Zeo shutting down: export your data!

Is anyone still interested in updates on using disposable electrodes? I’ve posted about them a couple of times (#284; #161); this information is still valid, but I’ve progressed a bit in fine details of technique since then. I’m trying to see just how long I can get; so far I’m up to 18 days with a single set of 3 electrodes from a long-open pack of outdated disposable electrodes, and they’re not (quite) dead yet. Personally I’m happy with disposables, and not having to try to make or acquire headbands; and with this lifetime they’re not at all expensive. Possibly more people “out there” will persevere with Zeos if they know that they work with electrodes that are easily available and inexpensive (if they hear abut it). I don’t come here all that often, but if there’s interest I’ll write up some further details next time (electrode lifetime testing takes a long time). Techniques: Hypafix 5cm tape, Tensive gel (optional, for ~double life), and a moist finger (optional, for a few days longer life).

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Awesome news on this front! I am definitely interested and can help out with some coding if need be. In terms of a backing store for your options, what about having hooks to the end user’s cloud drive, such as Google Drive, LiveDrive, DropBox, or something like that? Then you could point the PC-based windows app to the same data store as the mobile app? The user could have “settings” where they could point to the physical location of their data store in the cloud - maybe the apps could impersonate them or if you wanted to get real fancy you could put hooks in your app so they could allow / permit it to access their data in their cloud drive.

I like the idea of a PC based app as well as a mobile app (different capabilities). I also think giving users a way to “share” their data from their personal data island with other users of the same app or with 3rd party systems would be a great feature. This could be a one-time data transfer or on some sort of scheduled frequency / real-time.

Ultimately, if users had some peace of mind knowing their data a) belonged to them, b) was backed up online, c) wasn’t going to die with a given service, and d) was always available to them forever - I’m guessing more people would be willing to jump onto your system and give it a shot.

Just some thoughts; hope you’re able to make this a reality!

Is anybody know how to open Zeo Mobile to change battery? Mine is too weak and dead by earlier morning.
Where to get Zeo Mobile Update? I see that 0.0.70 version exists, but mine 0.0.56. I checked webarchive, but it don’t have any .exe files.

A negative answer here might be a bit better than no response at all: I’ve searched the Web several times, and never found any information about changing a Zeo transmitter’s battery. Anyone with a dead one can try to work out how to open it, then see what type of battery is fitted and cobble up a replacement. As replacement transmitters aren’t available, it’s unlikely that anyone will risk destroying a working one. I’d expect it’s likely that both the bedside and mobile transmitter will have similar battery arrangements. If your transmitter is quite useless and you don’t want to open it, maybe somebody in this forum in your region would care to try? HTH

I have finally got to a point with my zeo data viewer application where it provides more information and is easier to use than the Java application, so have decided to post it to enable others to use it.

There are additional features I would like to add but it is in a state where it is highly useable. Anyway, I thought it deserved its own thread, so I posted it here.

and the software itself can be downloaded from:

http://www.alienrat.net/software/zeomonitor.html

Continuing the discussion from Zeo Sleep Monitor:

Jane, my assumption is the wear out mechanism is a combination of dirt and the conducting material being worn off the metallicised cloth. To clean, Zeo recommended hand washing the headband and sensor pad (without the pod) with a delicate fabric cleaner, such as Woolite. When asked by a consumer, they also said a rinse in rubbing alcohol should be OK. Zeo’s 90 day replacement policy was based on the anticipated wear of the silver fabric in the sensor pads. I have rinsed mine in an alcohol bath, seemingly without harmful results, but I’m not sure it did any good, either. I never tried washing in fabric cleaner. You might try an alcohol pad wipe to the forehead before donning the headband and/or a wipe of the pads themselves. Lately, I’ve come to think that a little sweatiness might actually improve the sensitivity of the pads.

[quote=“pol098, post:322, topic:561”] I don’t come here all that often, but if there’s interest I’ll write up some further details next time (electrode lifetime testing takes a long time). Techniques: Hypafix 5cm tape, Tensive gel (optional, for ~double life), and a moist finger (optional, for a few days longer life). HTH, pol098
[/quote]

So do you have a link to what you do and where you get this stuff from?

