pretty impressive to see them hacking and soldering stuff in their apartment!

I hope this can also be available in Euro bed sizes. We can't get King & Queen here in Nordics but rather 160x200, 180x200 or 180x210 (as people are tall)

Pity I didn't hear about it before it came on Hacker News. King size is sold out! :(

Anyone knows about other similar initiatives?

Just the early bird is sold out, you should be able to get the regular indiegogo price (still 20% off retail).

I need to get one of these for my casper to have a fully start-up sourced smart sleeping system

We are also really good friends of the Casper guys, they are awesome!

Anyone cares to explain how the 'alarm' works? The website doesn't say much.

The alarm is part of the mobile app and it works in a similar way to the stock alarm clock app only informed by your current sleep phase.

Here's the difference.

Say you set your alarm for 7 am. The app starts looking at the sleep phase you are in from 6:30 am (this is configurable), if you enter a light sleep phase (N1) at 6:45, the alarm goes off and wake up without feeling groggy. If you don't enter a light sleep phase, the alarm goes off regardless at 7 am so you don't miss meetings and such.

Ok well that's not what I expected. It would be cool if the mattress inherently has the alarm, so maybe it can be in the form of temperature change - it gets colder to wake you up or subtle vibration. This more seamless experience than a jarring alarm on the phone.

How does the sleep phase sensor work? I'm assuming it can't read brainwaves...

We use ballistocardiography (aka a big less sensitive microphone) to pick up movements, breathing and heart rate through the bed sheets.

Interesting. Has this been compared to EEG for accuracy? I can't imagine it to be very accurate. I'm really curious because as far as I understand anything that isn't EEG is pretty much useless.

Are the sound waves sent to the cloud for processing?

Nope, it's all filtered and processed locally.

Really a great idea! Unfortunately, you lost me at "proprietary technology"…

In this way, they'll be able to know how many times you have sex per week ;)

That is something you can see by looking at raw data, before having them aggregated in sleep stages.

Raw data never get uploaded to the server but a 3rd party app using the device API can get access to them asking permissions to the user.

(you thought you were the only one to have that idea right? :))

Amazing idea. It could be used for addressing many respiratory system illness.

Find it hard to believe a mattress can track sleep quality accurately, and in order to aggregate information about your day gathered from other sources and do something useful with it they would need a very complex ML backend, which I doub a mattress company has.

That's why we are NOT a mattress company.

Look at my background, I happen to have been working in big data for the past 10 years. My last job was to run the data platform team of Upsight (former kontagent) the largest analytics and marketing platform for mobile.

Talking about the rest of the team: their background is much better than mine.

We are also being helped by our scientific board:

- Jessa Gamble https://www.ted.com/speakers/jessa_gamble

- Clete Kushida https://med.stanford.edu/profiles/clete-kushida

- David Rapoport http://www.med.nyu.edu/biosketch/rapopd01/

Will body temperature be available as a metric graphed over time?

Body temperature is really hard to tell in an accurate way, even if we have some temperature sensor very close to your body: the sensor would be influenced a lot by the type of mattress.

The interesting one for circadian cycles is the "Core Temperature" but it's rather uncomfortable to measure (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_body_temperature#Core_tem...), what we can do instead is measuring your heart rate at rest that is something typically constant for a healthy person: if that varies from the usual value more than about 5bpm it usually means you have been exercising A LOT or that you are sick.

Finally a well marketed connected product for colder climates!!

Great, now my mattress can get hacked.

Haha, hopefully by you! We are giving security a very high priority and we hope the community will try as much as possible to break it to send us feedback and suggestions.

What, no My Little Pony references? Oh wait, this is HN, not reddit...

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