FMP: Wake Up light by Philips

To make this clear, my idea came before I research any existing products in the market, but only to realise how similar my idea is to this lamp from Philips. It's the Wake-Up Light

Wake-Up light is doing quite the same as my idea, it has the feature of simulating sunset to compensate the effects done by artificial light at night. Although I am not sure if circadian rhythm can be adjusted by this mean, the light was designed in this regard. When a certain function is turned on, the lamp will slowly dims down over 30 minutes duration.

In the morning, the lamp also simulates the sunrise by gradually brighten the light and the colour changing according the the actual sunrise, along with various default  nature sounds to wake up the person (you can supposedly choose any music in your music library, I am not an expert but I highly doubt that waking up with heavy metal is anywhere close to natural)

It also can track your sleeping quality and pattern, but the accuracy should be under review, there are two common way to track sleep, I have explained this in the previous post. In this product, I think (but not sure), it is using the accelerometer inside your phone to track the your movement during your sleep. However, the mobile phone in this case, is on a docking station not on the bed, very unlikely to detect any movement that is occurred on the mattress, but this is one of the key feature to the mobile app Philips has provided. 

So the question now is, how do I differentiate this Philips Wake-Up light from my own idea, I think there is some similarity between the two, but the main focus of the two are not the same. Wake-Up light is not designed to change a person's behaviour but to suit their lifestyle. 

The product allows the user to customize many features. But to me and my idea, I mainly wish to change the people's behaviour. The sunsets simulation is identical to my idea when the light dims and head droops, but the simulation from Philips starts when the phone is docking on the station in the evening, this will only happen when the person is ready to sleep. My project on the other hand, is for reminding people who has NOT yet gone to sleep. You see the difference? One is purely suiting the user, the other is changing the user, and this links back to my thesis where Marc Hassenzahl stated that "convenience will not instill change but friction will."

FMP: Science of Sleep

As my fmp project is about something that helps people, or rather, reminds people to sleep on time. I think this is a good chance to explore things about this activity we do for about third of our entire life.
Sleep is a naturally recurring state of mind characterized by altered consciousness, relatively inhibited sensory activity, inhibition of nearly all voluntary muscles, and reduced interactions with surroundings. It is distinguished from wakefulness by a decreased ability to react to stimuli, but is more easily reversed than the state of hibernation or of being comatose. Mammalian sleep occurs in repeating periods, in which the body alternates between two highly distinct modes known as non-REM and REM sleep. REM stands for "rapid eye movement" but involves many other aspects including virtual paralysis of the body.
During sleep, most systems in an animal are in an anabolic state, building up the immune, nervous, skeletal, and muscular systems. Sleep in non-human animals is observed in mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish, and, in some form, in insects and even in simpler animals such as nematodes. The internal circadian clock promotes sleep daily at night in diurnal species (such as humans) and in the day in nocturnal organisms (such as rodents). However, sleep patterns vary widely among animals and among different individual humans. Industrialization and artificial light have substantially altered human sleep habits in the last 100 years.

The science today still unable to answer the question of why do human need to sleep,  Some believe that sleep gives the body a chance to recuperate from the day's activities but in reality, the amount of energy saved by sleeping for even eight hours is miniscule - about 50 kCal, the same amount of energy in a piece of toast. And there are some other explanations too yet it is unlikely anyone of then is the single answer but all contribute a bit to the real answer. 

It seems like sleep does not really contribute much in anyway that is significant enough, however, sleep deprivation could lead to some serious consequences. If you've ever pulled an all-nighter, you'll be familiar with the following after-effects: grumpiness, grogginess, irritability and forgetfulness. After just one night without sleep, concentration becomes more difficult and attention span shortens considerably. 

With continued lack of sufficient sleep, the part of the brain that controls language, memory, planning and sense of time is severely affected, practically shutting down. In fact, 17 hours of sustained wakefulness leads to a decrease in performance equivalent to a blood alcohol level of 0.05% (two glasses of wine). This is the legal drink driving limit in the UK. In the US, more than 200000 car accidents are caused by sleepy drivers, killing people more than drunk-driving. It does not take long before brain and body could feel the result of sleep deprivation.

Sleep deprivation not only has a major impact on cognitive functioning but also on emotional and physical health. Disorders such as sleep apnoea which results in excessive daytime sleepiness have been linked to stress and high blood pressure. Research has also suggested that sleep loss may increase the chance of obesity because chemicals and hormones that play a key role in controlling appetite and weight gain are released during sleep.

Useful Links:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/sleep/articles/whatissleep.shtml
http://phys.org/news/2011-02-why-do-we-sleep.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3385863/
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-can-humans-stay/
http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/human-brain/sleep1.htm
http://harvardmagazine.com/2005/07/deep-into-sleep.html

FMP: Operand Conditioning

I have mentioned Operand Conditioning in the last post, saying some products or services use this technique to change one's behavior. The principle seems pretty simple but I think it is still worthwhile to explore the technique further.

Operand conditioning is a learning process in which behavior is sensitive to, or controlled by its consequences. For example, a child may learn to open a box to get the candy inside, or learn to avoid touching a hot stove. In contrast, classical conditioning causes a stimulus to signal a positive or negative consequence; the resulting behavior does not produce the consequence. For example, the sight of a colorful wrapper comes to signal "candy", causing a child to salivate, or the sound of a door slam comes to signal an angry parent, causing a child to tremble. The study of animal learning in the 20th century was dominated by the analysis of these two sorts of learning, and they are still at the core of behavior analysis.

In an other words, Behaviors have consequences, there are two main types of consequences: Reinforcement and Punishment, each one of them has two types of consequences: Positive and Negative. Reinforcement is to increase the tendency of the target behavior will occur, Positive Reinforcement is to add an extra thing to increase the possibility, I.e. rewards. Negative Reinforcement is something that it's been taken away in an effort to increase the tendency of target behavior occurs, I.e. completing target reinforcement will remove any warning sounds/sights.

Punishment on the other hand, is to decrease the target behavior will occur again, same with reinforcement, Positive Punishment is adding something, Negative Punishment is to take something away.

So what product uses Operand Conditioning to change your behavior, Nike Run app is a pretty good example. The app tracks your work out duration and distance and over pace, when you meet a certain level you can unlock the "trophies" to honor your effort. this is, to me, a straight Positive Reinforcement. By rewarding you "achievements" (trophies) to increase the tendency of "target behavior" (working out)