Image source: Sleepace

Review: Sleepace RestOn, designed to give you a good night’s sleep

Sleepace RestOn Z400T

7.1

Design

7.0/10

Ease of use

7.0/10

Use of information

7.0/10

Motivation

7.5/10

Pros

  • Comprehensive sleep data
  • Completely wireless
  • App is extremely well designed
  • Useful sleep advice
  • Long battery life

Cons

  • Manually start/stop monitoring
  • Will not work as accurately if you share a bed

 

Sleepace has demoed its bedroom of the future at the recent CES 2018 in Las Vegas. Dubbed the DreamLife smart bedroom solution, the idea is to provide a seamless experience that automates your nighttime routine and creates a better environment for healthy sleep.

The system consists of a number of standalone products along with sleep modules which can be integrated into mattresses and pillows. One of these standalone products is the RestOn sleep monitor. Originally an Indiegogo funded gadget, this is a strip you place under your bedsheet that measures your sleeping patterns including breathing rate, heart rate and body movement. There are actually two versions of the product, the Z200 and the newer Z400T model. I tested both of them.

Essential reading: Ten gadgets for advanced sleep monitoring

Sleep tech is a big thing, and its only going to get bigger in the coming years. Read on to find out what I made of Sleepace RestOn.

Design
Features
Overview

Design

RestOn is designed to be seamlessly incorporated into your sleep. It is non-wearable and ultra-thin so you will barely notice that its there. The sleep tracking gizmo resembles a long and wide belt with a plastic module at one end which houses the brains of the unit, battery and on/off plate. The band is very soft and threaded with medical grade sleep measuring sensors.

Review: Sleepace RestOn, designed to give you a good night’s sleep
Sleepace RestOn Z400T module dangling off the bed

Setup is fairly easy. You drape the strap across your mattress, under the bedsheet so that the module dangles over the edge of the bed. The sensors should be at chest level for accurate measurements. The belt is long enough to track one person, so if you have a King or Queen sized bed, it will not extend all the way across the width of the mattress. This means if you are sleeping on a large bed on your own, you will be restricted to the side with the strip.

The removable, magnetic top plate of the module snaps into place and sandwiches the bedsheet between the top and bottom part of the module. The magnet is very strong and keeps everything firmly in place throughout the night. Having said that, tossing and turning will slightly dislodge the sensor band so its best to check every few days that everything is positioned correctly. From start to finish – the whole set up should take no longer than a couple of minutes.

Review: Sleepace RestOn, designed to give you a good night’s sleep
From left to right: Sleepace RestOn Z200, RestOnZ400T – both held securely in place by magnetic lid. Bedsheet is sandwiched in.
Review: Sleepace RestOn, designed to give you a good night’s sleep
LED light on Sleepace RestOn Z400T

The plate has an innovative design which allows it to double as an on/off button. As soon as the cover is placed in the correct orientation the green LED will light up to let you know the device is on and ready for use.

The Z200 and Z400T models’ functionality is very similar. The main difference is in the design. While they both resemble a belt, the Z400T is narrower and thinner. The pod is also much smaller. The other difference is that the new model has the addition of external temperature and humidity sensors. Makes sense as both of these factors can affect the quality of sleep. The addition of a noise and perhaps light sensors would have been nice as they affect the room environment, too. Perhaps we’ll see that in the next version.

Rather impressively, the 1500 mAh lithium polymer battery keeps RestOn going for about a month. Which means you can pretty much forget about charging. I topped up the battery once and didn’t have to bother charging again for the couple of weeks I used it. To refuel, simply plug the micro-USB cable into the pod. The LED on the module glows red while charging and will turn to green when full. Rather conveniently, I found out that it is not really necessary to remove RestOn from your bed when doing this.

Review: Sleepace RestOn, designed to give you a good night’s sleep
From left to right: Sleepace RestOn Z200, RestOnZ400T, SleepDot

At this point I should stress that for completeness sake, along with the two RestOn devices I also tested the Sleepace Sleepdot. You can see it in on the right-hand side in the picture above. This is a quarter sized sleep tracker that attaches to the corner of your pillow. In my tests I found it to be rather simplistic. The RestOn devices were much more accurate at tracking my kip time so the rest of this review will focus on these more advanced models, particularly the Z400T which is the latest iteration.


Features

Before the monitor can start tracking your sleep, you’ll need to pair it with the RestOn iOS or Android app on your smartphone over Bluetooth. The app itself will ask to turn on Bluetooth and proceed to pair. You will need to create an account and answer a few basic profile questions such as your name, age and gender, height, weight, etc.

