Zeo shutting down: export your data!

Hi Gary,

I’m sorry it took a little time to reply.

ResMed did acquire some of the Zeo assets including intellectual property. The anonymised sleep data were used to make comparisons with our extensive research on the sleep norms and various meta-analyses of sleep data during development of S+ by ResMed.

We have not reconstituted the Zeo platform. However, we are planning to offer a unique program to former Zeo customers (available in the US initially) so that they can build new data quickly and easily with S+. In the meantime, we love the vision that you and the QS movement have shown and want to do all we can to support healthy sleep.

Best wishes,
Colin.

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Thoughts about releasing the Zeo data? From the sound of it, you have no further use for it now that you’ll be getting additional data from S+ users.

Gary, would it be possible to PM me the contacts for Gary?

I use a resmed CPAP machine, since this is infering sleeping patterns from breathing, I want to see if they could build some if into their CPAP machines which measure the resperiation directly.

Thanks

Ted Wilson

you can also send it to my yahoo email:
theodore_a_wilson@yahoo.com

I also understand if this is not possible.

Thanks

I think you can buy this battery here:

http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Original-PP312122AB-3-7V-Li-polymer-Rechargeable-Battery/318150_2032438855.html

US $7.99 + $5.26 shipping

Total: $13.25

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I made an interesting discovery of possible interest to Zeo Mobile users. Upgrading to iOS 8.1 on my iPad 3 brought back “Sleep History” functionality on the Zeo iOS app. Tapping Sleep History crashed the app in iOS7, but on my device the histograms are back in iOS8! I had prepared myself to lose all functionality, so this was a happy surprise.

I have a similar problem with 3D Vision glasses, and a dead battery. These are LiPo batteries as well.

Based on my reading and understanding of batteries (EE background, not totally guessing. :s) you should be able to replace the LiI/Po battery there with something used for RC planes. All the batteries are very similar, the 3.7V is the key.

Do not under any circumstances replace the battery with a coin-cell or anything not LiI/Po because there is a charging circuit there that will interact badly with non-chargeable batteries. NiCd, NiMH are the wrong voltage and will not work.

It’s possible battery itself has a circuit board, that’s how the 3D Vision glasses work. But your description of the tabs being soldered to the board itself suggest that it’s a stock LiI battery, and that the overvoltage protection is provided by the headband circuitry. This is what I would expect design-wise.

Here is a post regarding battery replacement in the glasses, and has some detail about sourcing the LiI battery.

http://3dvision-blog.com/8323-again-about-replacing-adead-battery-in-3d-vision-glasses/

I think Martinus nailed it with that link above. You should be able to just solder a new one on the board.

http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Original-PP312122AB-3-7V-Li-polymer-Rechargeable-Battery/318150_2032438855.html

In terms of soldering in a new battery, that is going to be very easy for someone with a little experience. Without experience, you’d be better off to find a local tech-shop of some form, or DIY group, or MakerFaire type people who can do this in their sleep.

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A useful contribution by @bo3bber, above. In the last few pages of this thread overall in we seem to have gone from no information at all, to quite good information on replacement of the Zeo transmitter battery when it fails, with information from @Tolerant on opening the device, and a likely source of batteries from @Martinus. The particular tiny batteries available from the radio-controlled model supplier in China (linked from the URL that bo3bber gives) are a bit too thick for the Zeo, at 5mm. They had a huge range of batteries, but, from a quick glance, nothing suitable. The battery topic here starts at post #362. Unless I’ve missed something, it’s probably the only information available on the topic.

Maybe one of the first posts could say that there is a lot of information on battery replacement starting with the post mentioned above?

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BTW, based on my research, the LiI batteries like these have a working life of about 5 years. That’s whether they are used or not. They don’t have a better shelf life than about 5 years. Apparently they start to degrade chemically as soon as they are made.

So, that means that all the batteries in headbands will die at some point, even if left on the charger. Or even if disconnected. And that if you find a replacement, try to make sure it’s not been sitting on a shelf, or get an idea of date of manufacture.

To contradict my earlier statement- you could use a coin cell Lithium battery as a replacement, but you’d have to make an on/off switch and never put it on the charger. As long as you can get 3.7 Volts the head band should work. I think you would be better off working with the correct chemistry though.

As a former Zeo user, I recently got an email from Resmed offering a discount on the S+. I’m really curious to see how these compare. Are there any current Zeo users out there who have used the S+ in addition to the Zeo? I’d love to see some feedback on whether the data returned by each device matches.

Any data points yet?

I’ve been using the Zeo Mobile for a few months, and recently purchased a Resmed S+. It’s taken me ~3 weeks to fine tune its position such that my wife’s movement doesn’t interfere, but I think it almost there now… I have done a couple of comparison tests with the Zeo and it seems to roughly match up but not as well as I’d expect. However I dont know how much of the discrepancy is due to the S+ not being positioned properly!