I get the information stuff from all over the place. I posted details in postings to this thread, #322; #284; and the most detailed post (updated a few times), #161. Most of the results are from what Wikipedia decries as “original research”; I’ve seen no reference to anyone else using one set of three disposable electrodes for more than two nights. I have managed to get 20 with special care, and routinely get over 10 nights.

I get the physical stuff from eBay advertisers (Ambu Blue P electrodes) and Amazon (Tensive, Hypafix).

Also a brief summary at

Sorry, probably not clear, I meant a link to a web page or anything, and where you got the physical parts from.
Thanks, will look into it as we have had over a year on the current sensors (although it doesn’t seem to be showing any signs of degrading yet)

I did answer, interpreting “stuff” both as information and materials in separate paragraphs! The thing is that I can’t give you any specific link. I’ve looked at the specification sheets for Ambu electrodes, manuals for nurses on ECG electrodes, an instructables page on third-world disposable electrodes using beer bottle caps, flour, and salt; various articles on ECG electrodes; and so on. I haven’t kept links to many, just picked up little bits of information, like the idea of roughening skin with a towel after washing forehead. Quite a bit of the stuff I say can’t be found anywhere (how to convert Ambu electrodes with the wrong connector, differences between types of surgical tape).

In other words, as far as I know there is NOWHERE on the Web you will find any information relating to Zeo which describes getting more than two nights from a set of electrodes, or how to extend their life, or just about anything on non-Zeo-branded disposable electrodes… Postings in this thread 160 (most detailed), 282, 320, and recent ones, are the only source I know of. There is quite a lot of information in various places on making Zeo-compatible long-life headbands with sensors (using the original Zeo transmitter, for which there is no replacement).

Perhaps I should claim 20 nights as the world record for duration of disposable electrodes with Zeo, beating the previous record of 2? I have no interest in being world champion, but this might provoke others in trying (probably successfully) to beat me!

Some of the links from my notes (unchecked, may not be useful) are:
Specification sheets on Ambu electrodes
Parker Labs instructions on application of Tensive.
Various Amazon and other reviews on Ambu electrodes, Tensive, and Hypafix, and other forum discussions on them.

http://web.archive.org/web/20120107073301/http://www.myzeo.com/sleep/node/594


(reviews and comments have useful detail)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/review/R292QCRZB0WQUC

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Ambu-Blue-Sensor-Electrode-ECG-monitoring-pk-50-/280412575528

I’ll try and answer anything you ask, but that’s pretty much a complete set of links relevant to electrodes from my notes.

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Thanks for all the sensor advice. I decided to start small and wiped the fabric contacts with antiseptic (alcohol) wipes last night. The wipes ended up pretty grubby but I had a worry I was damaging the conductive fabric as much as removing residue! So I was quite pleasantly surprised that the sensor still worked! With the new viewer I can now determine that I did get one drop out last night, of a few minutes, but only one. Before that I’d been regularly getting a few short and an occasional longer drop out per night. Will try the same routine again tonight, see if I can establish whether the sensor is recoverable or at least doesn’t get any worse. I’m still at the point of having two new sealed headbands to use, so I can effectively sacrifice this one if it helps to establish how to get the best performance out of the others!

Jane

Quick update: tried wiping the sensor fabric contacts with an alcohol wipe again last night and the viewer shows me that there were no drop outs in my data at all last night :slight_smile:

Jane

[size=large]
YAY![/size]

Thanks, that’s very useful information. One of the problems with reviving headbands is the risk you’ll make them worse. It would appear that an alcohol wipe helps to remove gunk but doesn’t affect the electroconductive silver. It would be useful, in the fullness of time, to know the ultimate life of the electrodes on headbands - it might be very long if the silver isn’t actually removed/eroded. Maybe when wiping no longer works a liquid alcohol (ethanol, isopropyl, of good purity, to evaporate without a trace) might extend the life? Zeo recommends washing in water (I don’t remember the small print), though alcohol is a better degreaser, I wouldn’t want to experiment with detergent in water. If I’d known this I might have delayed moving to disposable electrodes when headbands stopped being easily available.


An article I hadn’t been aware of (HTH; apologies if it’s old news):
Sleep Breath (2013) 17:747–752
DOI 10.1007/s11325-012-0757-4
Assessment of a wireless headband for automatic sleep scoring
H. Griessenberger& D. P. J. Heib A. B. Kunz K. Hoedlmoser M. Schabus
Received: 16 December 2011 /Revised: 20 June 2012 /Accepted: 17 July 2012 /Published online: 21 September 2012
This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com

Compares Zeo in detail with other methods

Thanks for that article, it may be very handy to send to a doctor who did my wifes last sleep study and completely dismissed looking at any of the zeo data.

