Improving Sleep-Wake Schedule Using Sleep Behavior Visualization and a Bedtime Alarm

Humans need sleep, along with food, water and oxygen, to survive. With about one-third of our lives spent sleeping, there has been increased attention and interest in understanding sleep and the overall state of our“sleep health.”The rapid adoption of smartphones along with a growing number of sleep tracking applications for these devices presents an opportunity to use this device to encourage better sleep hygiene. Procrastinating going to bed and being unable to stick to a consistent bedtime can lead to inadequate amount of sleep time which in turn affects quality of life and overall wellbeing. To help address this problem, we developed two applications, Lights Out and Sleep Wallpaper, which provide a sensor-based bedtime alarm and a connected peripheral display on the wallpaper of the user’s mobile phone to promote awareness with sleep data visualization. In this paper, we describe Lights Out and Sleep Wallpaper and results from a two-week field study with 19 participants who have a variety of sleep contexts. Results indicate that a simple bedtime alarm and a peripheral display with sleep data visualization can be an effective method for improving sleep consistency.