When you sleep well at night you feel happier, energized and more productive the next day. But if your sleep takes a nose-dive it can affect your mood, energy levels and overall wellbeing.
So if you’re dealing with sub-par slumber and want to know how to sleep better, there are some key gadgets and apps that can help. Whether that’s helping to reduce your snoring, to fall asleep faster, or to block out external sounds that keep waking you up.
Remember though, even the best sleep gadgets are no substitute for expert help, so if you’re concerned about any aspect of your slumber, speak to your doctor or a sleep specialist as they are qualified to help you.
Sleep tech for snorers: Smart Nora
Snoring is a common sleep problem that affects roughly 90 million Americans and around 15 million Brits , with men more likely to snore than women. According to the British Snoring Association, snoring is a sound made by ‘vibrations of the soft palate and other tissues of the mouth, nose and throat,’ and is ‘caused by a partial blockage of the upper airway’.
There are plenty of products that claim to reduce snoring, and these range from basic nasal strips to wedge pillows that keep you off your back during sleep (the worst position for snorers).
One of the most widely known snoring devices is the Smart Nora, a wire-free system that turns your ordinary bed pillow into an anti-snore pillow. There are three parts to it: a pebble-shaped device that sits on your bedside table, listening for the early signs of snoring; a pillow insert that goes inside your pillow, inflating and deflating as needed; and a base unit that silently pumps air into the pillow insert.
When the Smart Nora hears those early sounds of snoring, the pebble (the command centre) tells the base unit to pump air into the insert, causing your own pillow to gently rise and tilt your head forward. According to Smart Nora, ‘This movement stimulates the throat muscles, allowing for natural breathing to resume.’
Research conducted by SleepScoreLabs (based on over 500 nights of collected data) shows that snorers reported a 20% increase in their ability to sleep through the night. Crucially for bed sharers, their partners experienced a 30% reduction in sleep disruption caused by snoring.
Want to try the device for yourself? It’s priced from $359 at Smart Nora (about £280) and comes with a 30-night money back guarantee.
Sleep tech for light sleepers: Amazfit Zenbuds
There’s nothing worse than finally drifting off to sleep, only to be woken by the sound of a car alarm, your neighbour slamming their front door, or birds chirping at the crack of dawn. Light sleepers wake up at the slightest sound, leading to broken shut-eye and a rolling sleep debt.
What’s the solution? If you’ve tried normal earplugs but found them too uncomfortable or not powerful enough to block out external noises, then it’s time for something a little more heavy duty. Step forward Amazfit Zenbuds , our top pick of the best sleep earplugs around.
We rated these earplugs a solid 4.5 out of 5 stars, praising their ability to mask sleep-disturbing sounds such as snoring, traffic and noisy neighbours.
The Amazfit Zenbuds are small, light and comfy to wear, even for side sleepers, and while you can’t stream your own music through them, they do play some soothing sleep sounds (available via the Amazfit app) to mask noises further and help you drift off.
They also handle some sleep tracker duties, and don’t charge the earth for the privilege either. You can pick them up for $149.99 / £119 at Amazon .
Sleep tech for insomniacs: Calm sleep app
Insomnia is a tricky issue and comes in many different forms . If you have trouble falling asleep, experts refer to this as sleep onset insomnia. Wake up frequently in the night and take ages to fall back asleep? This is known as sleep maintenance insomnia.
Treatment depends on your insomnia and how acute or chronic it is, but many sleep specialists agree that the more relaxed you are going to bed, and the calmer your Autonomic Nervous System , the better your chances of falling asleep.
There are plenty of free rhythmic breathing techniques you can use to help you relax for sleep. These include the Military Sleep Method and the 4 7 8 Sleep Method, but if you respond better to guided sleep meditations you’ll love the Calm sleep app . It’s packed with relaxing head to toe body scans, deep sleep meditations and bedtime stories for adults.
In our Calm app review , we explain how it places a big focus on mental wellness, which has a direct impact on how well you sleep at night. Try it for yourself with a free seven-day trial at Calm . A year’s subscription is priced at $69.99 / £28.99 per year, or $399.99 / £299.99 for life, and Calm is available for both iOS and Android .
Sleep tech for frequent wakers: Dodow
Remember what we said above about sleep maintenance insomnia? This could be used to describe frequent waking, but it depends on the reason why you keep waking up. If it’s because of noise, check out the Amazfit Zenbuds above. If it’s because you’re too hot, open a window then check out the last gadget below. Frequent weeing at night is called Nocturia and is a separate issue.
So what we’re dealing with now is frequent waking due to another cause, such as stress or anxiety. While the Calm app can definitely help you here too, a better sleep device for your needs is the Dodow, a disc-shaped gadget that focuses on getting you to relax.
