Sleep aid app Pzizz now available for Android

The popular "anti-insomnia" and sleep regulation app Pzizz is now available on the Android platform. Buy it here, watch a screencast here.

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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Mantissa128

As soon as they mentioned NLP, I was outta there.

For the last three years I’ve used a dawn light simulator every day and a SAD light during the dark days in the Northern Hemisphere – I sleep great now and don’t have those dreadful, half-asleep moving-through-molassess mornings anymore.

Whatever floats yer boat, I guess.
berniebentablo

I use the iHome+Sleep app… which is free :
http://www.ihomeaudio.com/discover/apps/ihome_sleep/

You can choose any mp3 to sleep to or a radio station via their radio app (2 bucks). Customizable for how long you want the music to play, multiple alarms, stats, reminders, snooze, weather and some more stuff.

It doesn’t come with voices or sounds, but there are plenty of free sleep related mp3s out there you could download for free and use.
Anonymous

I use Boodler myself. Open-Source, and I’ve been able to hack on it to tune it to other uses.

If you want the super-cheap version, just play this quietly in the room:
/usr/bin/play -q -n synth brown band -n 1200 200 tremolo 0.05 80
Rich

I think mine does a better job – and it blasts you in the face And Mitch Altman was the inspiration. :)
http://thenewfreedom.net/adose/
Anonymous

I imagine their QA department is a bunch of people sleeping all day.
John Carney

Ummm. “neuro-linguistic programming”??? In an auto-generated ambient soundtrack??? I call bullshit. This is right up there with holograms in wrist bands.
g0d5m15t4k3

They make an App for … sleeping? I am glad I am not on this android/iphone bandwagon. I just don’t get it. Next, an app for peeing!
- Xeni Jardin
  
  Don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it.
  - g0d5m15t4k3
    
    I guess I will never be able to knock it then. I don’t have enough money to try such a thing. Judging from the other comments this seems to be something you listen to that makes you sleep better/faster? I take 2-3 powernaps a day. I guess I just have refined the ability to meditate and sleep pretty much anywhere. Including under my desk at work. Which I just got done sleeping there literally moments ago.
Anonymous

Almost fell asleep watching the video … *yawn*
mausium

@Xeni: Right, but what makes this any different than the “sleep hypnosis” disks that were all the rage in the 90s? I see that it was a paid feature in Health&Fitness and FHM, but I don’t see any reason why it should work.
axlrosen

Looking at their web site, I see lots of great claims, and absolutely zero evidence of effectiveness.
Anonymous

Personally, I like snoozing to my music collection slowed 10x.
ChickenDelicious

I have chronic sleep issues, and I’ve used Pzizz for over a year to help me take short naps. I don’t know if their technology really helps or if it’s more of a placebo effect (i.e. I think it helps me sleep, therefore I sleep), but I’ve found it to be really effective. The first time I tried it, I found the audio to be a little annoying, more of a distraction than a sleep aid. But by the 3rd or 4th try, I found myself quickly dozing off and waking up at the end of the track. Now, once the track starts, I’m out like a light in two minutes, tops. The nap trakcs have an alarm at the end to wake you up.

YMMV, of course. I found the “sleep” tracks (as opposed to the “nap” tracks) to be comepletely useless… something about the sounds they used just weren’t soothing.
g0d5m15t4k3

For the record, I am at work and can’t view videos. So I only have comments to go by.
devophill

My “nap app” is Brian Eno Radio via Pandora. And an alarm. Free!
Anonymous

This is worth a read:

http://www.wired.com/software/softwarereviews/news/2007/07/sleepsoftware

A routine seems to be far superior to any kind of sleep aid like this, getting yourself ready for bed each night in a predictable way helps greatly.
mausium

Would anyone like to invest in my App to keep bears away?

I call it Grzizz.
- Anonymous
  
  If you could reverse the effect and draw in bears and drive twinks away I’d be interested.
  - mausium
    
    Hah! I live in Seattle. No shortage of bears (or twinks) here.
    
    @John Carney: Christ, I had no idea that woo-woo was THAT bad.
Kosmoid

If this app is so effective with the medical claims they are making, wouldn’t a randomized clinical trial by an independent lab confirm this?

Regarding “Don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it,” the null hypothesis for evaluating a medical treatment is that it has no greater effect than a placebo until it can show statistical significance using a valid method.
- mausium
  
  I joke, but it does bother me that boingboing is promoting snake oil, no matter what dazzling technological platform it’s presented on.
microcars

Value of package $145.00
Yours TODAY for $89.99

Who placed the value on it? Was it ever for sale for $145.00 ?
HotNachos

Pity their website is completely unreadable on my Android phone.
Anonymous

I’ve used binaural beats to help sleep in the past…I’m assuming that’s basically what this is. I’ve never paid for them though…why bother when you can do the same with with Audacity in a couple minutes? Anyway, I’ve found them rather helpful. I always figured at the very least it was helpful the same way white noise is helpful…though personally, white noise always makes it _harder_ for me to sleep. But binaural beats give you something to focus on to help clear your mind. Similar to some basic meditation techniques really, except you focus on the sound rather than breathing or a sensations or whatever.
- mausium
  
  Right, I’m sure that’s the most likely. There are plenty of free and sub-$10, certainly not approaching $90 apps that do the same.
  
  If the most you can offer is “watch the video” and “look at these personal anecdotes” and not any actual text to support a product, I’m going to assume that it’s like copper “magnetic” bracelets and any other health-based product not based in the realm of science.
HotNachos

I have sleep problems & I listen to Melvyn Bragg’s In Our Time podcast as a sleep aid. I often enjoy the show but something about the accents + calm pedantry knocks me out every time, without fail.
Anonymous

Why bother? I just got a herd of sheep that I bring into the bedroom when I need to go to sleep. Plus I never have to mow the lawn anymore. It’s perfect.
dalesd

No thanks, I’ll pzass.