Now if there could be a way to print the graphic output from the Zeo page! I would liketo take these data in the Zeo format to my doctor.

So, in other words, you’re not going to allow direct access to sleep data PRIOR to uploading to myzeo.com. Right?

Hmmm... was another request, “that stood head and shoulders above” the request you CHOSE, actually the desire to access and chart sleep data directly on one’s private computer without having to hand over that data to Zeo?

Count me out of all the fanfare and wake me up when you care about privacy.

Albert

Albert,

Thanks for your comment - we take this feedback very seriously - and as Zeo CTO and Co-Founder I wanted to make sure to reply to your post personally. As a company we have been struggling with the implications of just how open we can be about sleep data right now.
I was invited earlier this week to speak on a panel entitled "Getting Personal With Data: How Users Get Control and What They Do With It" as part of a Vendor Relationship Management (VRM) conference at Harvard. VRM is a project that attempts to give customers the tools to control their own data and their relationship with vendors - you can learn more about VRM here: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/projectvrm/Main_Page

I introduced myself and Zeo on the panel by reading your blog post aloud and posing the question 'How do we respect users like Albert and their legitimate need to have control over their own data while still staying true to our investors and interests as a business?" The ensuing discussion was extremely helpful in advancing our thinking on data management.
The video feed and notes on the session are available here if you are interested:
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/projectvrm/Creating_an_Open_Zeo_ecosystem_-...
http://www.livestream.com/vrm2009

We aren't by any means there yet - but I do want to share some of our preliminary thinking and open up the discussion for some feedback from real Zeo users like yourself. Here goes:

1. You used your Zeo in your home. It was you sleeping. It's YOUR sleep data and you own it!
2. #1 above drove us to develop and release the CSV download feature. You can now download all of your data and take it with you. We realize this doesn't go all the way (you still need to upload your data to mySleep.myZeo.com) - but it's our first step in the right direction. Still, this feature does improve matters substantially for the majority of customers who asked us to allow them to have better access to their own data.
3. In principle we have no problem allowing you to decode your own sleep data on your own computer without having to upload to our site. It is YOUR data. In practice there are a few problems with this right now.
- The data on the SD Card is protected with an encryption code - the same code is used for everyone's Zeo data so we can't just publish it. Under the encryption the data is in a binary format that needs a program to interpret it. We encrypt the data for a few reasons: a. protect data privacy if you lose control of the card/file b. prevent competitors from offering services that use Zeo data without first talking to Zeo. On the second point we may at some point open up access to any third party that wants to use the data - but we aren't sure yet if that is the best way to grow our business.
- As a startup company with limited resources we have a huge number of projects that are pulling us in many directions. We haven't yet been able to commit resources to developing a PC/Mac decoding program that removes the encryption and puts the file into a human-readable format.
4. We are considering developing in the future an API that would allow third party services that you choose to access your sleep data from mySleep.myZeo.com. We would love to hear what our users think about this potential initiative and what it could enable.
5. There is another angle to the sleep data that Zeo collects. The Zeo community has generated tons of it - and more is coming in every night. This data has quickly grown into one of the largest (if not THE largest) sleep database in the world - and it's people in their own homes (not a sleep lab)! This data will be extremely useful to academics and companies seeking to understand how we sleep. Stay tuned for an announcement soon from the Zeo Sleep Research Center about an initiative to make this aggregated, de-identified data available for academic research! We also won't hide the fact that we believe this aggregated, de-identified data may someday have value by itself - something that companies would pay Zeo for. Keeping open this business angle is important for us - and it's quite common for companies collecting data to be interested in this angle - see http://www.patientslikeme.com/ for a good example. Our own policies are laid-out in our Privacy Policy here: http://www.myzeo.com/pages/57_privacy_policy.cfm

So to close - we are a young company and we are still working through many of the issues surrounding privacy, data use, and business models. We care deeply about our customers privacy and believe that they own their personal sleep data. Please work with us as we solve these challenging issues - you and other Zeo customers can start by replying with your thoughts on the above!

Ben Rubin - Zeo CTO and Co-Founder

Hi, I appreciate your openness and continued dialogue with your customers, I hope that these suggestions are taken as constructive and not too critical.

