Review: Sleep Cycle by Maciek Drejak Labs

Platform: iOs
Cost: $0.99
User Rating: 5/5 (7,789 ratings)

Description & Features (Sleep Analyzer): This app, like Sleep Time, uses the accelerometer in your phone (placed next to your pillow) to correlate body movement to awake periods, and light and deep sleep.  
When I start the sleep period, I can also check triggers on a configurable list that I think may affect my sleep (drank coffee, stressful day) at that time.  The app records during the night and stops when I turn off the alarm (alarm set in a 30 minute window and tries to wake you up in the most optional point during that window).  I record my mood when I wake up on a 3 point face scale (happy, neutral, frown).  After recording 5 nights of data, the device will give you a sleep quality rating (expressed as %), and tells you your Shortest, longest, best, and worst nights.  There are also a set of graphs to view on sleep quality by date and week day, affect on sleep quality (from those triggers I selected), time in bed and time went to bed.
Pros: Turning your phone on its side goes from single night view to cumulative graphs.  Once you figure out that it works this way, it's a nice way to transition without adding an extra button on the main screen.  The pop-up triggers list is also easy for data input.  
I like the 3-scale rating of how I feel when I wake up - it's an intuitive rating, though the app doesn't do anything with this information.
Cons: The graphs look nice and there are a lot of them, but I don't know how much I learn from it.  I have no idea if my sleep graph is "normal" or how it decides what my sleep quality is.  I can send myself a snapshot of a single night's sleep graph, but i can't export any of the graphs.  The data export to a spreadsheet does not open properly.
Takeaway: Multiple views of the same information, but it still doesn't tell me much.  Pop-up triggers and wake-up mood inputs are intuitive and quick for user input, we may think about using something similar with pain levels or sleep quality.  

NFC - Apple vs. Android

Essentially, Android has NFC, but Apple doesn't (yet).  

Lists of smartphones that currently have NFC are fairly easy to find.  However, what does not seem definitive is if and when Apple will incorporate NFC into any of their mobile devices.  Rumors say that we're due for a new iPhone release mid-year, and that it's likely to include NFC (rumor based somewhat on the recent grant to Apple of a patent of "an alternative technology covering the method and apparatus for triggering network device discovery").

What does this mean for us?  If we choose iOS for our application, our customer base is limited to individuals who have the iPhone 5S or 6, assuming the next released iPhone has NFC.  If we choose Android, there are multiple platforms on which to begin development now.  

Who's using Smartphones?

Who uses smartphones?  Web design company Go-gulf.com has a nice infographic from 2011 data with breakdowns of smartphone users across the globe (image left).  Some interesting data:

• 1 in 5 cell phones are smart phones
• Android has almost 50% of the market share as compared to Apple's 29%, but iPhone users download more apps per month than Android.
• Age group with the most smartphone use: 25-34
• 69% of smartphone users in 2011 used mobile apps on their phones.

Review: WebMD Pain Coach

Platform: iOS
Cost: Free
Ratings: 4/5 stars on Itunes Store
Description & Features:  The Pain Coach app by WebMD is a pain log and reference app for people with chronic pain.  I log how I feel for the day and what type of pain I'm experiencing, then I can generate a graphical pdf report to show to my doctor.  This app is free and has a lot of linked reading material.

Journal:  This feature lets me track on a subjective scale how I'm feeling for the day, "Today is great".  I can track my pain throughout the day on a numerical scale and also select the type (burning, numbness, etc.).  I can enter my triggers treatments (meds & therapies), as well as add notes.  My pain type, triggers, and treatments, are customizable.   

  

If I turn my phone to the side, I can see a graph tracking my pain level over time.  I can send a pdf of this via email, say, to my doctor, and the pdf also incorporates my symptom, trigger, and treatment frequencies (image below).  

Goals: I can set goals for myself related to diet, exercise, treatments, rest, and mood.  Each category has a list of suggested activity and duration, and if I add it, it gets listed in my journal where I can select that day if I've done that activity. 

Library:  The library section has some short articles on various pain topics. 

Tips:  Very similar to the goals section, provides some info on why certain activities may have an affect on pain levels.  Goals can also be set from here.

Pros: Nice video in the beginning that shows you how to use the app.  Easy data entry for pain level of the day, object and subjective scales.  When you first use the app, it goes through a short customization so you can enter the pain types and triggers that you experience, which makes data entry faster later.

Cons: How to view the report was not immediately intuitive.  I can't find any way to view my personal notes over time or how well I met my set personal goals.  Takes a bit of time to learn how to use since there is a lot you can do with it.  Report seems to graph my subjective and not objective ratings.
Takeaway for us:  Nice 1st time user customization, intro video, and how to quick guide.  Nice export to pdf feature for the report.  

Review: Sleep Time by Azumio

Platform: iOS and Android (I've been using the iOS)
Cost: Free
User Rating: 4.1 out of 5 on the Google Play Store siteDescription & Features 

The Sleep Time app by Azumio is a free app that uses the accelerometer in your Smartphone to track your movement during sleep, then correlate that to awake, light sleep, and deep sleep periods.  I tell the app when I'm going to bed, and when I wake up.  The app includes the following features.:
 - The Sleep Lab, which shows data over the last 5 days (that's all it keeps in the free version), showing how you slept - Bed Time, Sleep Duration, and % Efficiency.       

 - Alarm lets you set your alarm time, and the app promises to wake you in the ideal time near then when you're in light sleep.  Not convinced yet on this feature.
-Soundscape plays "gentle waves" while I'm falling asleep - love this.
-Settings, various customization for time to play soundscape and time to snooze.  This also has a place to sign in to Azumio and sync your data, but I haven't been able to find how to view my data on the website.
Pros: The Split into 3 color-coded categories for sleep is nice and easy to read, seems a pretty succinct way to present the data.  I love the soothing sounds as I'm falling asleep.
Cons: Can't find a good way to export the data; seems the only thing you can do is share a screenshot via facebook or twitter.

Takeaway for us: Nice graphical presentation.