REMzen

An intelligent sleep mask with smart alarm that allows you to track your REM cycle and long term sleeping patterns.

Oct 08, 2015

Project update 3 of 6

Electrode Update

Greetings REMzen Backers,

When we set out on our mission to build the most advanced home sleep tracking platform we knew there would be some speed bumps along the way. So far, we’ve been incredibly fortunate in navigating all of the technical difficulties thrown our way. But we haven’t dodged them all. We’ve run square into a speed bump involving the mask’s electrodes.

We have a plan in place for resolving this issue that will enable us to ship on time that we would like to share with you. But first a word about the nature of the challenge.

High fidelity sleep tracking requires capturing very small bio-electric signals from the body—this is not a simple proposition. A professional sleep lab uses wet electrodes that adhere to your face. This was never an option for us—we’ve labored hard to make our mask robust enough to deal with real world conditions, including designing our firmware with an automatic calibration routine that ensures our signal capture is as precise as possible. We want our customers to experience the joy of REMzen sleep without having to fuss with skin prep creams or sticky glues.

Throughout the prototyping process, we have used medical grade reusable gel electrodes—custom cut to our mask—to capture the EOG signal. These electrodes work great. They are very comfortable and leave no long-lasting marks or residue on the skin. However, they must be replaced every 5 to 7 days.

A medical grade gel electrode.

It has been our intention to replace these gel electrodes with permanent conductive silicone electrodes, or some other dry permanent electrode. We underestimated, however, the amount of time required to analyze all of the possible options, select a final electrode solution, and have them fabricated. The fault isn’t entirely our own—it has been difficult to get our vendors to cooperate with our expedited schedule—nevertheless, we assume full responsibility for any inconvenience this may cause our customers and we want to make it right. We were unwilling to delay shipping your RZ|X1 masks, if at all possible.

So our plan is to ship the masks on time and include a 30 day supply of the same medical grade reusable electrodes we’ve been using all along—at our expense, of course. We’ve made the sensors on the RZ|X1 modular, so the electrodes can be easily swapped out. Once the masks ship, we’ll post a video on how to do that.

The RZ|X1 electrode connection points.

In the meantime, we’ll continue evaluating our permanent electrode options and pursuing the best possible solution. We will keep you up to date on the process and we’ll ship the permanent electrodes to you as soon as we have them. If it looks like it will take longer than 30 days for us to get the new electrodes, we’ll send you a second batch of gel electrodes for free.

We are serious about revolutionizing the way the world sleeps, and we appreciate your patience and understanding as we work toward that goal.

As always, feel free to contact us at any time with questions or comments.

Regards,
The REMzen Team


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