NEW YORK, May 22 (Xinhua) -- An AI-based wearable sleep tracking device invented by a company based in Louisiana, the United States, has been launched in China in a bid to grab a share of the country's billions-dollar sleep-related market.
The Lifetide Biofeedback has received "very positive response" from associations and enterprises in the sleep industry in and outside of China since the smart home sleep management device made its international debut at the 2018 China International Sleeping Technology Expo in Beijing in March, said Xiao Gang, president of the Lifetide Heath System LLC, registered in the southeastern U.S. state, in an interview with Xinhua.
"With it, you no longer have to spend a night at a sleep lab hooked up to devices such as electroencephalography (EEG) machines. You can easily and conveniently track your entire night's sleep at home," said Xiao, "The device will benefit millions of Chinese who have sleep problems. Sleep pattern can reveal a lot about various health problems."
"The device is very useful for physicians to monitor their patients sleep data at real time during the treatment phase and it is also very significant in facilitating our deeper understanding of sleep which is essential to maintain our physical health," said Xiao, a graduate of Biology Medical Science Engineering of Zhejiang University, who moved to the United States in 2001.
"Armed with the latest biomedical engineering, Internet, cloud technology and artificial intelligence algorithms, the wearable device is capable of screening a user's sleep pattern and sleep quality in a natural sleep environment. As a result, the evaluation of sleep based on body signals is more reliable than that done at a sleep lab," Xiao said.
The Lifetide Biofeedback that weighs only 19 grams can monitor user's heart rate, blood oxygen saturation, perfusion index, toss and turn as well as snoring, apnea and sleep talking during sleep.
With user's consent, the device transmits sleep data 20 times per second for eight hours uninterrupted to designated secure cloud database for a peers-reviewed report on his/her sleep patterns, sleep quality and potential health problems.
China's market scale of the "sleep industry" has already surpassed 120 billion yuan (about 19 billion U.S. dollars), with strong growth momentum, according to the China Sleep Research Society.