It’s designed to help insomniacs fall asleep in eight minutes, and is inspired by various studies of an emotion management tool called cardiac coherence. This tool, by the way, is used by fighter jet pilots to calm and rebalance their Autonomic Nervous System.
Once activated, the Dodow projects a dim blue light onto your ceiling. Your job is to then breathe in time with the light, inhaling when it expands and exhaling with it detracts. It encourages you to breathe six times per minute, in a similar way to pranayama breathing (deep yogic breathing). The upshot? To help you produce that all-important relaxation response so that, with regular practice, you begin falling asleep easier and faster.
It’s especially good for helping you to get back to sleep quickly if you wake up in the middle of the night. Use it before your brain kicks into gear and starts running you through your next day’s to-do list. The Dodow is available from Amazon priced $59 / £49.90 .
Sleep tech for hot sleepers: Simba Hybrid Duvet
Feeling too hot to sleep isn’t just a summer problem - for people with hot flashes, such as during menopause, pregnancy and their period - and for people with night sweats, hot sleeping is a one-way ticket to disrupted sleep.
If you find yourself waking up constantly because you’re too warm, so you throw off the covers one minute, then you’re too cold so you pull them back on the next, you might benefit with a temperature-regulating duvet. And few are more high-tech than the Simba Hybrid Duvet, designed with space-inspired Stratos Active fabric technology to dissipate heat.
It costs from £139 at Simba (about $180), and uses astronaut-esque phase change material to absorb then store heat, taking it away from you when you’re hot, then releasing it when you get cold. Who said you can’t have the best of both worlds?
Read more:
This article is part of TechRadar's Sleep Awareness Week 2022 (running from Sunday 13 to Saturday 19 March), a week-long celebration of all things slumber. We'll be bringing you proven techniques and tips to help you sleep better, and have rounded-up all the top-rated tech to transform your sleep.
Your SMB may be targeted by cyberattacks - are you ready?
Cybersecurity is making headlines, but it’s not always large, multinational corporations in the news.
Small-medium businesses (SMBs) are often more vulnerable to cyberattacks, due in large part to limited IT resources in the face of ongoing risks. As your company grows, you'll need more than just antivirus and firewall software to keep customer and employee data safe.
If you aren’t sure where to start, or are worried about what services you need, Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company, can help. With its robust networking portfolio tailor-made for SMBs. Aruba is the perfect partner to help you stay safe as your business succeeds and grows.
Gateways are the first point of defense, scanning incoming and outgoing traffic to keep your business, employees, and customers safe without slowing down your network.
The Aruba 9000 Series Gateways provide uniform network security and resiliency for thousands of users across multiple sites. Built-in features like intrusion detection and prevention, unified policy enforcement firewall and web content filtering provide high-level security across your business.
For scalable wireless defense, businesses need access points that offer effective and reliable network connections alongside state-of-the-art security protection. The Aruba 500 series APs for SMBs support the latest wave in Wi-Fi innovation, improving the reliability, scalability, and quality of business networks across office and other workspaces.
Aruba access points protect critical business functions through AirMatch and ClientMatch, which address Wi-Fi gaps, offer stronger password security with WPA3 encryption, and prevent unauthenticated devices from accessing the network.
Wired networks are a critical backbone of high-performing networks, delivering fast and comprehensive corner-to-corner coverage.
The Aruba CX 6100 Switch Series offers a reliable and easy way to stay online as you grow. Providing high-speed uplinks and system switching capacity of up to 176 Gbps, these switches can be deployed as your business expands, supporting an increase in high-bandwidth and interconnected devices such as surveillance cameras.
But this expansion doesn't mean keeping your network safe has to be more complex. Aruba’s tailored solutions for SMB security features mitigate network threats and make setting up effective management policies and network automation a breeze.
It’s never been tougher to be an SMB, but when it comes to security and connectivity, you can always depend on industry-leading network solutions providers such as Aruba. So if your business needs a boosted security stack to stay safe and protected, it’s time to make sure you have the right tools to succeed.
Find out more on Aruba's offerings here or download a free business playbook to get started. If you’re interestd in powering business growth with Wi-Fi technology, register for Aruba’s upcoming webinar on Wednesday, April 6, 2022.
WWDC 2022 announced - what we expect to see from Apple's event
Apple has announced its developer conference for June 6, where it's expected to announce iOS 16, macOS 13, and more for its iPhone , iPad , Watch , and Mac products.
The keynote conference where these updates will most likely be announced will also most likely be on June 6, which we'll be covering to give you all the updates as they arrive.
Similar to the last two years, WWDC will be going remote for the first week of June, but there are sure to be some surprises in store for both users and developers.
