Skip to Content

Quantifying Myself: How Four-Legged Friends Disrupt Sleep

84 = average ZQ sleep score
June 17, 2011

The Zeo sleep monitor is the first consumer device that allows users to track their duration and stages of sleep—REM, deep, and light sleep—during the night. I had tested the Zeo for a few days when it first came out, but using it daily for a few weeks was more illuminating.

According to Zeo, my cat disrupts my sleep long before I wake up to feed her.

I found that sleeping in by an hour dramatically improved my ZQ score—a proprietary algorithm that incorporates sleep duration and quality to create a single number for the night’s sleep. That convinced me to give up on attempts to work out in the morning and embrace an evening gym routine.

I also discovered that my cat is wreaking more havoc on my sleep than I thought. She wakes me up for breakfast every morning at 5:30 a.m., but looking at my Zeo data showed that my sleep pattern is disturbed for the hour before that. (Apparently it takes her a while to wake me up.) So I bought an automatic feeder with a timer, which helps.

I’d love to know what she’s doing while I sleep and see how our patterns interact. (I briefly considered attaching my Fitbit to her collar.) But Green Goose, a startup that is developing stick-on sensors, says it is soon coming out with its first application, designed for pets. I don’t have any additional information at this point, but I will certainly try it out as soon as possible.

Previous Post: The Perils of Too Much Sitting

Tomorrow: Under Pressure

Keep Reading

Most Popular

Large language models can do jaw-dropping things. But nobody knows exactly why.

And that's a problem. Figuring it out is one of the biggest scientific puzzles of our time and a crucial step towards controlling more powerful future models.

The problem with plug-in hybrids? Their drivers.

Plug-in hybrids are often sold as a transition to EVs, but new data from Europe shows we’re still underestimating the emissions they produce.

How scientists traced a mysterious covid case back to six toilets

When wastewater surveillance turns into a hunt for a single infected individual, the ethics get tricky.

Google DeepMind’s new generative model makes Super Mario–like games from scratch

Genie learns how to control games by watching hours and hours of video. It could help train next-gen robots too.

Stay connected

Illustration by Rose Wong

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

Explore more newsletters

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.