No thanks, WakeMate (A Review)
June 24, 2011
WakeMate is an iPhone app and sleep sensor that promises to track and enhance restful sleep. I've considered a few products like this in the past, but the relatively low price ($60) convinced me to give this one a try. I'm sorry to say I've probably never become so disenchanted, so quickly, with a product.
The WakeMate includes a sensor that you wear on your wrist when you go to bed. The sensor communicates, via BlueTooth, with an iOS app. I don't want to turn this into a 1000 word rant, but here are the things I discovered in less than 24 hours with the product:
- The WakeMate wrist band uses elastic instead of velcro. It's also apparently sized to fit an 11 year old girl. I woke up a few times on my first night wondering WHAT THE HELL IS ON MY WRIST AND WHY ARE MY FINGERS TINGLING? OH, RIGHT.
- The app shows you the sensor's battery level, which is a nice touch. Before I used it for the first time it reported that the battery was over 50% full, so I didn't charge it. The device was dead by morning. When I recharged it and then tried to download my night's data, I received an error message that there wasn't at least 4 hours of data available. This leads me to conclude that you have to charge the sensor completely full before every use! Also, if a greater than 50% charge can't capture at least 4 hours of data, how will it ever work all night when fully charged? (Update: The manufacturer says this is wrong. See comments on this post.)
- The promise of WakeMate is that the app will wake you at an optimal time, within the time window that you set. However, you can't change the alarm sound. Hope you like their crappy music. Also, when the alarm does go off, you'll have to unlock your iPhone before you can silence the alarm. This is sure to be popular with your bedmate. (Update: You can set your own music to wake to, but I'm not interested in that. The manufacturer says there are other alarm tones, but this was not apparent to me in the user interface.)
- To get the functionality promised, you have to sign up for the online service and your data must be uploaded in order for it to be analyzed. All the power of the iPhone, but you have to rely on their servers to let you see any results? Phooey. (Update: See comments on this post.)
- I encountered at least two messages that told me to "reboot" either the phone or the device. In my opinion this is a sure sign of an error-prone implementation and voodoo troubleshooting. It doesn't give me confidence in the reliability of their alarm app. (Update: See comments on this post.)
So, no thanks WakeMate. A product that can't give a delightful, yet alone functional, experience on its first-use is so very disappointing. The best thing about my experience with it is Amazon's simple product return and refund process.
Hi Gordon, one of the co-founders of WakeMate here. I appreciate the time you took to check our device and write up your thoughts about it! If I may, I'd like to respond to some of the points you made.
1 - This is a good point and we are in the process of making a larger version of the wristband available on Amazon. In the meantime some users have reported success with turning the wristband inside out.
2 - As with most rechargeable batteries, the WakeMate needs to be fully charged before its first use (stated in the instructions). Almost all users experience at least 2 days of battery life.
3 - We have included a few tones with the product. However in case those aren't for you, there is also the option to use songs from your iPod Library as your alarm.
4 - The science behind analyzing your sleep is complicated. Building it on our servers ensures a much more stable experience for the customer. It also allows us to constantly be improving our technology.
5 - You should never have to reboot the device. It seems the error messages you are encountering are from not fully charging the WakeMate before the first use.
I hope this answers some of your questions and encourages you to give us another shot!
Posted by: Arun | June 24, 2011 at 02:13 PM
Thank you, Arun, for your response and helpful reply. I've updated my original posting with some clarifications.
I don't understand how a >50% charge cannot power the device on first use, but you are correct, I did disregard the instructions to charge it fully before trying it.
I did not discover in the user interface how to change to a different built-in alarm tone. I did find that I could use my own music, but I'm not interested in doing that.
Regarding rebooting the device and phone, in addition to the onscreen messages, that advice is part of the getting started documentation that comes with the product.
Posted by: Gordon Meyer | June 24, 2011 at 08:50 PM
I just left this as my Amazon review and am 'sharing' it around the web elsewhere as a warning to others as well:
I bought the Wakemate in July. I was disappointed to find that after almost 2 months it still wasn't going off to wake me up. It would record data, but not actually go off at during the wake up window.
I contacted customer service TWO months ago regarding it. At first, they were going to replace the device. After I shipped them the device, I waited a month before sending them another email. That email was replied to saying that they 'hadn't received my device'. After I sent them a message with the tracking information, I stopped getting replies.
Worst case, this company is just a scam. You can't find a number that will ring to a real person and they don't reply to email or Twitter, which is bad when you have a device that has such a spotty record (take a look at some of the other reviews about this thing). Best case, they are just a small company that isn't ready for prime time. Either way, I would steer clear of them and save your $60.
You take your chances, and I would say that if you buy this device, you are not buying it with any warranty and don't expect any support. I have no tolerance for companies that don't stand behind their product, and while the information about my sleep patterns was interesting, the support failure makes this an automatic failure.
Posted by: John Marshall | November 18, 2011 at 11:49 AM