

WakeMate 2.0 - For Real, This Time. - gnemeth
http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/28/wakemate-2-0-helping-you-kiss-those-groggy-mornings-goodbye-for-real-this-time/

======
swaits
Let me tell you my WakeMate story. Its publication has been long overdue. It's
a bit long, so please bear with me...

I pre-ordered. All excited. I love "life hacks", and this is right up my
alley. Even encouraged several friends to jump in on the WakeMate wagon!

It finally arrived, and for the most part it worked. The app was buggy at
first (iOS), but they did eventually get some updates approved that made
things better. The algorithms employed on the website are questionable. They
seemed to weigh certain variables a bit counter-intuitively, but what do I
know. I went with it, charging it every other day and sleeping with it at
night.

It was a bit snug, but I stretched it out and it was comfortable enough. The
"WakeMate" logo stuff wore off in a matter of days though.

They emailed me a few days after receiving it saying to NOT use the charger
that came with it because it was faulty and might catch on fire. Yikes. They
never sent me a replacement. I just carried on with another standard USB
charger.

Then, at some point, my WM started refusing to sync with the app. I submitted
a trouble ticket, and they responded about a week later acknowledging a
hardware bug. They requested that I send the original unit back to them in
NoCal and proceeded to send me a new unit.

I didn't send the unit back to them, mostly out of sheer laziness. But, also,
they were rather presumptuous in telling me to send the unit back. No mention
was made of postage, or the inconvenience to me.

A new unit arrived and worked for about a week. Same exact problem. I
submitted another trouble ticket and got NO RESPONSE. Never even an
acknowledgement.

Months go by... crickets. Silence. Nothing. I mentally give up. At this point
I had two dead WM's and I really didn't care about it any more, because my
excitement was quite high, and I was really disappointed, mostly in the
extremely poor customer service.

Then one day, someone at WM (apparently) decided to email everyone who had WMs
that still needed to be sent back. Only this time it was more of a rather rude
demand, not so much of a request. Again, no mention of postage, or apology, or
anything remotely friendly.

The worst part of this? They CC'd all of us in a single email! So yah, we now
had not only been treated pretty poorly in terms of customer service from a
company with a broken product, but we were also being publicly shamed for it!

Now I cared again.

I was rather disgusted. I replied to all to share my disgust. Others replied
to all and were considerably more vocal than me about their own disgust. That
was ugly. After some time, they sent out another email admitting they should
have BCCd us instead. Yah, amateur hour.

I never got any sort of acknowledgement after mailing the two units back to
them. I can only assume they received them. I waited a full month before
contacting them again.

This time I've asked that they reimburse me for my WM as well as the postage I
incurred. After that I'm not interested in doing any further business with
them. Still no response, other than a robot email saying they have lots of
support requests blah blah blah.

This is sad because I _really_ wanted to like this company! :(

~~~
drewcrawford
Your identical story happened to me. I never received a third unit to replace
the second defective unit. Quite frankly, they can keep it.

------
seekely
WakeMate is the only YC company that left me feeling completely duped for
dropping cash on them. My whole experience with the product felt like a sham.
Good on WakeMate for having the opportunity at a 2.0, because I personally
feel like they did not deserve it :(

Because I love the concept so much, I will give it another shot, and maybe my
bitterness will fade, and we can all hold hands and skip in the park one day!
Good luck!

------
rdl
I am generally pro YC company and pro startup, but after the 14 months of
delays, then receiving a worthless, non functional product (which I threw
away), I have totally given up on these guys.

I got a $299 zeo, which works pretty well, and has an open API, great
distribution at retail, and very friendly responsive and professional support.
I kind of stopped using that too since I now sleep in a bed with the gf most
nights, but for actual sleep tracking, the Zeo seems like a great solution.

------
USF_BAPH81
This is part of my reply to swaits from his accurate review of the WakeMate
1.0.

"Thank you for your considerate e-mail and your respect for my privacy (by
bcc-ing my e-mail).

It's funny that you e-mailed me, since my boyfriend and I read your story on
hacker news, about an hour ago and thought about how they could be launching a
new product in the ill-be-gotten gains of defective wakemate sales.

The experience I had was very similar yet, I still have my two wakemates
(defects and all). I have no desire to send either back until I get a
replacement charger, prepaid postage and working device. I have explained that
to their customer service. Basically, I am holding them ransom; though, since
they don't work, I don't think I have the upper hand.

If you would like, I can send you one of mine. I don't know if you like/play
portal, but it could become you companion band.

Thank you for speaking out and letting other's see what has become of this. It
had so much promise and then went horribly wrong."

I feel that everyone should know of this service atrocity (yes! An atrocity!).
I worked many years in customer service, and I know that I would not be in
business, let alone retain customers, with this type of service. The fact that
customers paid for a device/service that has not delivered the features that
were advertised; and, the Wake Mate company has not come close to satisfying
their current customers, with broken devices that have not been replaced, nor
a charger that won't cause a fire, one would wonder what they will do with the
2.0 version?!

------
pkaler
I've been using Sleep Cycle for the last year or so.
<http://mdlabs.se/sleepcycle/>

I'm not sure if purchasing a $60 wrist band is that much better than spending
$0.99 on an iPhone App that just uses the phone's accelerometer.

