IPhone Add-On Lark Can Help You Sleep

This column might put you to sleep — but I won’t be offended. In fact, nodding off is kind of the point. That’s because Lark, the high-tech product I’ve been spending time with the past couple of weeks, is all about helping you get more shut-eye.

What’s more, when it is time to rouse you come morning, Lark will wake you up silently, without disturbing your bed mate.

For now, this combination “un-alarm” clock/sleep coaching solution works in tandem with the iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad, but the Palo Alto, Calif., start-up behind Lark (which goes by the same name) is planning to bring out an Android version relatively soon.

Lark is a breeze to use and set up. It consists of a wristband and sensor that communicates with the iPhone. After charging Lark in its docking cradle — you can use the dock to keep your iOS device charged, too — you can set an alarm using the Lark app. Then, right before bedtime, you place the band around your wrist, securing it with Velcro. From then on Lark monitors your sleep behavior, telling you how long it took you to fall asleep, how many times during the night you woke up, and when you woke up for good. Lark was developed with a Harvard sleep expert and a sleep coach who trains professional athletes.

Meanwhile, the wristband vibrates at the set alarm time. The iPhone screen displays a digital clock and functions as a giant snooze button. There’s a musical backup if the silent alarm fails to wake you.

Lark’s real potential comes in its coaching phase, using your sleep stats to come up with strategies for getting you more and consistent sleep. Unfortunately, coaching is part of a premium offering. So while you pay $129 for the silent alarm/wristband, you must pay $189 for the Pro version that includes a seven-day assessment and “sleep coach” app.

If you think you’ve had this dream before, you may be thinking of Zeo, a high-tech alarm clock I reviewed the summer before last that can also help track your sleep patterns and offer coaching. (Then, as now, I was sleeping on the job.)

Zeo uses sensors to measure electronic signals from the brain that are communicated wirelessly to a bedside monitor. But I felt goofy wearing that headband night after night. The Lark wristband is more comfortable and far less conspicuous. But Zeo goes into greater detail than Lark does in analyzing your slumber: the time you were in light sleep, deep sleep (for physical restoration and growth) and REM sleep (dreamland).

Lark doesn’t dive as deeply. After my seven-day assessment, Lark observed that I got more sleep than 80% of the population. On average it took me 18 minutes to fall asleep, I woke up 13 times (who knew?) and I spent 51 minutes awake, results that were probably skewed by one night in which I had difficulty falling back to sleep after my kids woke me up. On two out of seven days, I woke up before my alarm; on four of seven, I snoozed for longer than 20 minutes. And I slept more than two hours longer on the weekend. You can view such results on an online dashboard.

Based on your sleep patterns, Lark determines your “sleep type,” the Sandman’s version of a Myers-Briggs assessment. Actually, you’re given two sleep types, one for highlighting how much or how little you sleep and the other for assessing your sleep schedule.