Unlike Google , Apple moved its WWDC conference to be a fully online event in 2020 due to the pandemic, rather than canceling it. Some were hoping to see a mix, similar to this year's Google IO of remote and in-person events, but Apple is understandably playing it safe for 2022.
We suspect Apple's CEO Tim Cook will kick off the keynote at 9AM / 6PM GMT on June 6 as before, which we expect will be free to stream.
We won't know officially until the June 6 keynote what Apple intends to show off, but that's not stopping us from contemplating what we hope and expect to see from the company. Below, we'll predict Apple's software and hardware lineup for WWDC 2022, and explain how the virtual event will work.
Cut to the chase
What are the WWDC 2022 dates?
Apple revealed that its developer conference would take place from Monday, June 6 through Friday, June 10. Apple regularly schedules its annual five-day conference for June, so it wasn't a surprise to expect to see WWDC around this time again.
Is WWDC 2022 online-only?
Apple normally holds WWDC and its subsequent developer sessions across the week in physical gatherings at the San Jose Convention Center in California, where COVID-19 restrictions on large events are slowly being lifted across the country.
But with WWDC 2021 repeating the same plan as 2020, many had assumed that WWDC 2022 would follow in the same vein. This has turned out to be true, as you will be able to attend sessions and watch the keynote remotely.
How WWDC 2022 will work
In previous years, you could buy a pass to attend Apple's keynote on Monday, alongside being able to attend developer sessions, one-on-one demos with Apple engineers, and other events for professionals or hobbyists arranged by Apple enthusiasts around the event.
This year, most of those events look to be virtual and free again, with Apple announcing more details as the event gets closer, most likely through its WWDC app.
Some WWDC 2022 sessions will be free to all and rewatchable on-demand, as in previous years. But there will be other events that will be in person, and if you're there, will most likely require you to reserve a slot due to its popularity.
What to expect at WWDC 2022
Based on Apple's annual product and software calendar, plus all the leaks and rumors we've heard about, we have a general idea of what Tim Cook, Craig Federighi, and other Apple execs will discuss during the WWDC 2022 keynote on June 6. Here are the highlights:
iOS 16
Apple will almost certainly be introducing iOS 16 at WWDC, the next iteration of what powers the iPhone. Usually, a preview for developers is released the same day as it's made official, with a public beta for you to try a month later.
While we've spoken of our hopes to see some better customization options and a dedicated app to manage our AirTags , AirPods , and other peripherals, it seems like 2022 could be a maintenance year for iOS.
Cleaning up some corners of the software to make it leaner and faster would be a great angle for iOS 16, especially with rumors swirling about different designs that the iPhone 14 Pro could be showcasing soon.
macOS 13
Every year since 2012, Apple has announced a new version of the software that powers its Macs, and we expect the same for WWDC.
macOS 13 will be the next version, with another name to match the trend of naming previous versions after Californian landmarks. Our money is on 'Mammoth' for this year's version, especially as Apple trademarked the name, alongside Monterey at the start of 2021.
macOS gets the short straw in features compared to iOS, as it usually plays catchup - dark mode and a new look arrived in macOS Big Sur , one year after iOS gained these. Shortcuts also arrived in 2021 , while it's been in iOS since 2019.
We expect the same to occur here, with widgets hopefully moving out of a sidebar, and onto your Mac desktop instead, alongside a hope for the fantastic Weather app from iOS 15 to see an appearance on macOS 13 as well.
'M2' Apple Silicon
Users were caught off-guard at Apple's March event, where another M1 variant was announced, the M1 Ultra, which is available to be used in its Mac Studio.
But WWDC 2020 was when Apple announced the move from Intel chips to Apple Silicon, and with the company making sure to mention in March that the M1 Ultra was the last chip of M1, the M2 looks all but certain to appear.
Expect the M2 chip to be more optimized compared to the M1, with a focus on better battery life and more cores for its GPU.
There are rumors that we could see it appear on a redesigned MacBook Air that could mirror the 2021 iMac , but whether we will also see this laptop at WWDC remains to be seen.
Less likely: Apple VR Headset and iCar
As WWDC is focused on developers, we don't expect to see new hardware appearing. Rather, we do see a better chance of the software for its rumored VR/AR headset to be showcased in some way, instead.
We've spoken of a rumored ' rOS ' before that could power this wearable, and to demo what it's capable of for developers, before it's available to customers, could be a good opportunity to load up its App Store before it's available to buy.
Apple's car project has been one of its longest-running rumors in recent memory, allegedly called 'Project Titan' by the company.
There's still next to nothing that's leaked out, but Apple is at least investing millions into an automobile. It still feels too early for Apple to publicly acknowledge this project for 2022 - expect to hear something towards the end of the decade instead.
