Get a good night’s sleep with the new Sense gadget

We’ve all seen apps and devices that tracks your sleep for you. The idea is to analyze your sleeping patterns and to determine if you have had a good night’s sleep or a rough one. Some apps and devices, like Sleep Cycle and the Jawbone UP, even have the ability to wake you up at the end of a REM cycle, as opposed to the middle of one, thus ensuring you are at your most awake when you get up. If you like the sound and idea of such apps and devices, you might be interested to learn about a Kickstarter project for a device called Sense. The project is launched by James Proud of Hello Inc, where he was one of the recipients of a $100,000 grant from venture capitalist, Peter Thiel. The device in question acts like some of the other sensors we’ve seen in the past.

At age 19, Londoner James Proud decided to skip out on college and move to the States. As one of several “Thiel Fellows,” Proud received a $100,000 grant from esteemed venture capitalist Peter Thiel to skip college, move to San Francisco, and start working in tech. Thiel didn’t expect anything in return, and Proud didn’t deliver, working odd jobs for two years before finally settling down to build something real. Proud, now 22, is today announcing Hello Inc and its first product Sense, a glowing polycarbonate orb that monitors sleep patterns and everything that happens in your bedroom in hopes of helping you catch a few more z’s. Sense is available for preorder today on Kickstarter for $99. If Sense reaches its funding goal of $100,000 it will ship in Q4 2014 for a retail price of $129. Sense measures temperature, light, motion, humidity, sound, and even the particle counts for pollen and dust in the air. It also includes a tiny circular “Sleep Pill” that clips onto your pillowcase. Like most sleep trackers, the Pill records your sleep patterns by measuring how much you move in your sleep, but without asking you to wear a wristband or strap a sensor to your mattress. The two gadgets report back to your iOS or Android device through the Sense app over Bluetooth.