TE Connectivity Sleep Sensor Solutions Capture your "sleep pulse" in all directions

     "Better Sleep, Better Life", World Sleep Day every March, calls attention to sleep as a matter of health and well-being. As a high pressure population, the middle and young generations have always been the main force to pay attention to sleep quality and actively monitor sleep; The elderly and infants also need to be closely watched because of their sleep status, making sleep signs monitoring gradually become another major demand. In the market, the wearable device represented by the well-known sleep bracelet is a big application; Non-wearable sleep monitoring products led by bedding are also gradually entering people's field of vision.

     Whether it is wearable or non-wearable sleep monitoring products, the technology behind the power is very clear - signal capture. It is not difficult to complete the signal capture work itself, but it is not easy to improve comfort and complete comprehensive signal capture based on not disturbing the original sleep when people are sleeping. Non-wearable sleep monitoring products are considered to have more advantages in the comprehensiveness and comfort of data collection, and are more suitable for special groups such as infants and the elderly. Currently, non-wearable sleep monitoring products on the market cover almost everything in the bedroom: mattresses, pillows, bed frames, lamps, bedside tables, and so on.

     Take the sleep monitoring mattress as an example, the mattress with built-in sensors can monitor the user's sleep habits on a daily basis, including turning over, heart rate, breathing, sleep cycle and even snoring, as well as bedroom temperature and humidity. These monitoring are carried out under the premise of not disturbing the user, because there is no need to wear, and the human body contact sensor is a passive device, no power supply is required, the user will feel more comfortable and no burden.

     The data collected by the sensor will be transmitted to the mobile phone, and the user will be presented with a sleep report and improvement suggestions after the system data analysis. Users can determine what kind of work and rest is more conducive to good sleep by adjusting their own work and rest time, bedroom environment, combined with the daily data obtained from sleep monitoring. Some special users, such as those with apnea syndrome, can be monitored to see how their symptoms improve after taking treatment. For patients at home, such products are more convenient for their families to observe the user's sleep, and they can also respond to emergencies at the first time.

     What you may not expect is that in non-wearable sleep monitoring products, the technology that helps capture signals more comprehensively and makes the body feel more comfortable can be a thin film, that is, "piezoelectric film". In the 1880s, the Curie brothers from France first discovered the piezoelectric effect on quartz. This discovery gave birth to a large number of piezoelectric materials, and in the 1970s, a new material PVDF (polyvinylidene fluoride) made of piezoelectric film came out in Japan.

     The new material is thinner and can produce a stronger piezoelectric effect under the same external force; And its acoustic impedance is low, close to human tissue and water. This series of properties make the piezoelectric film sensitive to capture the human body "signal". Because piezoelectric film sensors meet the two major requirements of the sleep market for data comprehensiveness and comfort, they have gradually become the mainstream sensor in the sleep monitoring market.

     TE Connectivity, a global leader in connectivity and sensing, has developed a piezoelectric thin film sleep tracking sensor (" sleep tracking sensor ") that uses piezoelectric thin film technology. TE's sleep tracking sensors support the two benefits of non-wearable sleep monitoring products mentioned above: omnidirectional monitoring and comfort. The piezoelectric film of the sleep-tracking sensor can be made in a variety of sizes and has good mechanical toughness, and can even be placed directly on the assembled mattress