Smart Sleep provides a replacement experience for users to help them fall asleep. After docking their phone, picking up the SmartSleep Remote and getting into bed, users will be immersed into a new world, projected onto the walls of their room, where they can de-stress, switch off from the day and navigate it themselves as they explore it.

A Grand Challenge that merges Science, Technology and Design to explore sustainable solutions

The Grand Challenge is an interdisciplinary project between the CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, and the Royal College of Art that offers MA students a unique opportunity to work collaboratively with other disciplines of the School of Design and with a community of scientists working at CERN.  Along four weeks we worked in interdisciplinary teams to design solutions to a series of different global issues, such as Health & Wellbeing; Digital Disruption; Energy, Infrastructure and the Environment; and Social and Economic Disparity.

Our group worked on the issue of Digital Disruption and specifically about the effects of addictive smartphone use before going to sleep. For example, the blue light emitted by the screen interferes with the secretion of the sleep inducing hormone melatonin; also, the mental effort of sending an email or checking social networks just before sleeping makes it difficult for our brain to relax. Despite being a short and academic project, the merging of the interaction with other students and the mix of ideas and approaches was an authentic and rewarding learning experience that provides you with useful tips and insights about the importance of working in multidisciplinary teams.

CONCEPT

SmartSleep helps users to reduce and overcome their smartphone addiction by recovering the experience and the pleasure of good sleeping. SmartSleep is an integrated and magic dock to calm the smartphone addiction in bed. 
SmartSleep equipment is made up of two parts

• The Dock: It functions both as a charging point for the phone and as the source of the SmartSleep experience. It has built-in speakers for audio and LED projection through a fisheye lens. Real time anamorphosis of the image is used to make sure the projected image is calibrated with the shape of the room so it looks ‘correct’ to the user, allowing them to feel immersed. 
• The Controller: It is wirelessly connected to the dock and allows user interaction with the virtual world. This interaction is done using gestures, specifically designed to be relaxing and very different to the repetitive, stimulating gestures used on smartphones. Sensors in the pillow fabric and position sensors inside the pillow itself allow the device to know which angle it is being used at and therefore where the user is trying to direct themselves in the projected world.

PROCESS

SmartSleep was developed over the course of four weeks, starting by identifying some of the underlying causes of Digital Addiction, then exploring some of the technologies available in the market, and after that, experimenting through prototypes. We looked first at statistics and health effects caused to 58% of smartphone users who suffer from addiction before going to bed. Secondly, and through a survey to 48 participants, we understand that the majority of people exhibit a pattern of behaviour with their phone at night. Their phone usage begins with a rise of excitement due to the opportunity to switch off from the day, but we discovered that the usage lasts longer than the user initially hoped for and they end up late night scrolling through hundreds of videos, photos and posts.

We came up with different concepts of how to provide an experience that gives people what they initially want from that time on their phone, but without wasting hours staring at a tiny screen doing something they don’t really want to do. We designed different physical mock ups and made several Arduino sensors, and our ideas were tested among colleges, through peer to peer reviews and in constructive tutorials. 

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