~~~
evan_
does it work?

~~~
2muchcoffeeman
I have been using Sleep Cycle too. Most the most part, yes, it does wake me up
less cranky. You still need to allow for enough sleep though. If I only get ~6
hours of sleep. It wakes me up at an appropriate time - I feel better - but I
am still tired - and thus crankier than usual.

~~~
est
The reviews on iTunes store says it's faking data and graph

[http://itunes.apple.com/app/sleep-cycle-alarm-
clock/id320606...](http://itunes.apple.com/app/sleep-cycle-alarm-
clock/id320606217?mt=8)

~~~
underwater
The creators countered by saying those reviewers were testing on uncalibrated
phones. The app normalizes the movements so even if it detects only very small
movements it will still render a graph with full range of movement.

I don't know if this is true but I saw in their changelog
<http://mdlabs.se/sleepcycle/changelog-v3.0.html> that they "removed
"dreaming" from graph legend we've done a lot of research around this with
help from sleep scientists and determined that Sleep Cycle cannot reliably
detect when you are in REM sleep".

That makes me think they're legit. Their test function is also pretty
convincing. It detects large and small movements quite accurately.

~~~
tudorachim
If they can't detect when you're not in REM sleep and wake you up at that
point, what's the point of the device?

~~~
nater
As I understand it, grogginess is associated with waking from deep sleep (no
movement), not REM sleep.

------
kenkam
How about Lark (<https://www.lark.com/mylark/>)? It's a similar product in a
completely different price range ($129!). Has anyone tried it?

~~~
covercash
I'd really like to see a tech review site (Engadget perhaps?) do a
Wakemate/Lark/Zeo comparison. Wear all 3 devices at the same time, compare
results, etc.

~~~
josh33
And sleepcycle

------
ch0wn
There's a nightly beta for Android that addresses the connection issues. I got
an APK from the support some weeks ago and I can confirm that the connection
issues have reduced dramatically.

~~~
samstokes
Thanks for this tip! I had no idea they had a fix out for Android. Contacting
support now!

------
devicenull
I guess this is one advantage iOS has, a mostly unified platform for
developers. I've been part of the Wakemate beta for Android for awhile now,
and it seems that Android has wildly varying bluetooth stacks depending on
device manufacturer and phone model. For example, my LG Optimus V won't
reliably work with Wakemate with the stock firmware, but works flawlessly with
CyageonMod

------
tzury
Man, I am serious now, there is one place in my life where electronic devices
are not allowed (including TV, alarm clocks etc.) and it is my bedroom.

Taking your "SmartPhone" to bed, in order to improve your sleep seems
ridiculous to me by all means.

If you want to improve your sleep and get up in the optimal hour, do the
following:

    
    
       * Disconnect yourself from those devices (phone, pads, laptops, tv, etc.) two hours before you go to bed.
       * Take a warm shower or bath
       * Go to bed at a fixed time every evening, and get up naturally.
       * Read a nice book for 20/30/40 minutes (whatever suites you).
       * Close your eyes then and meditate until you fall asleep.
    

You will see how within few days, you are getting up naturally at the same
hour, feel better and energetic all day, etc. etc.

------
saurik
This is kind of a weird "side complaint", but: despite being a humongous guy,
I actually have reasonably sized wrists. The wakemate, when it arrived, had a
wrist band so small (and if there were sizes on the site I'm certain I would
have ordered the largest one) that I gave it to my girlfriend's little sister
(who likely never used it), as I knew there would be no way I'd be able to
wear it. I wonder if this has also been handled in 2.0 ;P.

~~~
samstokes
From the article:

 _Another recent addition: you can now purchase a larger version of the
WakeMate wristband, should you find the original size too tight._

So yes, apparently that _is_ fixed in 2.0 :)

~~~
saurik
Ok, I'm stupid: thanks. :(

------
fabiandesimone
To me my WM is more than to just wake up less groggy. Using tags I'm trying to
identify anything that would help me sleep better. This is where I think WM is
missing out:

I see a leader board but no way to get tips or compare notes (tags?) with
other users (specially those in the leaderboard that seem to be sleeping like
freaking kings) I would love to figure out how to get a 90+ night when I'm
currently in the low 60 everyday.

~~~
lobster_johnson
Maybe I'm missing something, but what on earth would you compare notes about?

"Slept a bit rough last night, think I was a bit stressed out after that
deadline."

"Woke up hot and worn out, maybe I should get an A/C unit."

"Fit as a fiddle this morning, must be that cheese I ate before bed I guess!"

I don't get it. People are different. Some sleep well and are able to adjust
to regular schedules, some are the opposite; there's no magic bullet, and any
specific trick will not necessarily work on a different person.

If you ask people who sleep well what the trick is, I suspect you will
invariably discover that they went to bed early, before they got really tired,
that they avoided coffeine drinks, stress, exercise, TV etc. in the hours
before bedtime, and have learned to eliminate as many external (eg., lighting)
or internal (sleep apnea) sources of discomfort as possible.

All pretty obvious stuff, and nothing, I think, that a good GP wouldn't be
able to steer you towards.

------
pclark
Just to chime in. I got my Wakemate a few months ago and totally love it. The
software had a few flaws (just features id like to see) and support promptly
and politely replied with their roadmap and such. I randomly emailed the
founders to thank them and they were great too.

Highly recommended, seriously, buy one.

------
pwenzel
Clearly, the inventor of WakeMate doesn't have kids.

Kidding. Sort of.

