Having trouble sleeping and can’t figure out why? Take a pill. Or a bottle of Jack. If you’d rather not start in on potentially destructive habits, you can seek out treatment with the help of the Tanita Sleep Scan SL-501, a sleeping mat that monitors your vitals during slumber.
While it won’t lull you into sleep like an electronic Sandman, the device and its accompanying software will produce all the data that your doctor needs to get a reading on your sleep patterns. That way, you won’t have to make up stuff when you’re asked how you breathe at night, how much sleep you get and how many sheeps you counted. As if you’ll remember, right?
The Tanita Sleep Scan will track your pulse rate, respiration rate and body motion during sleep, collecting every single piece of data right into an onboard SD card. Once you wake up (or decide to finally give up trying to sleep, whichever the case may be), you simply pop the card onto your computer and pick up the data in the included software, which then processes it for output into easy-to-read graphs that show your current sleep patterns.
Designed to slip right under your bedding, the mat measures 33.9 x 12.3 x 1 inches and uses a vibration microphone to pick up the various signals it records. It doesn’t appear to put tabs on how many times you wet your bed, so your secret is safe. However, don’t be surprised if excessive bedwetting manages to fry the electronics, which then proceeds to electrocute you.
Made in Japan, the data is, hopefully, readable in English. Otherwise, you’ll have to schedule an appointment with a Japanese sleep doctor and we don’t get many of that out here. No, a Chinese doctor doesn’t count. They’re not the same, you know. The Tanita Sleep Scan is available for $578.