Meditation app Simple Habit’s founder, Yunha Kim, is launching a new app today called Sleep Reset to help you improve your sleep. The app aims to bring users the same treatment they would otherwise receive in sleep clinics — such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I) — to mobile devices.
Kim said the idea of the app came to her during the pandemic when, like many others, she began experiencing sleep issues.
“I was thinking of different solutions to help me sleep better during the pandemic. Sleeping pills didn’t help, and sleep clinics had waiting lists for up to six months,” she said.
Plus, data from Simple Habit — which has more than 5 million users and more than $12.5 million in funding — helped her formulate the idea. While only 10% of content on that app was related to sleep, it saw more than 70% engagement. So she decided to build a standalone sleep-oriented solution.
The company decided on a no-pill approach for sleep improvement and partnered with experts from the University of Arizona, the University of Minnesota and the Stanford University Sleep Medicine Center to develop its program.
The team has been testing the app for 16 months with thousands of users, and the results are encouraging for them. The firm claimed that test users saw an increment of an average of 88 minutes of sleep. They also needed 52% less time to fall asleep and 48% less time lying awake in the middle of the night.
“Before Sleep Reset, getting personalized strategies for improving sleep required getting diagnosed with a sleep disorder and having to go to a clinic to meet with a doctor. Now, anyone can get access to tools and techniques to improve their sleep health,” said Dr. Michael Grandner, the director of the Sleep and Health Research Program at the University of Arizona, who’s also serving as an advisor to the company.
Sleep Reset will live under the Simple Habit banner and is available to iOS and Android users today. You can try the app for seven days for free, and then you have to pay an introductory price of $75 per month for three months. After three months, you can continue the program with a $75 a month fee. While this is higher than many sleep-related mobile apps, it’s more affordable than going to a sleep clinic in the hopes of achieving similar results.
To use the app, you’ll first need to take a sleep assessment test to determine your sleep score and areas of improvement. Once you sign up for the service, you’ll be assigned a personal sleep coach who will guide you through the process and give you tips to help you sleep better based on your habits.
The company recommends that you go through a 12-week program to see tangible results in your sleep. During that time, you must manually log in your sleep habits and lifestyle changes.
When I asked Kim why the app is not using data from sleep trackers such as Oura, Whoop or even iOS 16’s upcoming detailed sleep tracking, she clarified that there’s an integration with Apple’s Health app, but there are some parameters that users need to remember and manually enter.
The app will track your progress through a sleep score, which comprises quality, timing and efficiency of your sleep. A lot relies on your data input, so you’ll have to be meticulous about putting in your hours.
Sleep Reset currently has six coaches on the team, and it regularly partners with outside sleep coaches to provide services. In the coming months, the company aims to improve the app’s personalization features to provide better suggestions to its users.
A study from the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine published in 2021 noted that the U.S. loses $94.9 billion per year in incremental healthcare for sleeping disorders.
There are many apps that aim to help you sleep better: guided meditation apps like Headspace and Balance and sound-related apps like Endel and Noisli. On the other hand, there are sleep-tracking wearables like Oura, sleep-aiding headphones from Bose and Kokoon, and nap pillows from Casper.
Kim believes that Sleep Reset doesn’t really have a tech competition because it’s trying to carve a different niche in this broader segment. She thinks her battle is with sleeping pills and sleep clinics.
Correction: June 14 8.20 IST: An earlier version of the article said the introductory fee was $75 for three months. The company clarified that the fee is $75 per month for three months in a bundle.
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