Review: Sleepace RestOn, designed to give you a good night’s sleep
Sleepace RestOn Z400T

From there all you need to do to start recording sleep data is to press the large Start button in the app. If you’re laying on the sensor band you’ll be able to see a real-time view of your heart beat and breathing rate. This is useful as it provides assurance that everything is working properly. You can then turn off the phone and the monitor will continue working until you open up the app in the morning to stop recording.

This does mean, though, that sleep tracking is not automatic. You’ll need to switch it on each evening and off in the morning. If you forget to do this, you will either be left without data for the night, or the monitor will continue to track in the morning even though you are long gone. You would think that the gizmo would be able to use the information on your movements, breathing patterns and your heart rate to know automatically when you are in bed. Unfortunately it doesn’t.

Review: Sleepace RestOn, designed to give you a good night’s sleep

The app is very detailed, though, and you’ll get a wealth of data. RestOn scores your sleep and shows the length of your sleep cycle as a combination of awake, light, mid and deep sleep times. The sensor detects your heart rate, breathing rate and how many times you turned over during the night.

As mentioned, the more advanced Z400T model also provides you with a temperature and humidity graph. This is probably of less interest as in most cases its pretty much a horizontal line. Nevertheless its a useful add-on, particularly for comparing long-term trends.

Review: Sleepace RestOn, designed to give you a good night’s sleep
The single metric representing your sleep score for the night is definitely quite useful. This is a number which grades you on a scale of 0 to 100, allowing you to know at a glance how well you slept. Tap on the score to find out where exactly you lost points. You’ll get information about what occurred, how it effected your sleep, along with tips for improvement. This can be anything from exercise, diets, sleep habits, etc.

Review: Sleepace RestOn, designed to give you a good night’s sleep

As you continue to use RestOn, the app will keep tabs on your sleep metrics so that you can go back and view trends.

Review: Sleepace RestOn, designed to give you a good night’s sleep

The million dollar question is, of course, whether the sleep tracker is accurate. This is a bit difficult to answer. I compared RestOn’s findings with those of Resmed Sleepscore S+ and Garmin Forerunner 935 and the three were almost identical on some days, but very different on others. I would add the the RestOn metrics are, hands down, the most detailed of the three. On the flip side they did jump around the most which has me questioning the accuracy on some days.

Sleep is not an exact science. Unless you are hooked up, that is, to a Polysomnography (PSG) machine which is considered to be the gold standard of sleep measurement. I wasn’t so can’t really judge with a high degree of accuracy which of the three is most precise.

Review: Sleepace RestOn, designed to give you a good night’s sleep
Sleepace RestOn Z400T

Whatever you choose, my view is that as long as its not obviously inaccurate and you are using the same device each night, you are comparing like with like. For most people, having general information about their sleep habits and advice on how to get more quality rest time is enough.

So it basically comes down to conveniance, how much you trust the sleep monitor, the detail of the stats and auxiliary features such as coaching. Unfortunately, no one has come up with a perfect sleep monitoring solution just yet.

Review: Sleepace RestOn, designed to give you a good night’s sleep
Sleepace RestOn Z200
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Finally, RestOn also offers a few other functions. Among these is a social feature. The Sleepace App is connected to a family cloud account in which you can check and compare your loved ones’ sleep reports and status wherever you are. There is also a smart alarm function which wakes you up gently when you are in a light stage of sleep.

Review: Sleepace RestOn, designed to give you a good night’s sleep
Sleepace RestOn Z400T



Summary

RestOn is a fully featured sleep monitor, perfect for those that love detailed statistics. The comprehensive and slick app will provide you with a wealth of info in the morning including an overall sleep score, with your sleep broken down into deep, mid, light and awake time. You’ll also get data on your heart rate, breathing rate, number of times you turned and room humidity and temperature. Finally, the sleep monitor dishes out personalized advice to help you get a better night’s rest.

Having said that, a few of the stats had me questioning accuracy on some nights. Nevertheless, the gizmo will provide you with better and much more detailed statistics than a fitness tracker. But probably not medical grade data.

I used RestOn for a a couple of weeks and found it to be an easy sleep tracking solution. Totally wireless with  a long lasting rechargeable battery, the device is almost imperceptible underneath the sheet or mattress pad. On the flip side you will need to manually switch it on in the evening and off in the morning.

All things considered RestOn offers decent value for the money. If you want more insight into your sleep patterns this is a no-hassle solution worth considering. Check it out on Amazon.


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Marko Maslakovic

Marko founded Gadgets & Wearables in 2014, having worked for more than 15 years in the City of London’s financial district. Since then, he has led the company’s charge to become a leading information source on health and fitness gadgets and wearables.

One thought on “Review: Sleepace RestOn, designed to give you a good night’s sleep

  • The RestOn device supports automatic sleep tracking, so maybe there’s been a firmware update since this article was written.

    Reply

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