A few months ago, I wrote about my first experiences with the Zeo Sleep Managet Mobile. At the time, I was having connectivity issues with the Zeo. I had a difficult time getting the Zeo to connect to my mobile devices, and to stay connected.
I'm happy to report that after a firmware update the Zeo consistently pairs with my Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and keeps the connection overnight. There is one caveat: I need to reconnect the Zeo before I go to sleep each night by turning bluetooth off and on again. This restart of bluetooth on my tablet is easy to do from the app, even if it does make the use of the Zeo a bit less graceful.
To be fair the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 is not in Zeo's list of explicitly supported Android devices. This is a huge improvement over what I reported in November. Having had some experience with both mobile app development and mobile communication with bluetooth, I think they've made nice progress.
Ideas for Improvement
In use of the App, one feature I kept missing was the ability to log some data along with my sleep data. Zeo's marketing materials suggest that it is possible to perform experiments on your sleep quality. The prevalent example is to measure the effect of coffee consumption on sleep.
I don't see any way to record data or perform experiments within the app, one of the primary motivations behind my purchase. Since I'm a mobile app developer, it is difficult to bring myself to write this sort of data on paper. The indignity!
Technical Notes
One last thing: the firmware update to the headband wasn't the most relaxing thing in the world. On the Mac, it required the installation of a kernel extension. Scary.
I'm expect that new headbands are shipping with the latest firmware, and that no further updates will be needed. If so, this shouldn't be an issue for future users.
I bet I'll need to make another update on Zeo's progress as the product improves over the next few months. Cheers!
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
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6 comments:
I'm glad to see someone else writing about their Zeo. But I just use the standard base station instead of the mobile app.
Other than having to buy a new headband thing every couple of months I've been happy with mine.
But recently I'd pay good money to score above 70.
Thanks for the comment John. So far I haven't had to replace the pads on the headband, but I use it sporadically. Without an easy way to add some data to each night's sleep, the results score feels like trivia rather than feedback.
Cheers!
Hello John,
Unfortunately I have the same problem with my ZEO mobile device. The sleep graphs aren´t complete and the bluetooth connection is very bad. You might heard about it, ZEO is out of business. Have you a copy of the firmware you used for your update? Or have you any tips for me, how to realize the firmware update?
Sorry MB Admin,
I don't seem to have any copies of the firmware around. It looks like some of the Zeo Software is available on GitHub, but YMMV. Use at your own risk, etc.
Thank you for your response :)
Are these firmware updates for the Mobile Version or for the ZEO Bedside?
And how do I realize the transfer to the Dockingstation?
I'm sorry for asking so much, but it is hard to find people who know something about that specific problem.
Thank you so much, John! :)
Hi MB Admin,
I'm really not sure, it's been so long. You might try contacting one of the members listed on the github link from above.
I hope that helps,
--John
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