Power Nap and Smart Wake

Power Nap and Smart Wake were the two best features of the original Jawbone up and now they appear to be gone forever.  Having reviewed several “wearables” including fit bit, jawbone, Scoche Android watch and the Apple watch series 3.  Only Jawbone mastered the nap assistant.

If you read the instructions on just about any other sleep application or tool the first thing it says is something like “going to bed at the same time every day is one of the best methods of getting proper sleep”.  And then it will ask you to set an alarm to tell you what time to go to bed.

What? An alarm to tell me when to go to bed?

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This sounds like a 1920’s industrial experiment designed to get you to work on time.  But who works “regular” hours.  We live in a world of flex shifts, computer optimized scheduling and totally irregular sleep hours. What does an alarm telling me when to sleep have to do with a Power Nap or Smart Wake feature?

When I first got the Jawbone UP, I had a very difficult time napping, but once I realized that I could trust it and that I would wake up refreshed, not groggy, I was hooked.  the Jawbone Up Smart Wake worked. And then my Jawbone Up died, so I bought another, and another and then the whole company vanished.

Somehow the Jawbone knew where you were in a sleep cycle.  If you set it for a 45 minute nap and in 41 minutes it realized you were about to cycle to a deep sleep, it would gently buzz, and wake you up a few minutes early very refreshed.  That is a Power Nap with Smart Wake.

As part of the CoolToys series, I have tested just about every wearable and every nap app for the iPhone.  Among the best is an app called “Power Nap”.

The Power Nap app on the Apple Watch doesn’t even have a 45 minute nap which most experts say is about the best amount of time.  If you pick a 60 minute nap the app tells you to expect to wake with “immediate grogginess, delayed improvements in stamina and cognitive performance”.  Yeah that’s what I want from my “power nap”.

I can’t believe the sensors required to do what the jawbone did aren’t in the Apple Watch, but maybe they aren’t.  If they are would someone please buy the tech, and create an app?  Hey people buying Jawbone assets, how about an app please?

For now I am back to my addiction to caffeine and diet coke to manage my sleep cycles. I hope someone figures this out.  I miss my 45 minute smart naps.

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