Oh, zzzz! World Sleep Day - Withings Sleep Tracking Mat

 Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

If you missed World Sleep Day, on March 14th, 2025, a celebration dedicated to bringing awareness of the importance of sleep, organized jointly by the World Association of Sleep Medicine (WASM) and the World Sleep Federation (WSF), you might shoot for the World Sleep Congress. The biennial World Sleep Society meeting to be held in Singapore, on September 4-5, 2025, bringing together an international group of professionals and researchers, dedicated to the topic of sleep health.

In the interim, you might consider Withings Sleep Tracking Mat. A sleep monitoring device that you do not have to wear.

Measuring approximately 8x24x.19 inches, this powerful and ultra-thin mat slips horizontally at chest level under your mattress. The rectangular Withings Sleep Tracking Mat is USB wired. Once connected to an outlet, the mat synchs automatically to the free HealthMate Withings app (iOS or Android-compatible), equipped with proprietary learning algorithms designed by sleep professionals to analyze your sleep. Specifically, the Withings Sleep Tracking Mat measures: sleep cycles (light, deep, and rapid eye movement [REM]), heart rate, and breathing patterns, using a combination of pneumatic and microphone sensors, to give you real-time feedback on the quality of your sleep. The pneumatic (air-filled) sensors are designed to measure movement, heart rate, and breathing. The microphone sensors measure snoring and breathing sounds.

The app delivers a sleep quality score based on depth of sleep and interruptions. The app also delivers cardiovascular data, based on your average heart rate. Thus, the app also provides general feedback on such items as: how long it took for you to fall asleep, how long you sleep, how many times your sleep was interrupted, the regularity of your sleep patterns, and how much you snore. Data that might be aggregated per week and month, and exported to a professional sleep clinician to address suspected issues of sleep apnea (obstructions in breathing during sleep) or other concerns.

The Withings Sleep Tracking Mat is patent-pending in the United States*. Withings, a French company headquartered in Issy-les-Moulineaux, France, has filed a US patent application US2022202360A1, titled Sleep Sensing and Monitoring Device, at the USPTO. The inventors on record are Nicolas Aimon, Thomas Bedetti, Paul Edouard, Pierre Bartet, Varoun Sanath Koumar Radja and Paul-Edouard Juan. The Assignee is Withings.

Below, the patent Figure 1, depicts a diagram perspective of the sensing device 9, according to the invention. Specifically, according to the patent specification, the sensing device 9, comprises a removable and washable strip of fabric 13, that encloses a pneumatic chamber 3, functioning as sensing means for detecting relevant parameters during a user’s sleep, and a housing 6 for the device’s electronic means 4. The sensing device 9 is stowable (folded or rolled). Once installed under the user’s mattress, the sensing device 9 is undetectable because its total thickness (TZ) measures 20 mm (10 to 20 mm when in use). The mat is rectangular, measuring approx. 200 mm in width (LY), and approx. 600 mm in length (LX). The pneumatic chamber 3 comprises interconnected chambers 30, forming comfortable inflated tubes. The device's electronic means 4 essentially comprise an electronic processor, adapted to communicate with a smartphone 5, as shown with the dotted arrow 45. The sensing device 9 is wired, using the connection cable 7. 

Below, an image of the sleep monitoring device with feedback screenshots (left to right) for:

1. Respiratory health, showing mild to normal for the previous night’s sleep.
2. A sleep quality score, showing awake, light, deep and REM sleep for a particular night.
3. Sleep heart rate for a period of three months, including both a graph showing distribution in the normal range, and a measure of average bpm (beats per minute).

The abstract of the invention is also included below. 

The disclosure is directed to a sensing device, configured to be installed in a bedding, for monitoring a user's sleep, the device comprising: a sensing part, for acquiring/determining a value representative of an a force or pressure and/or a value representative of a variation of a force or pressure, a housing comprising at least a pressure transducer and an electronic processing unit, a microphone connected to the electronic processing unit, wherein the electronic processing unit is configured to process first and second electrical signals delivered respectively by the microphone and the pressure converter, wherein the electronic processing unit is either configured to deduce locally at least a breathing disturbance therefrom or configured to send data representative of the first and second electrical signals to a remote device. [US2022202360A1]

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* The European patent, EP3763290A1, also titled Sleep Sensing and Monitoring, was granted on Dec. 7th, 2019.   

