Improving sleep rhythms using consumer hardware

Onæri aims to be a collaborative open source project for creating sleep improving applications of technology that follow the same basic philosophies:

1. Science driven

2. Accessible hardware

3. No micro-management

1. Solution

Onæri is a collaborative open source project aimed at creating sleep improving applications of technology that follow the same basic philosophies:

Science driven

An application concept is only worth pursuing if it has a sound scientific basis.

Accessible hardware

An application should be designed to work on hardware accessible by consumers, preferably worldwide.

Designing something on a piece of hardware that nobody else can get their hands on is just a waste of time. An extension of this statement is that an Onæri application does not work with specialistic lab equipment.

No micro-management

The human body is pretty good in micro-managing its sleep processes. An Onæri application leaves the tweaking of specific sleep elements to the body and focusses on the broader elements.

Think of it as a doctor stitching a cut. The doctor leaves the realignment of every individual muscle fiber to the body and instead focusses on allowing the body to do its thing.

2. The challenge

Onæri applications prevent common mental health issues by improving the sleep rhythm of the user. Sleep is an integral part of mental health but is often overlooked as a cause of mental health issues. Improving sleep can help prevent and treat stress, depression and probably a lot more.

3. Scaling

Because Onæri applications only use hardware that's already available it can easily be used by many people around the world. The open source approach allows everybody to easily download and freely use the applications.

Other ways of scaling are applying applications to public spaces. Think for example of smarter implementations of street lights.

Since the invention of artificial light, we have been lighting up the night with bright lights. This started our struggle for enough sleep, especially in urban environments. The recent widespread use of LED lights in our environment and screens has made this struggle more difficult because of the spectrum LED light emits.

Using LED lights often and at the wrong moments results in difficulty sleeping which in turn can contribute to mental health issues. The first Onæri application solves this by applying a circadian cycle to smart lights.

A disturbed sleep rhythm can have both big and small negative effects on a person. Some of the effects I found are lower alertness, some forms of depression, increased stress with all its effects, mood changes, and decreased motivation. More details (sadly only in Dutch right now): http://afstuderen.lakitna.nl/2...

By trying to remove these negative effects other factors of mental instability can be tackled more easily without any treatment.

This way improved sleep results in improved mental health.

I think everybody can benefit from an improved sleep rhythm, especially those who are vulnerable for mental instabilities, and those who live in illuminated or unusually dark areas where natural time cues can be sparse.

The applications will be deployed via the normal software channels (app stores, download pages etc). Possibly in a single package per device. Because of the focus on existing consumer hardware, its availability should be a non-issue.

Track downloads in app stores, download pages etc. Also track application usage. - People start using one or more applications on a daily basis.

Community size and output. - The community starts developing more applications.

Application usage data. - Users start improving their sleep rhythm.

Onæri doesn't aim to develop new technological devices but instead uses a science based approach for applying existing hardware in new ways.

Most sleep improving applications of technology focus on a small part of the sleep rhythm. For example, the Philips Wake-up light only focusses on waking the user but ignores preparing the user to go to bed. Onæri doesn't do micro-managing and helps the user throughout the whole day, every day.

By using off the shelf hardware the development costs are relatively low and availability is a non-issue.

Onæri applications will be designed using a human centered design approach by an open community.

For example, the first Onæri application uses the natural time cues of our body to improve the user's sleep rhythm while accounting for the user's habits and imperfections. By opening development to an open community it's much easier and quicker to adapt to the needs of us fickle humans.

Because Onæri only aims to develop software, deploying it will be easy to everybody with an internet connection. And because of the open source approach, the costs are very low.

The majority of the costs for the user will be because of hardware purchases from other parties. When Onæri grows it will be important to also support affordable hardware.

The aim is to build an open community based on onaeri.org where people from all over the world can discuss research, concepts and share their own work. Since this is an open source project this community will be open to everyone free of charge.

Financially this is feasible since the only costs will be server upkeep. If the server costs increase advertisements will be added and the members of the community will be asked to donate a small amount of money.

When additional funding is necessary, for example to test applications, we will look for solutions within the community.

Right now I'm just a single person with a vision and a proof of concept. To build a healthy community I need to get the word out about this project. But on my own I have limited reach, especially in the research community.

http://afstuderen.lakitna.nl/

http://www.onaeri.org

I hope to get a starting boost in building a community. The first few members are the hardest to attract, so by applying to this open worldwide search for great ideas I'm hoping to attract those lucky first few and to keep them around for long enough to grow the community into something substantial.

None, but I do have a few contacts in sleep sciences.

Sadly there are none.