I’ll gather some more data over the Christmas break and post it here.

Some general comments on the S+ from my experience so far:
PROS:

  • Great user experience, flawless Bluetooth connectivity (Android phone)
  • Microwave sensor is very impressive for a consumer device
  • Resmed have obviously put a lot of work into it

CONS:

  • Incredibly difficult to find ‘just the right’ positioning of the pod. I haven’t done a great deal to isolate the root cause of the issue, but it consistently thinks I’m awake for a total of ~1hr during the night when the Zeo (and my memory) says otherwise
  • Setup and troubleshooting documentation from Resmed is very poor. They provide a ‘not to scale’ diagram of the ideal setup which is of little help, and the help section regarding setup issues is very scarce. In their defense I did receive a couple of good tips after contacting customer support, and they did offer to help fine tune setup if I send photos etc. My suggestion would be: provide detailed diagrams of setup requirements, a detailed troubleshooting guide, and some live feedback to the user as to the quality of the signal. The most frustrating thing is that you have to wait until the NEXT DAY to figure out how the change in setup affected sleep detection. Hence the incredibly cumbersome fine tuning process…
  • No access to any raw data beyond the hypnogram and sleep stage breakdown (and temperature/light level)

Seems like a lot of cons, but really I’m quite happy with the S+. It has a lot of potential, so hopefully some of these issues can be fixed with firmware updates.

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If it is that hard to setup the S+ initially, I wonder if it is also difficult to keep it set up. Would some little variation cause you to set up over again? Is the set up positional only, or is there some sort of tuning also?

Thanks,

Steve

Yep, it’s a bit of a nightmare to keep it in just the right spot. Especially if you have a curious dog/cat!

Setup is positional only, absolutely no control over anything else.

After looking into this issue further, I’m pretty confident that the main problem is that the S+ sleep staging algorithm appears to be designed specifically for people with perfectly ‘normal’ sleep. After filming myself sleep and correlating video footage with S+ and Zeo data, it seems that I move around quite a bit while asleep. No violent kicks or anything, just gradual arm/leg movements & rolling over etc. The S+ seems to classify REM sleep based on a) variable breathing intensity/frequency and b) NO movement. Since I tend to have ‘a’ but not always ‘b’ during REM, the algorithm’s next best guess is AWAKE.

This issue would be easily resolved if they had an adjustment for movement sensitivity, or even a simple 1-2 night calibration period. I suspect the reason that Resmed hasn’t done any of this and wont/cant answer tech support questions beyond what is listed in the FAQ is that they have merely repackaged existing technology, including most if not all of the firmware & backend sleep staging algorithm. I may be wrong of course, but it certainly seems this way after dealing with tech support.

Hoping someone can please help with a couple questions…

1.) Is there currently any way to recover my old data that might still be on the zeo?

and

2.) Assuming I follow the instructions for updating the firmware, is there anyway to view the data in any kind of meaningful way? Can I view it as a chart (like the display on the front of the zeo), or will it just be a string of nonsensical data?

Thanks!

@qsusername, see @woodinblack’s viewer app.

Thanks that tool looks great! And it sounds like it works with encrypted data (can anyone confirm)? Glad I didn’t update the firmware yet!

Even though I have not personally used it on encrypted data, I am certain it does.

Yup I was able to recover old data from years ago (no new firmware needed)!

I’m going in to see a sleep specialist in a couple weeks, this data will be useful!

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Glad you got your data!

Hello Gary,
I was wondering if you ever got a reply to your questions?

Lori

There’s a common myth, and it is a false myth, that Li-ion (and LiPo, essentially the same) rechargeable batteries die in about the same time whether or not used. THIS IS NOT TRUE; there are detailed discussions about this, and I also have personal experience of very long life (at least 10 years) of Li-ion batteries used little (GPS used occasionally) or not at all (spares). The one thing that probably is true is that if a battery is left unused, in a discharged state, for long enough for it to self-discharge below a certain critical point, the protection circuitry may prevent it from ever charging again. In this case possibly rejuvenation will work (as the battery isn’t otherwise degraded), but I have no experience or knowledge.

The Zeo battery, in particular, can’t be left in a safely charged state (without disassembly), as it transmits until it discharges. I have two transmitters, and alternate them every few months to protect against the voltage dropping below the threshold.

Source on this is the Wikipedia Talk page (not the article) on Lithium-ion battery. Search for “batteryuniversity” - there are several sections on the page discussing this, with very useful information.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Lithium-ion_battery

[quote=“bo3bber, post:391, topic:561”]
To contradict my earlier statement- you could use a coin cell Lithium battery as a replacement … [/quote]
Just a small point: you can get rechargeable lithium batteries in the coin formats (any xx2032 is the same size as CR 2032; some of the "xx"s are rechargeable). Not particularity useful here, but I have replaced a dead rechargeable of odd size with a 2032-size rechargeable in a holder.

HTH