Zeo shutting down: export your data!

Hi Mary,

Not sure about mobile unit (I have the bedside version), however answers to the following questions may help get your problem resolved by the community. I am assuming you captured a night of data and are trying to sync with your phone. Have you reviewed the manual for pairing procedure? Was the headband electronics kept charged during your 8 month hiatus (wondering if something reset during the 8 months)? Are there special steps required to pair with a new headband beyond just pairing with an existing one? Does the headband seem to hold a battery charge over night? Is the headband clean (the data degrades as the headband gets dirty. I believe you can unsnap the electronics and gently wash and dry it.)? Is you phone IOS or Android? Are other Bluetooth devices working with the phone? Do you have a laptop or desktop that could be used to look for the bluetooth signal from the headband? If you delete the app (assuming you do not want the old data) and then reinstall, will it pair with the headband. Do you have other devices/phones you could try pairing the headband to?

Amazon sells a mobile headband that uses an adhesive replacement sensor. It should get you a months worth of data. I purchased one for my bedside unit, but I still have life on my existing headband. I also looked at the DIY link and it looked a bit complicated for what I want. Hopefully the demand for replacements will create a new source for headbands.

eBay seems to have a thriving resale market on Zeo devices if you need to get a replacement system.

Hope this helps.


Hi Frederic,

Thank you for providing the source code. Not sure where I am looking for the archive. Can you provide a URL.

Thank you.

Hi Krisp,

Mattel Toys has been offering a MindFLex toy for several years, where you out concentrate your opponent (based on brain waves) to win. At less then $100 I was blown away. The NeuroSky Mindwave uses the same electronics and is more flexible. I used it to evaluate meditation approaches. Their mind control game selection is somewhat limited. I have not worked out the details of direct data collection from the unit. When I get back to it I will start a QS thread on my results.

The Mindwave headset is problematic for sleep measurements hence my purchase of a ZEO.

Enjoy

This thread is wandering with the Mindwave discussion but it’s wandering in a direction that is useful in its own right. I’ll keep an eye on it, and if there’s interest in continuing this subthread I’ll move it to its own spot…

Thanks for your reply! I think my headband was just not fully charged so maybe not sending out a strong enough bluetooth signal (I do have zeo mobile and was syncing with my iPhone) I wasn’t even able to record a night - or even start tracking for that matter. But I tried agin this morning and I’m at least able to start tracking.

So I guess my only issue now is a replacement headband. Mine is working for now so we’ll see how it goes.

I’m going to get a fitbit soon anyway, it’s back ordered on amazon. That will give me some sleep data although not the detailed info on sleep stages like zeo. But how many devices can I wear:)

I think we should start a new thread, I would even suggest a new broad category of “Mind Mapping/Control.” This would include hardware and app concerns and well as theoretical concerns. Or perhaps just a category “Mind” which would go with the previous related categories of Mood and Sleep. I have some things I would like to post in this category so it would be cool to see something like this happen soon. I don’t see the logical place to have the conversation I am interested in at this point. What do you think?

I’ve started a thread called “Mind” (open discussion) for anything related to general EEG, Neurosky topics, etc. I didn’t move any posts because it would interrupt the flow here, but feel free to take the discussion there anywhere you like.

Thanks, conversation continued there.

Hi,

My name is Mike. I would like to add to this discussion on a few topics. The first is one of the reasons that Zeo, Inc. may have gone out of business. First off, I think that they limited themselves on multiple fronts. Forgive me if this seems disjointed in reading. I am without a doubt not a professional writer.

  1. From what I could see as a user of this product there were a few things just in-house that they could have done to not only extend the market viability of their product, but would have helped the product users more than any other of the products on the market.
    a. The thing that those of us who truly enjoy using data to find out new things about ourselves is the data. Being able to extract the raw data with the needed references to use the data correctly would have done them and us better.
    b. Data input to the webpage could have been easier for some aspects of it. An easy way to put in reasons for waking up. As an example within the mobile app being able to do a quick set of taps to say “getting up to use the rest room, noise, temp, dreams, etc.” This way we would not have to try to remember doing anything, but just taping these in and a time stamp with data would be added. From there we could have accessed the webpage to fill in and expand that data.
    c. The analyzing of this data could have included better ways to find patterns within the data. Say a noise that wakes you up at about the same time every or every couple of nights. It could either be any number of things that would help you to improve the sleeping environment or maybe find problems with yourself.
    d. There are times in our lives when we know that we can get our needed 7-9 hours of sleep. That being the case why did they not add a special alarm that would wake you after you got that sleep?
    e. Reminders – some of us would have enjoyed a reminder option for things like winding down, getting ready for bed, etc.

