Benjamin Rubin was one of the co-founders of Zeo which created one of the early sleep tracking devices for consumers. Unfortunately Zeo recently shut down and now Ben is advising a new company named Beddit which coincidentally has also created a new consumer sleep tracking device. In this interview with Robert Scoble, Ben provides details about the device along with a demo of the reporting. One of the unique aspects that device uses for tracking are several sensors that include measurements for ambient noise, light, and heart rate.
Ben has followed the early stages of the quantified self movement and during the interview he provides the insights he’s seen as its evolved and discussed what he sees coming in the future. This discussion around the need to take the data created by all of these devices and put them in a single location for analysis to provide valuable insight has become the mantra all of us are now chanting so that we can take quantified self to the next level. I felt that Ben covered this pretty eloquently (starts at 7:57 of the interview) and provided some good use cases. Robert then asks about what it will take for these devices to become mainstream and once again I think Ben nailed it. Just keep the devices simple for capturing the data and then provide simple actionable feedback to the user. The average person isn’t going to be bothered glazing over charts and graphs to try and determine the meaning for themselves. They simply want to be told what they need to do to improve their behavior. Sounds like Beddit is very lucky to have Ben as an advisor and this looks to be a pretty nice device.
The device can be pre-ordered at an introductory price of $99 (normally $149) on Indiegogo. You can also take a look at Ben’s new startup Revv which I’m looking forward to as well.
Here’s the interview
