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Pros

• Very nice web and app interface
• Big range of useful analytics
• Decent battery life
• Inexpensive

Cons

• A little tight around the wrist
• Switch pokes out a little
• Letters wear off

TUS Rating:

3.5 of 5

Promising to keep your sleep in check is the WakeMate wristband which strives to keep you bright and refreshed for the day ahead. By monitoring your wrist motion throughout your sleep cycle and sending  that information to your mobile device in the morning, the WakeMate can not only track but also analyze your movements while you sleep. Bold claims so, as always, we were eager to try it out for ourselves.

 

How’s it look?

Think of a wide furry wristband with a bulging pocket for a small battery pack, and you’re almost there. The furry band goes most of the way around the wrist while a portion of it is separated by the elastic material used to stretch over your hand when you put the gadget on. The light blue interior suitably complements the light grey exterior nicely and the style of the WakeMate is just what you’d expect from a night time sleeping device. Overall it’s a cute looking gadget.

We found that after about a week of usage, that the lettering started to wear off with one of the e’s falling victim to a restless nights sleep and then the t a few nights later. We wouldn’t be surprised if using it for another few weeks, it’ll slowly become a name-less wristband.

Does it work?

For the most part yes. Essentially the WakeMate attempts to measure the “lightest point in your sleep” and then tries to wake you up in that 20 minute period in order for you to be at your freshest. It uses a proven science based on Actigraphy to estimate when this point will be using the inbuilt accelerometer in the wristband to measure your movement during sleep. But don’t worry, if it doesn’t find that optimum point in the 20 minutes to wake you up, it’ll simply sound the normal alarm right at the end as a fail safe to wake you up.

At first I will admit, I was rather skeptical over it’s claims and after one or two nights, I kept hitting the fail safe 20 minute limit. So far not good. But it’s not all bad news. The WakeMate connects to a free app available on any iOS device and there’s a version that’s available for non Apple products. Either way, when you upload your data to their servers and start the number crunching, you get back some fairly interesting data.

Everything from movement data, to the time it takes you to actually fall asleep is all recorded in the morning and sent up to the WakeMate servers to be analyzed. Handily you can also tag certain events so perhaps you wanted to compare how well you sleep after a full body work out or after a particularly stressful day then this will help in the comparisons.

Of course it won’t read off any actual brainwave data but the science of Actigraphy is sound and proven. As everyone knows, sleep is important and certainly if you’re interested in keeping track of how much you move and how well you sleep then this gadget will certainly do that and be a useful gadget.

The official word is that the WakeMate is between 95-98% accurate compared to medical grade Actigraphy machines and although obviously we have no way of verifying the claim, if it’s true (which we don’t doubt it is) then it’s a very impressive statistic for something that can be purchased at such a price point.

Overall Impressions

Overall we really liked what we saw. It’s not your everyday gadget and you’re getting your moneys worth when you consider that it’s a one off payment to purchase the gadget and as far as I can make out, you receive the whole suite of tracking, analysis and waking up tools for the lifetime of the product.

During day to day use, the battery will last you probably only two consecutive nights of use so you’ll need to remember to charge it during the day. Probably not a problem for somebody whose organised and can easily get into the habit of doing things on a daily basis but it’s still one of those things you’ve just got to remember to do.

Also we had an issue with the power switch in that it’s a small but noticeably sharp bit of plastic that athough 90% of the time you won’t notice, other times it can jut out a bit too much and dig into your wrist. In the end we solved this minor nuisance by sliding the battery out of it’s pouch and flipping it over  upside down so that the switch was semi buried in the soft material.

 

We’d also have liked it if there was some kind of auto-off functionality to the WakeMate when not in use. On more than one occasion, we simply forgot to turn the WakeMate off in the morning after uploading the nights data and by the time it came to sleeping the next night, the WakeMate had run dry of it’s battery. Still, I think all these problems would be solved perhaps by somebody more organised or could get into a system of remembering to recharge and to turn the device on and off. Therefore while it can be a tad frustrating to get used to, if you are the organised type and want to know how well you’re sleeping then, the WakeMate is certainly one handy little device.

The WakeMate is available for $59.99 from WakeMate.

TUS Rating

Style:	3 of 5
Functionality:	4 of 5
Overall:	3.5 of 5

DISCLOSURE: This product was provided to TUS by Wakemate See Contact page for full details on our review policy.