I Snooze, I Lose
So I’ve been meaning since forever ago to write a blog posting about the Sleep Cycle iPhone app. It’s a free app1 that tracks your sleeping patterns2 and then works as an alarm to wake you up when you are in the lightest stage of sleep. But mostly I love it because I get to look at a graph every morning when I wake up! A graph that looks like this:
Or this:
Or maybe this:
Of course, what prompted me to write this blog posting today, of all days, is that Dr. Dan just blogged about this app! I didn’t even know that he used the Sleep Cycle app, and here he is scooping me! Of course, the data from our respective Sleep Cycle apps show that I spend, on average, 7 hrs 02 mins sleeping per night compared to his 5 hours 40 minutes per night and so clearly he used his extra awake time to scoop me on this blog topic3! As I suggested in my comment on his blog posting, “Beth snoozes, Beth loses… literally!”
Like Dr. Dan, I wish that this app had the option to overlay all my graphs on top of each other to see if some sort of pattern emerges. I mean, I have data from 243 nights4 and it’s pretty hard to spot patterns just by flipping through the graphs one at a time. I’d also like to see what my maximum and minimum sleep times were (or some other measure of the spread of my data); though my average across 243 nights is 7 hrs and 2 mins, I routinely sleep 5-6 hours per night during the week and 9-10 hours on the weekends.
Now speaking of sleep, that actually sounds like a good idea right about now. BETH SLEEPY!
- and you know how I feel about free stuff [↩]
- by using your iPhone’s accelerometer to sense your movements as you sleep [↩]
- I have a vague recollection of Cath writing a post about the Sleep Cycle app eons ago, but a quick search of her blog came up empty, so now I’m thinking that perhaps she just told me, at some point, about her using [↩]
- though not consecutive, because sometimes I forget to turn on the app [↩]
Comments |14|
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Tags: app, Geekery, graphs, iPhone, iPhone app, Nerdery, Sleep Cycle, Sleep Cycle iPhone app, sleeping
What I find super awesome about this, is the fact that both of us were using this app and hadn’t mentioned it. Being the nerds we are, I find this shocking. Shocking I say!
Last night I added 4h 37m to my total, so my average over 155 non-consecutive nights is not 5h 39m. It also tells me I’ve had 13h 28m of sleep since Sunday, making a weekly average (so far) of 4h 29m. Me thinks I should work on that.
Oops – edits to previous comment:
“non-consecutive nights is NOW 5h 39m”, not “not”.
Also:
“making a weekly average…” should read “making a daily average…”
Clearly I’m not quite awake yet.
I thought I was the only crazy Dr. one who didn’t get enough sleep. But clearly, Dr. Dan is beating me BY AND LARGE.
I haven’t blogged about this app, but I think we discussed it on Facebook or maybe Twitter?
I do like it, but I find it’s heavy on battery use (I should try again with my shiny new iPhone 4), and tricky when you share a bed. It seemed that sometimes it would pick up my cycles (based on me remembering that I woke up at X O’clock and then went back to sleep), but at other times it would register my husband’s.
The graphs are still fun, though 🙂
@Raul – Would would you think that you are the only doctor who is crazy and doesn’t sleep enough. I actually know know any PhDs who aren’t at least somewhat crazy and most of us don’t sleep sufficient amounts. With the exception of Dr. Jen, who is the queen of getting proper amounts of sleep!
@Cath – Oh yeah, I wouldn’t even try running it without having it plugged in, as it would totally sap the battery.
No link?
Also re: power–that’s pathetic! How am I supposed to run it? There’s no outlet near my bed! 🙁
[…] I Snooze, I Lose (nottobetrustedwithknives.com) […]
Clearly, you need to move your bed. 🙂
It’s also not free: 99 cents. Plus the lovely HST.
Figured out power at my bed, though. Without moving it (GREAT suggestion, btw).
99 cents?? Do I look like I’m *made* of money??? I wonder if I got it during one of those “this app is free today” specials or if I actually splurged on it.
Glad you found a non-bed moving solution!
I should probably invest in a new extension cable, then.
BTW, after moaning about your reCAPTCHA hating me, today’s words are \Favorite Policy\. Do you think it knows that I installed it too, despite it hating me?
Well, it did spell “favourite” incorrectly, so maybe it still hates you a little.
Oh, now it says \pain redinted\. I don’t know what redinted means, but it doesn’t sound good.
By dint of my incredible vocabulary, I declare “redinted” to not be a word. Probably a mis-scan of the text.