That’s new to me, and it doesn’t seem to be listed with the other studies Zeo Inc compiled about Zeos: http://web.archive.org/web/20130515062508/http://www.myzeo.com/sleep/validation

I’m glad that this is new, and of use (it is a respectable scientific evaluation of the Zeo headband system against the standard methods of quantifying sleep). Good luck with convincing the doctor; such an article is difficult to dismiss, though there are other respectable articles.

There are a number of other sources of information that I have assumed everybody knows about; for example I can dig up a link to a series of 4 YouTube videos by Zeo explaining “How Zeo works” if they’re not generally known about.

Best wishes

This posting applies only in reference to people who are found by conventional polysomnograph (PSG) testing (Zeo would probably find the same) to be sleeping reasonably well, but who insist they can’t sleep, or sleep didn’t restore them. They are usually called pseudoinsomniacs, sleep hypochondriacs, subjective insomniacs, or sleeping insomniacs. They are typically, for example, prescribed pills and told to stop watching television in their bedrooms.

An article published in “New Scientist” magazine for 14 May 2014, issue 2969 (in libraries, available online to subscribers on the magazine’s Web site, and findable elsewhere by its Web title “Awake asleep: Insomniac brains that can’t switch off” (e.g.
http://stirling-westrup-tt.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/tt-ns-2969-awake-asleep-insomniac.html, though this doesn’t include the important graphs) describes some recent work. Basically we know sleep is distinguished into several phases, detected largely by brain-wave characteristics. Wakefulness has waves of short wavelength and lower amplitude; restorative deep sleep has much longer waves of larger amplitude (delta waves), and so on. Analysis has involved an expert looking at rolls of PSG output, characterising the phases of sleep, and adding up the time in each.

The new analysis involves nothing more complex that normal mathematical periodical wave analysis (spectrum analysis). On looking closely at the delta waves of pseudoinsomniacs only, the long delta waves can be seen to have bursts of short, lower-amplitude, beta waves superimposed on them, intrusions. Fourier analysis (viewing not amplitude as a function of time, but the frequencies present and their amplitudes) confirms and quantifies this. Their trouble is not that their sleep is insufficient, but when they sleep their brains are not quite switched off. Awake or not, around the clock their brains showed more activity than normal sleepers. They were also found to pick up new tasks more quickly than normal, rested, sleepers.

Going a bit wider, alpha intrusions seem to correlate with many problems unrelated to sleep: chronic pain, chronic fatigue, depression, PTSD, and in the sleep of people with fibromyalgia, which causes chronic pain.

The article goes on to discuss possible explanations, and treatments being tested.

I don’t know enough about Zeo to know if, even in principle, a Zeo with RS232 output could show any of this. It would certainly involve spectrum analysis software (analysis modules are easily available, though).

I hope this is of interest, best wishes.

Interesting.

No the Zeo doesn’t output the actual waveform coming in, it outputs the output of the FFT, showing the levels of various frequency bands. Those levels (and their common names) are:
Delta - 2-4Hz
Theta - 4-8Hz
Alpha - 8-13Hz
Beta - 13-18Hz
Beta - 18-21Hz

Beta sleep spindles - 11-14Hz

However, it would be possible to measure this with that output.

It might be feasible for the more dedicated to plot, say, the ratio of the amplitudes of high-frequency to low-frequency waves during periods characterised as low frequency? Probably with the detail available via RS232, rather than stored data. This would primarily be of interest if several people with different sleep patterns contributed records. Probably problematical, as they’d all need an RS232 computer hookup and an agreed protocol and file standard.

One, not theory, not hypothesis, not speculation, but wild guess: from what I remember of reading on Zeo technical discussions, and I think reviews on Amazon, the Zeo has particular difficulty distinguishing between wakefulness and REM sleep. (I don’t think this applies to me, time logged as awake is about what I expect.) It could be that this applies largely to people with a tendency to pseudoinsomnia, who have bursts of “awake” waves in the middle of their sleep, making it difficult to distinguish?