Science
Apple
- Apple has released Beddit Sleep Monitor 3.5, a sleep tracker that goes on top of your mattress and under your sheets.
- It's a way to track sleep quality without having to wear an Apple Watch, which requires nightly charging.
- It's a new version of a product made by a startup that Apple bought last year.
- It costs $150 from Apple stores.
Last year, Apple bought Beddit, a small startup that made a device that lies on your mattress and tracks how much sleep you get per night.
Now, nearly 18 months later, Apple has released a new version of the Beddit with a few minor hardware improvements, once again underscoring that the iPhone giant wants to break into health tracking.
The new accessory is called the Beddit Sleep Monitor 3.5, and it costs $150 from Apple. The last version that Beddit sold as an independent company was version 3.0.
From the product page:
"Beddit Sleep Monitor automatically tracks your sleep and works with the Beddit app on your iPhone to help measure, manage, and improve your sleep. The sensor strip is extremely thin, flat, and soft - at 2 mm thin, you won't even notice it's there. With automatic and accurate tracking, you get a full picture of your night by measuring sleep time, heart rate, breathing, snoring, and bedroom temperature and humidity. And when you set daily bedtime and sleep time goals, Beddit motivates you to achieve them with tip notifications like morning results, bedtime reminders, and weekly reports."
The new version will retain the Beddit brand, rather than sport the Apple logo. But there are some signs that it's a full Apple accessory. An FCC filing from Apple revealed earlier this week that the product is labeled "Designed by Beddit in California, Assembled in China," an adaptation of the phrase that Apple prints on most of its products.
Beddit fits well into Apple's new focus on health and wellness tracking. Apple's main product to break into health is the Apple Watch, which recently got heart monitoring features, but that device requires nightly charging, making it poorly-suited for sleep tracking.
But Beddit doesn't require charging. It's a thin strip that you place on your mattress and power through USB. It connects to a iPhone app and Apple's health software so that you can check how much sleep you got, and how well you slept. The latest version isn't compatible with Android phones, though - you need an iPhone running the latest version of iOS.
Apple
Apple