I have just purchased a zeo and am very impressed with the product, and while I haven't chosen to upload my data yet, the service you provide looks very good too. I have to say though that I'm a little confused as to what a customer is buying into.

The device itself is not cheap, yet to take full advantage of the device, a subscription is also required (e.g. could the device not be offered free/discounted and subsidised by the a subscription as with many other businesses, satelite tv boxes, game consoles etc?)

A customer is still required to purchase replacement eeg monitors (I'm thinking of printer ribbons or razor blades here).

Then finally to find that their own data that users have been paying to access could then be sold on to third parties sounds like you are trying to 'have your cake and eat it'. I know you are a relatively new startup and are presumably investigating various ways to monetize all the hard work that has obviously gone into the product, but it doesn't read well and could put off potential customers.

I, like a few others posting here, would also like to have access to my data without going online first. I don't think that encrypting the data is necessary to protect your business, but it is closing the door to a potential active community that could essentially provide R+D for free - any users own innovations could be re-implemented into your own products and passed onto subscribers - You still own the platform.

I imagine pdf files (or any other popular open file format) would not have become as successful if they were encrypted and only Adobe products could read them. You could even offer licences to other companies if they wanted to develop commercial applications using the data. I know it would not be as straightforward as this but I think you may be missing an opportunity.

I'd like to finish by saying that aside from these concerns, I love the product and wish you all the best with your future endeavours.

~Rog

Greetings,
Thanks for this opportunity for comments.
Your providing access to our sleep data via download to Microsoft Excel is a big help and a step in the right direction and is greatly appreciated. It would have been more help if the data was simply downloadable to a file to one's home computer - I don't like using Microsoft's Excel - but at the moment I can see no way to download the data to Open Office, for example - nor any other application - such as Microsoft's Access?

I really want to be able to download my data directly to my computer, without having to upload it to myZeo.com and then download it from myZeo.com. In my case this is purely a desire for time saving and simplicity - I have no objection to Zeo aggregating my sleep data and I agree that this aggregated data can be of great use for sleep research.
I believe the number of people who, like myself, want to download the data directly, is only a small percentage of the Zeo user community - this is something you probably have reasonable statistics on already? In this case you would still have a vast quantity of sleep data for aggregation - what I'm trying to say, is that the loss of data for aggregation is a weak argument for not providing the ability to download the data more directly.
Alternatively, I could give Zeo permission to directly access my computer to download my Zeo data anytime you want whenever I am online.

It would appear that the Zeo Display unit already includes some decryption capability in order to be able to display the 5 minute graph and percentages - does this not suggest an alternative approach to receiving the Headband data directly into a PC - in other words an enhanced Zeo Display unit with full decryption and a USB port for output to the users computer.

I understand the need to keep your investors happy - unfortunately.

I really dislike that the economy is to a huge extent, if not entirely, governed by gambling - I.E., Wall Street.

I encourage you to seek a win - win solution to this issue of the users having direct access to their data while keeping your investors happy. (Of course I encourage win-win solutions for everything - that way you can't lose!).

I'm not entirely happy with the offers you have made to us 'Early Adopters' to encourage us to not return our Zeo Systems for refund - but this is probably not the right place to expound on this issue.

Thanks for a great product and best wishes for your future endeavors with sleep research.

Best regards,

Peter

Peter,
Thanks for the comment - we appreciate the feedback as we continue to iterate on our data strategies. A few points:

1. The data export feature is actually a .csv file (comma separated values) - so you can use Excel, Open Office, Access, etc. etc. - its not a platform specific file format.

2. You are in a small but important minority with you interest in accessing your data on your own PC without going to the mySleep website. We get it - its your data and you should have easy access to it anywhere. There are no major technical boundaries to making this happen - its a matter of programming time and a business decision as to when and how we do so. We will keep you posted, and thanks for the feedback. We are working on multiple additional ways for users to access their data on their PC, on other sites on the web, on mobile devices etc. stay tuned! We will find a win-win.

Best, Ben

About what the expansion port should do:

I think it's obvious that it should function as a real-time data output of all of the data the Zeo has to offer. It should indicate when the headband is removed and when it is sending valid data. It should also send second-by-second analysis of the data from the headband. Ideally, it should even include the raw data from the headband, although I'm sure it is difficult to analyze, just in case anyone might be able to utilize it.

