Sleep Tech gain traction as insomnia becomes common concern

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A new concept of a ‘smart bedroom,’ incorporating ‘Sleep Tech’ (a portmanteau of sleep and technology), is set to debut in South Korean apartments to be completed in 2024 by Hyundai Engineering and Construction Co. (Hyundai E&C), one of the country’s leading construction companies.

The technology, known as ‘H-Sleepynomics,’ was developed by GEOMC Co., a company known for its concentration-enhancing device ‘MC Square,’ that it collaborated with Hyundai E&C on, and will be officially unveiled on December 16 at Hyundai E&C’s housing promotion center ‘The H Gallery’ in Sinsa-dong, southern Seoul.

H-Sleepynomics integrates a sleep-inducing system into the walls of each room. This technology, which was chosen by Hyundai E&C as its ‘future housing technology’ in 2022, uses the synchronization phenomenon of brain waves that regulate the sympathetic and parasympathetic nerves that affect sleep.

“Brain waves have a much more fundamental impact on sleep than external factors such as bed mattresses, pillow quality, temperature, humidity, and illumination,” GEOMC Chairman Lim Young-hyun said. “The solution installed in the apartment interior converts these brain waves from awakening waves to sleep waves, inducing deep sleep.”

With over a million insomnia patients in Korea, Sleep Tech companies are actively collaborating with companies in various fields including construction, home appliances, boilers and cosmetics, as well as furniture and bedding companies.

GEOMC recently initiated a joint project with a domestic mattress company, with the goal of developing a smart mattress equipped with brainwave sounds to induce deep sleep.

“As insomnia becomes a common concern for modern individuals, technology that can induce deep sleep and allows self-assessment of sleep quality is now crucial,” an executive from a Sleep Tech company said. “Sleep Tech companies with this technology are receiving calls from large domestic companies as well as small and mid-sized enterprises.”

Asleep, a startup with the world‘s largest amount of artificial intelligence (AI) sleep data, has already nabbed business-to-business (B2B) deals with nine domestic large, medium-sized, and startup companies. The company has ‘Sleep Routine,’ an AI sleep diagnosis solution that uses deep learning on sleep breathing data from over 7,000 individuals globally.

Sleep Routine analyzes sleep quality by measuring breathing sounds during sleep using microphones embedded in smartphones. Utilizing an AI model trained with 22,500 noise samples, Sleep Routine has an accuracy (about 90 percent) that is comparable to sleep polysomnography, even in homes with various noises.

Asleep is collaborating with communication, home appliance, and information technology (IT) companies including SK telecom Co., LG Electronics Inc., and Realize Mobile Communications Corp., a unit of Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp, according to the company.

For SK telecom and Realize Mobile, the partnership involves integrating Asleep’s sleep solution into the respective company’s applications.

The collaboration with LG Electronics aims to develop “smart home appliances” that move in optimized modes and provide customized services according to the customer’s sleep status and patterns, including bedtime, sleep, and waking up.