The Zeo is garbage and hostageware.
I’m declaring a new class of applications – hostageware.
Apps that you HAVE to use because there is no valid / realistic alternative but which are SO buggy and such crap that they drive you insane.
The Zeo is the archetype.
The Zeo has a myriad of problems which seem too numerous to enumerate in one blog post.
Regardless, I’ll try to name a few.
From a platform perspective, they’ve pushed the concept of the ‘ZQ’ to explain how solid your sleep was from the night before.
However, it’s a JOKE metric.
For example, my Zeo told me I had a ZQ of 61 and that I slept 5:26 minutes.
The previous night my Zeo told me I had a ZQ of 82.
Now I’ve been controlling my sleep TIGHTLY for the last week and I can tell you that LAST NIGHTs sleep was MUCH better than the previous night.
Why? Because I was training the previous day and had a lot of recovery to catch up on. All of my subjective measures (morning, mid, and evening wakefulness and creativity) were high and my performance was exemplary.
Getting LESS sleep and more efficient sleep is a GOOD thing and not a bad thing.
It’s been YEARS since this problem was exposed. This should have been corrected in version 1.1. Have they fixed it yet?
Nope.
Another example. Last night I Slept from 12:08AM until 6:50 AM. As printed on my Zeo and recorded by me before and after I slept.
Guess how many hours the Zeo says I slept. It thinks I only slept 5:26 minutes. Major discrepancy.
I’ve asked Zeo 3-4 times for an explanation here and I keep getting conflicting answers.
The only conclusion I have is that NO ONE within Zeo actually uses their product.
One could come to the conclusion that it’s the sleep version of a lie detector (AKA snake oil) and that I’m just observing placebo effect.
However, in my experience, the deep and REM measurements are somewhat accurate and valuable to my sleep hacking.
Every time the Zeo tells me that my REM and deep numbers are off, I notice correlated mid-day sleep pressure / drowsiness (which impacts my work).
So for now I’m stuck, trapped. Zeo is keeping me a hostage.
I’d drop them in a MINUTE if there was a viable alternative.
Update: Another good example of the use of the Zeo is the ‘time to Z’ which is the amount of time it took you to all asleep. As part of my hacking I have dramatically lowered my time to Z measure. Which is great, but it’s not 1 minute which is what it suggested last night. I was definitely mellow last night but I would say it was more like 5 minutes. It’s just hard for Zeo to be very reliable with one EEG sensor but then again they shouldn’t sell their product as BEING reliable.
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