I can imagine several things being built to utilize this port. The most obvious is that those interested in lucid dreaming would build a device that waits until the Zeo indicates REM sleep for a few minutes straight, at which point a light or sound is triggered in order to alert the user that they are in REM sleep. Another use might be to attach a device which simply logs the data to an SD card, unencrypted of course, so that it can be analyzed with any software the user chooses. An attachment might also have a USB port, to send the data over USB to a computer in real time, where, once again, the user can use whatever software they like to analyze it.

As for what I would do with it: Six months ago I took apart a CPAP machine I bought on Craigslist so that I could attach circuitry that enabled me to record my breathing on my computer. With that information, I was able to see that, despite the determination of a previous sleep study and a subsequent sleep study, I do indeed have breathing issues while I sleep. Since then I've added other devices to the data recording, including an SpO2 sensor, and a low-quality EEG device I built, and I've replaced the CPAP with a simple pressure transducer attached to the CPAP mask. With all of this information, I was able to come up with some ideas of what the problem is, which my doctor is helping me to investigate.

It would be really nice if I could include the data from the Zeo in my data collection efforts, but to make the best use of that data, it needs to be collected in real time rather than read from the SD card after the fact, so that the data can be correctly synchronized with my other sources of data. As little as just a few seconds of mis-synchronization would make it impossible to know if one event was a cause or an effect of another, and the easiest way to achieve that level of synchronization is to feed all of the data into a single point where it is all recorded in real time.

As for the issue of the cost of developing software, I think it is important to mention that you do not necessarily have to develop any. Sure, it would increase the value of your product if you included software with it, but even without software, just having the data available means that people can write their own software, which adds value as well. You don't even have to document the data formats or protocols, because people will simply figure them out, assuming you don't go out of your way to make that impossible by using encryption. Some of those people may even write free software that can be used with your product, which would also increase its value. At the very least, someone will write a simple utility that converts the binary format on the SD card into a CSV file, or a format suitable for some other program, and I'm sure someone would create a utility that makes bitmap images out of the hypnogram data.

About everything else:

Honestly, I'm very confused about why you chose to encrypt the data on the SD card to begin with. I cannot imagine any way in which that encryption could benefit you that would make up for the harm it causes in customer relations. People become excited when they read that a product stores data on an SD card, but then they become disappointed when they learn that the only thing they can do with that data is give it to you. It would be better to not have an SD card at all, so as not to disappoint your customers in that way. What you have now is like a digital camera, but one which stores encrypted photos on its SD card. When customers complain about the encryption, you say "you don't need to upload your photos to use your camera, you can just view your photos on your camera." When customers fail to accept that, you say "now you can download unencrypted copies of your photos from our web site." Then when customers mention privacy, you say "just send us an email and we'll be sure not to sell your photos to anyone." Did no one foresee that any of this would upset customers? Does anyone honestly expect people to be happy with "we promise not to look at your photos?" I mean, I'm sure a lot of people don't care who sees their photos, but that is why we have Flicker.

With reference to anonymization of sleep data, I feel it necessary to mention the way in which anonymized data from Netflix was eventually de-anonymized by security researchers, making it possible to figure out who was behind many of the "anonymized" movie reviews in the data. Making data anonymous is much more difficult than simply removing people's names, and while I cannot foresee any way to do with sleep data what was done with the Netflix data, I'm sure that Netflix didn't foresee what would be done with the data they released either. As I always tell people, the reason it is called an accident is precisely because you did not think it was going to happen. The only way to be sure that you are protecting people's data is to simply not collect it at all. If you must collect it, then the next best thing to do is to keep it to yourself. ...and as someone else already mentioned, due to lack of quality controls, the data you are collecting and plan to sell will be essentially worthless anyway, and so it cannot be worth what it is doing to your company's reputation.

I just purchased a Zeo sleep monitor and I think it's a terrific idea and a terrific product. However, I find the concept of being forced to use an online account to monitor my sleep profile very distasteful. I hope that you will be willing to provide some basic software that would allow me to record and track my sleep information on my own. As a medical researcher, I think I'm totally capable of making judgments for myself without the need of sleep coaching or, more importantly, without sharing my personal information with you or anyone else.