References

Withings - Sleep analyzer

https://www.withings.com/eu/en/sleep-analyzer#:~:text=Under%2Dmattress%20sleep%20tracker,n%20%7C%20WEP/WPA/WPA2 

World Sleep Day (website) 

https://worldsleepday.org/

World Sleep Society (website)

https://worldsleepsociety.org/ 

World Sleep Congress (Sept. 5-10, 2025)

https://worldsleepcongress.com/

Oh, patents! Beddit® sleep monitor

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

Want to sleep better? Not alone in your bed? Beddit® was specifically designed for sleepers sharing beds, considering that other sleep trackers will pick up information from another person sharing the same bed.

The Beddit® monitor was designed as a very sensitive sensor strip that is placed on the mattress, rather than worn by individual users. Beddit® continuously sends the data it collects to a mobile device, via Bluetooth® connection,. In turn, the Beddit® app executes to analyze the data, in view of providing users with feedback, and tips on how to improve their sleep.

In particular, Beddit® provides users with feedback on whether they are meeting their sleep goals, for example, in terms of the amount of sleep and their bedtime. Beddit® also monitors the amount of time before falling asleep, user heart and breathing rates, during sleep; ambient room temperature and humidity, and the amount of time spent snoring, or out of bed. Users, for their part, are able to rate their sleep with a “morning feeling” rating. The collected data appears to users as results, viewable daily, or as trends. In turn, using suitable algorithms, the results are converted to indicators, for example, of good health, or of poor sleep, which are then returned to the user, in the form of tips.

In 2017, Apple purchased Beddit® from the Finnish company that designed the monitor. The Beddit® invention sensors, together with the Beddit® app, were granted several US utility patents. In particular, the US utility patent US11298075B2, titled Physiological Monitoring Method and System, was recently granted, on April 12, 2022, to the Finnish inventors, and assigned to Apple Inc.

The patent particularly addresses the issue of simultaneously monitoring the sleep physiology of two subjects, sharing the same bed, considering that the problems of prior art sleep sensors relate to picking up signals from more than one person, when there is more than one person in the bed. A problematic situation of the prior art, which is also compounded by the need for unobtrusiveness. Indeed, sophisticated prior art physiological monitoring systems exist, subsuming the use of radars, cameras and multiple sensors. However, such systems are hardly feasible, especially under normal sleep conditions without light.

The abstract of the invention is included below, together with the Figure 1 patent drawing, showing an embodiment of the system components of the invention. In particular, the Figure 1 drawing depicts the system 100, comprising a control unit 150, and at least a first and second, unobtrusive, elongated sensor strips 120a and 120b, on the bed 110, used for monitoring two, non-depicted, subjects. The two, unobtrusive, sensor strips 120a and 120b are multichannel force sensors, comprising several separate sensor elements, designed to measure breathing, heart rate and movement, respectively of the persons in the bed.

The control unit 150 comprises, non-depicted, items such as processors, memory units, communication circuits, I/O (input/output) units, user interface units, connectors and antennas. The control unit 150 further comprises means of communicating with the unobtrusive sensor strips, using a wireless Bluetooth® local area network (WLAN). Finally, the control unit 150 is implemented as an app on devices such as smartphones, tablets, computers or televisions.

An image of the marketed Beddit® system components, the sensor strip and app executing on mobile devices, is also included below.

A method, and system of physiological monitoring, include measuring a quantity relating to a first subject with a first sensor positioned in or in proximity of the first subject and configured to provide a first signal , measuring a quantity relating to a second subject with a second sensor positioned in or in proximity of the second subject and configured to provide a second signal , and analyzing the first and the second signal and the interrelation of the first and second signal in order determine at least one event relating to the first and/or the second subject. [Abstract US11298075B2]

Reference
Beddit® - https://www.beddit.com/