According to the Institute of Medicine, between 50 million and 70 million Americans suffer from sleep disorders or sleep deprivation (Source). The Center of Disease Control and Prevention claims at least 8.6 million Americans take prescription sleeping pills each night prior to bed (Source). Important research on the problem of sleep has created Kello – a revolutionary smart alarm clock designed to wake you up energized and ready to tackle the day.
Obviously, this is become an alarming epidemic and sleeping within arm’s length of your smartphone doesn’t help the cause. We’ve all been guilty of sabotaging sleep with a 2 a.m. Facebook scroll. Then we wonder why we’re passing out at our desks at 3 p.m.
As we all know sleep is a precious commodity and without it, we turn into gremlins. Everything is off; our demeanor, our motivation, our eating habits, our sanity and eventually, our health. Our internal body clock needs to be controlled as much as our waistlines but it seems as if sleep takes a back seat to most things in life; even though “sleep is a crucial determinant of productivity.”
Kello is an advanced sleep trainer created to help you tune your body clock to snooze less, wake up earlier, fight jet lag, and take productive power naps. Looking like the love-child of the BOSE sound system and a modern day alarm clock, Kello is a sleep revolution device that not only connects to smart devices; but more importantly, comes with sleep aid programs that help regain control of your out-of-whack sleep patterns. With its hilarious, yet true company slogan: “Life is too short to hate every morning of it,” Kello Labs may have a solution for the many sleep deprived American zombie-ing their way to the next Starbucks line.
The Kello is no shopping network “100% we guarantee your sleep” device. This is a Wi-Fi connected personal sleep trainer that instills long-lasting behavior around sleep schedules. You need to work with it in order to get the results. “People don’t need another app, sleeping pill, gimmicky alarm clock, or spreadsheets full of sleep data,” said Kello co-founder and CEO Antoine Markarian. “They need to change their lifestyle and Kello helps you do that.”
With iOS and Android compatible smart programs like Snooze Less, Fall Asleep Faster, and Wake Up Earlier, Kello claims it can transform each user into a morning person within 30 days. From customizing your own wake-up experience to ditching the snooze button, Kello focuses on four key areas to improve your sleep behavior and does this by controlling your internal alarm clock.
1. Kello helps you look forward to waking up in the morning by communicating with your favorite playlists: Spotify, Deezer, SoundCloud, Tidal, etc. If you’re more of an early-morning podcast listener or just like the tranquility of nature sounds, Kello has that option as well.
2. Kello trains you to change your sporadic nighttime routine. It’s Deep Sleep feature prompts Kello to emit a gentle pulsing light that mimics a rhythm typical of breathing. Just follow the lights with your breath and you’ll quickly slow down your natural sleep rhythm.
3. By policing the number of times you can hit the snooze button, Kello prevents you from falling back to sleep and starting a new cycle making it even harder to wake up the second time the alarm goes off. If you surpass the number of snooze allowances, you can program Kello to turn on the lights, alter the playlist to heavy metal, or make a horrific alarm noise – all in the name of punishment for hitting the snooze button too many times.
4. Kello’s “Prepare and Recover from Jet Lag” feature is probably one of its coolest outside of the power nap program. Kello will create a customized light and sleep schedule based on your destination and travel dates. This fully customizable program trains your internal clock to prepare for an upcoming trip, whether it’s Austria or Australia.
From its 30-day “Wake Up Earlier” program to morning motivation speeches, Kello prioritizes sleep; so much so, it illuminates your ceiling with stars when its time for bed. With an initial KickStarter campaign goal of $50,000, Kello at the time of this review has reached $266,104 with 10 days left. When you consider the number of sleep programs offered and its compatibility with smart home devices such as If This Then That (IFTTT), the early bird price of $89 is the deal of the century. It’s tough to put an actual dollar amount from the boost in productivity from a good night’s sleep, but I know one thing for sure: it’s well beyond $89. Oh, and by the way, it can sync to your coffee maker making the morning routine even better.