If you do not currently have such software, then I urge you to make it available because I can assure you that many other people who purchase this product will find the idea equally distasteful. As a medical researcher myself, it's relatively easy to see that you are attempting to collect data for a study without paying for it. In fact, you are attempting to make me pay for it via the purchase of a relatively expensive piece of hardware. If that is not your intention, then you should have no problem in providing me with the software to collect and track my sleep patterns in private - on my computer without going online.

I look forward to receiving your reply, because your willingness to do that will go a long way in determining whether or not I will advocate your product to my friends and colleagues.

POSTSCRIPT. This email was originally sent to your customer service group and I was told that about the CSV file export feature. This is helpful, but it does not eliminate the primary problem of being forced to upload my personal information to your website. Also, since that time, i have read your policy statement, and it basically supports my original contention -- namely that you do indeed intend to collect personal information and use it for your own studies, as well as sell it to third parties wishing to market products to Zeo customers. This is a big mistake. I certainly hope that you will decide (very soon) to offer a version of software that allows users the choice of keeping their personal information on their own computers WITHOUT having to upload to your site.

I agree with Jackie. While I see the desire of Zeo to acquire data for its own financial gain, they need to be aware of the limit on financial gain this will place on the device. I wasn't fully aware there was no other option for me to fully utilize the data than via the data upload - including my personal choices, notes etc. Aggregate data is a potentially gold mine for Zeo, yet many will seriously be turned off by the process and this not fully utilize the device they are paying a hefty price for. Bite the bullet and offer the software direct to the clients. They are essentially paying for it already (not to mention paying to provide data to Zeo)

Add me to the list of people that would never upload my data to your site. I liked Jackie's comments in particular. I would also point out that competing products (I won't mention them here, generally those using accelerometers, and pulse meter manufacturers) provided a direct-to-PC download out of the gate. They weren't surprised by the user's objections to not having direct access to their data. Frankly I was shocked to learn what was proposed--this is basically HIPAA Protected Health Information. So the device's usefulness is much less than I expected.

Otherwise, generally I've liked the product, with the only other exceptions being:
- It wasn't clear to me prior to purchase that sensor pads were a consumable (I expected long life sensors like you see with pulse meter chest straps), and
- the inherent problems with distinguishing between wake and REM when actual eye movements aren't tracked. Not a major issue for me, but it is interesting to be conscious of watching the device and seeing it says you are sleeping!

One thing I will say is I appreciate that Zeo leaves up critical postings.

Best,
Tim

Thank you "Tim" and "The Future" for your support of the need for an alternative to online data uploades and data sharing. The ZEO privacy policy statement makes reference to "voluntarily providing us with personal data..." and how such "voluntary" actions exempt ZEO from any and all HIPAA regulations. From a legal standpoint, it would be difficult to consider this process "voluntary", given that it is absolutely required for customers to access their own data. Secondly, health- and medical-related information is defined by its use, not by what you arbitrarily choose to call it. You are actively promoting all the health benefits of data obtained with ZEO and sleep coaching, and the value of pooling and analyzing sleep data (and rightly so). However, you cannot promote the health/medical relationship of this information, while simultaneously insisting that it is not health/medical-related, and therefore exempt from HIPAA. Thus, it seems highly unlikely that your privacy policy would stand up to legal scrutiny. This is intended solely as an informative opinion from someone who is familiar with HIPAA. I think the ZEO device is a wonderful product and I hope you succeed, and continue to improve and refine the technology (although I am still puzzled by how a forehead sensor accurately tracks sleep levels). But I think you will, in the end, save yourself a lot of grief if you do as "The Future" suggests; "bite the bullet" and provide an offline version of your data download and analysis software (that does not first require an online upload) for those of us who prefer that option.

I echo the previous comments about your willingness to post such messages on your blog. It demonstrates your sincere interest in listening to your customers and, hopefully, your desire to do the right thing.

Best regards,

Jackie

I agree with those who are opposed to having to share their data with Zeo in order to decode it. I was one click away from ordering your device when I saw this blog. Now I'm going to wait to see if Zeo is going to offer individual customers data decoding. If you do (and soon) I'll buy the Zeo, otherwise I'm not interested.

