How Kickstarter-backed Sense and Sleep Pill aim to tackle your sleepless nights

In the past couple of months, we’ve been hearing about fitness trackers that are capable of tracking sleep patterns along with other activities like running, walking, cycling and so on. After all, sleep plays an important role in the lives of those looking to stay fit. Moreover, we spend almost one-third of our lives sleeping.

Unlike other trackers, Sense is a dedicated sleep tracker that aims at ensuring you have sound, undisturbed sleep. The creator, James Proud and his company Hello, has started a Kickstarter campaign that lets you pre-order the device for $129. Early backers can get one for $99. The device will start shipping by November 2014. Proud has already crossed the target of $100,000, with

Proud is said to be the member of the inaugural class of Thiel Fellows, a group of 20 teenagers paid by billionaire investor Peter Thie l  to skip college, and work on their dream. Apart from sleep, Sense is capable of tracking temperature, humidity and ambient light.

According to Techcrunch , the tracker has sensors that are capable of even tracking pollen grains that could disturb your sleep. Just like some tracking bands, it also supports smart alarms to wake you up naturally without disturbing your sleep cycle.

While you need to wear a band all the time, Sense follows a different route to function. Sense is made up of  a spherical sensor, a clip-on called Sleep Pill with six-axis accelerometer and gyroscope. The Sleep Pill that needs to be attached to the pillow communicates with the sphere via Bluetooth LE and ANT. Finally, to view all the information, there’s a mobile app. Using the data tracked by sensors, the app gives its users a score out of 100, depending upon the disturbances and ambient light at night.

An interesting gesture-based feature includes the ability to stop the alarm just by waving your hand over the Sense. A similar gesture movement also helps light up the LEDs at the base of the device.

While health seems to be the next big focus for technology companies, sleep tracking is arguably the most accessible health tracking feature as far as users are concerned. Everyone wants to have a good night’s sleep, and Sense and its like provide them with metrics to determine how to adjust sleep time, or your surroundings. Now that it’s already passed its goal, we can expect Sense and the Sleep Pill to hit retail and it’s about as elegant a sleep tracker as you can buy right now.