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[[File:Zeo mobile box image.jpg|right|thumb|500px|The Zeo sleep monitor.]]
The Zeo Sleep Monitor can measure your sleep patterns and enable you to improve your sleep quality. Sleep is a critical part of life, especially for an athlete and many of us do not get enough<ref name="SleepCDC"/>. I've found the Zeo to be an effective tool for improving my sleep, and the best of the sleep monitors, but sadly [http://www.wired.com/business/2013/03/lights-out-for-zeo/ Zeo is out of business]. However, you can still [http://www.amazon.com/Zeo-ZEO301-Sleep-Manager-Pro/dp/B008I20LJ2 buy the Zeo], though it's not clear for how long. The best alternative to the Zeo at the moment is the [[Basis Activity Tracker]]..
=The importance of sleep=
=Alternatives to Zeo=
There are a number of alternatives to the Zeo, but none of them have been evaluated against the gold standard of sleep studies, polysomnography (PSG) and none of them look at brain activity directly in the way the Zeo does. Most of the alternatives use movement to detect if you're awake or asleep. This approach, called Actigraphy, can be good at detecting if you're asleep or not<ref name="SleepActigraphy"/>, but it lacks accuracy with disrupted sleep<ref name="SleepAcit2006"/><ref name="SleepAcit2007"/>. A comparison between Zeo, PSG and Actigraphy showed that Zeo was better at differentiating sleep from wakefulness than Actigraphy. In addition, Actigraphy does not tell you if you're in light sleep, deeply asleep, in REM sleep.
* The best alternative to the Zeo at the moment is the [[Basis Activity Tracker]], which combines movement detection, heart rate, skin temperature and perspiration rate to detect sleep state.
* The cheapest are the simple apps that use a smartphone's accelerometer to measure movement and thus evaluate your sleep. It's not clear how well these apps work, and are likely to be dependent on the type of mattress you have, if you sleep alone or not, and the placement of the phone. On the other hand, they are remarkably cheap.
* The LARK uses a movement sensor that straps to your wrist and connects to a smart phone. This gives far more accuracy than simply relying on a smartphone on your mattress. The price is more expensive than the Zeo, with the LARK Pro costing $159. There is a cheaper version at $99 that does not include the ability to track sleep. More at [http://www.lark.com/].