  2. Now for some ideas from outside the company. These do not need to be incorporated into the device itself, but if the data can be imported and/or Zeo data exported to these areas then you could do some good things with it. What would be needed would be working with the users and the suppliers in refining the tagging and transfer of the data to increase its usefulness.
    a. This article and others like it (“Recent Developments in Home Sleep-Monitoring Devices”) provide some really good ideas for using other website, apps, and equipment to use in conjunction with each other to improve our understanding with ourselves and to improve the data about our sleep. With these and the raw tagged data from them, others and we could better quantify the data from each data input type.
    b. This idea and application is just one aspect of what could be done in another app and website that could be incorporated into the data used to get better sleep.

  3. Ideas for and improving their site and products could have used ideas from other company’s products without patent steeling.
    a. Take the Lark; it uses accelerometers along with actigraphy logarithms to get similar results. These are small and could have been added to the Zeo without really increasing its size and weight much. This would help show how much the user tossed and turned while sleeping. This data could also have added to finding a more realistic idea of how well you slept.
    b. Keeping in mind that this is a monitor with a decent range to it could also have been used to monitor family members. The monitoring would not just have to be for sleep quality, but for safety reason to boot. As an example, let us say you have a child, that sleep walks. With accelerometers installed, you could be alerted if the child was in an upright position and moving about while the brain activity was still saying they were asleep. Then again, I do not know if this is possible. I can just throwing ideas out there.

  4. Getting ideas from other sources. Yes, they had a suggestion page, but after combing the internet on a search for ways to keep using my device and data I found many places for both complaints and suggestions. Magazine reviews, the places that sell the Zeo also have reviews on the device on their websites. Then there are forums like this along with medical and college researchers. In addition, in some cases the Government has done some things with it. With all these areas to look ideas about what can be done and in some cases how.

  5.       There are also another set of sensors that could be used to help. An example is environmental sensors. Take http://cubesensors.com/ for finding more data to added to the picture to find external things that could be interfering with your sleep.
    

Note: Keeping in mind this also applies in many ways to the other company’s that provide the devices we use.


I am working on getting a few of these devices and apps to use both with my sleep, but also with my over all physical and mental health. Any ideas on combinations of these would be helpful.

Hi Mike,

My perception on this thread is that there have been two groups. The first just wants to get their ZEO up and running and collect new data (possibly pulling up old data). From my own experience trying to replicate the ZEO webpage output, I can appreciate the effort ZEO put into what they did provide. The ZEO website provided an Excel download of data for personal processing and now some of us are using the decoder program they provided to extract our data. I believe that is the established focus for this thread.

The second group was pushing at extending the usage of their device with different algorithms and merging with other sensors (note the second group has moved to a new open discussion “Mind”. Your link to the NIH article would go well there, along with the cube sensor information. I think my ZEO merged with accelerometer data will go there also.

I am not sure where the part of your post involving improving a company goes. I read those reviews and have identified solutions to some of their complaints. I will wait for the HBR article to come out on on why they failed.

Good luck on merging data from several devices to improve your health. I am interested in your successes and failures. I encourage you to post the results on the Mind thread.

Granted, this thread is about that, I was getting to that. I have to admit that I have yet figured out how to extract my data from my Zeo on to my computer so that I can use it. Non of the programs I have tried so far have recognized that it is even plugged into my computer.

However, I think that as you view parts of my post you will see that I have been looking into finding a replacement. I have also been trying to find other things to augment what I have. On that note as I am sure everyone is aware what we eat and drink also affects our sleep. So, improvements to the program would be a app and website that helped track what you ate. With this in mind it would also need to have categories that recorded things like caffeine, spicy food, fatty foods, etc.

