Saturday, July 04, 2020

Dreem2 Review at 6 weeks

I've been using the Dreem2 headband for five weeks now and here are my thoughts:

1.  The technology is very good.  It tracks my sleep well and the numbers seem accurate.
2. It's getting more comfortable.
3. I finished the easy "Intro to sleep" class.  It was helpful.  It's a little frustrating that you can't take all the sessions in one sitting, but upon reflection, it's probably good the way they have it now.
4. Making the bedroom dark was my biggest take-away from the intro class.
5. One helpful number from the night's data is "Sleep Onset", or how long did it take me to fall asleep after turning on the headset.
Usually it's under 30 minutes, but it's interesting to check with my food diary for those nights that it is longer.  So far, it looks like eating spicy foods, foods with lots of sugar, or lots of carbs hurts my sleep onset number.  Without the Dreem2 it would be hard to get the sleep onset number.

Things to improve in the Dreem2:
1. Charging feedback.  Although I set my headband in the charging cradle each night, yesterday it did not charge.   There's no easy way to know if the headband is charging without looking at the app.  The glowing ring changes colors and varies intensities, but I haven't a clue what it's trying to tell me.  Is it charging?  Is it trying to charge but doesn't connect to the contacts?  Is it having a bad dream?  I don't speak glowing ring LED language and C-3PO is nowhere to be found.

Dreem needs a small card lesson on what the led indicator signals are.  Also a text mid-day would be nice if it's not charging.

2. If I don't fall asleep as quickly as usual, the app asks me why.  This is great, but the answers listed do not include "I ate something spicy", or  "I drank three cups of 'decaf' coffee after dinner".