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. 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:
- Respiratory health, showing mild to normal for the previous night’s sleep.
- A sleep quality score, showing awake, light, deep and REM sleep for a particular night.
- 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
World Sleep Day (website)
World Sleep Society (website)
World Sleep Congress (Sept. 5-10, 2025)