Mike,
What type of ZEO do you have, Bedside or Mobile? There are discussions in this thread on locating the Mobile files on an Android system. The Bedside has an SD Card with a ZEO folder that has the ZEOSLEEP.DAT file for the data. Processing the Bedside data assumes that you have loaded the revised firmware that removes data encryption (also discussed in this thread).
Good Luck

I have a Mobile. And I have for the most part use it on my Android, but recently I have been using it on my I pod touch.

Mike,
Disclaimer I have a bedside, not a mobile unit.
First you need to get to the files off your ipod. I used iFunBox software on my MAC to navigate to the ZEO application on my iPad. Looking inside I located the Library folder and in that is the ZeoDataStore_v1.1.sqlite file. Mine is empty (no headband data), but the structure looks like it has under the ZZOSLEEPRECORD several fields that probably include the data you wish to view.
Good Luck.

i started doing my own excel spreadsheet - since I do have the mobile version.
For sleepgraphs I’ve been using screenshots from the app.
The data entered on the screenshot is actually nonsense - but the sheet itself works fine.
Anyone interested?
Maybe we can make an improved version.

Really excited whats happening to all the assets Zeo sold - hopefully there will be a solution on the horizon very very soon.

Dear Gwern or anyone,
I am new to this post and I recenly found out Zeo shut down. I have a Zeo-Bedside-Headband and I cannot read my data, any suggestion what to do to access my data?

Rosa from Mexico

Hi envi253,

I assume the images you showed were the screen shots pasted into Excel.

I am curious about the ability of the mobile app.

  • Can you print out or email those ZEO daily and weekly views?
  • Or does it need to be a screen shot?
  • Can you view previous weeks (The ZEO website allowed you to view all your data.)

I am also interested in getting hold of a sample mobile SQLite file with sleep data to compare with the Bedside data XML I get from the decoder. I am wondering if it would be possible to import the Bedside XML file into SQLite with a script and then view the data on a mobile device.

Thank you


Hi Rosa,

Can you provide more detail on what you have tried and where you are having problems? There are responses in this thread that provide some detail on these steps, but they can still be confusing. Also what type of computer are you trying to process the data on (PC or MAC)?

I was wondering, do we have anyone on here who has enough knowledge, experience, etc. to get a kickstarter going for our Zeo’s? That would be one of the better ways to keep things going and as QS people we would have a very good idea of what kinds of changes would be needed to greatly increase its market viability and longevity.

I am still working on viewing the ZEO Bedside data on a ZEO mobile app.

I have attached an initial mapping of ZEO Bedside XML data to ZEO Mobile SQLite fields. I don’t have a ZEO SQLite sample to confirm the field values or my calculations.

Next steps are to load the SQLite database with Bedside data and then see if I can fool the mobile app into thinking it has data to view.

Comments?

Update: I have concluded this approach is not an effective way to display ZEO sleep data.
Details: I tried to automatically load a SQLite database file using Navicat for MySQL but it only works with one level XML files and the ZEO Data Decoder outputs a four level XML file.
I manually loaded a SQLite file with a sleep Hypnogram (using SQLite Database Browser 2.0 b1.app). I replaced the existing SQLite file inside the ZEO Mobile app with my modified one (using iFunBox.app) and I was able to view the result on my iPad.

Conclusions:

  1. The ZEO Mobile iOS app is buggy and has nowhere near the features of the ZEO website.
  2. The ZEO app also stores the SQLite database in the library folder not the documents folder, so I can’t use iTunes to sync the files.

All in all too much pain and very little gain for this approach.
Back to Excel.

XML2SQLITE rev-.pdf (28.7 KB)

Non from, your doing things that might as well be string theory math. I am assuming your working on a way to get it into a visual format at some point. I know a very tiny bit about excel so I might be able to help there. Might being the operative word.

Hello, I had a quick question. I updated my ZEO Bed site to the newest firmware. I’m using a mac so I opened my terminal and used the command java -jar ZeoDataDecoder.jar zeosleep.dat zeosleep.txt. All the date comes out in the text file, but display hypnogram= is blank. Is there anything I can do to look at the incremental data?