From Zeo's standpoint its easy to see your desire to gather data. Perhaps you could ask customers to submit their data voluntarily in the interest of science and medicine. That way those who are comfortable with sharing could help out, while others could maintain their privacy.

Regards,

Allen

Thanks to everyone who has been continuing this discussion - these are important and weighty issues. For the last week I have wanted to run back here and throw up a comment saying 'right on! here you go...'
Unfortunately things are more complicated. There is an ongoing debate internally at Zeo on exactly how to respond. We know that the words and actions we choose now will shape our future as a company and either engender trust with our customers or destroy it. We need to take time to discuss internally and choose our next steps carefully. Please continue to give us feedback on this issue - either in this comment stream or directly to me at ben@myZeo.com.

I sincerely hope that we will be able to satisfy each and every one of you - keep watching this comment thread and have a good Thanksgiving weekend!

Best, Ben
Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder of Zeo

You say you are a new company and do not have the time or resources to be available to allow direct access to data collected on your device because you are so young. But you have time to make a complex encrypting/decrypting scheme for your own use of the data, but not the customer? Yes, that should have been the very first (and a much simpler to accomplish) priority. Why should data be encrypted for a device that a customer uses. Yet, you (and some of your investors) have full control of the data, and the customer does not? It does not sound right or legal, actually, although the laws have yet to be written or properly interpreted. Giving the customer who buys this measuring device equivalent access to all measurement data should be a priority, and not something that is a luxury for a more advanced company, It is also a much easier thing to do. There seems to be some vague argument that this would be dangerous to supply third parties,etc. But that is your issue, not the customers. This argument is not addressing the question and trying to shroud it in an entirely different issue. The customer is only asking for their own data, not rights to share it with a third party. I'm glad their are companies doing this kind of work...it will be of tremendous personal health and research interest. But if I was a company getting started in this new biometric market, I would not hestitate to do the right thing, and right away. The first priority is to allow all measurements access to the customer. It could get very messy for you and other biometric companies otherwise in the near future.

How many of the people complaining about data privacy on this list have ever risked it all to start their own business? Starting a company is a huge personal and financial risk even in the best of times and the US economy is a mess at the moment. All of the people at Zeo are risking a great deal to bring this useful product to market and they have to consider multiple sources of revenue in order to survive. This product is valuable enough to me that I'm happy to let Zeo sell my anonymous data in order to stay in business.

Are there any news on this? I personally won't even register an account, so I really hope there's some improvement.

I also would like to be able to stream this data directly to my PC. There is a hidden connector next to the power supply connector. Is it possible to have some kind of session with the Zeo this way? (Did not remove the piece yet) How are firmware upgrades done if needed?

I have to say, I am really unhappy with your privacy policy. This is deep and intimate data you are collecting, and your published policy is complex, equivocal, and volatile.

I want to see you state flatly that
1. Your sleep data, and answers to on-site questions are absolutely private.
2. They will, under no condition, be transferred--in whole or in part--to a third party without your specific, case-by-case consent (except under court order).
3. You have the right to have all of your data entirely obliterated at your request.
4. No future modifications of your privacy party can abrogate the above conditions.

Until then, I have extreme trepidation about your company

Firmware upgrades seem to be made with the settings option "software version, change". When you try it it says: "no /zeo/zeo.img file". That's pretty easy and great.

But you're right with a hidden connector! When you said it I unfastened the piece of plastic, which was very easy. Then there appear five pins in a row. I would also really like to know what they are good for and what you can do with these.

Daniel and Joni,
You found the hidden port! Storm troopers have been dispatched to eliminate this knowledge immediately...

A few points:

1. Joni is correct that a software update can be performed from the settings menu on the Zeo Bedside Display. The update functionality pulls a file from the SD Card located at /zeo/zeo.img. We haven't yet released any updated software (no major bugs yet - good news!) but we have the flexibility to do so in the future. Bug fixes or additional features could be included in software updates.

2. The expansion port on the back of Zeo is a serial port that allows for the potential to do a number of things in the future. Right now that port is turned off - would love to hear what you think we should do with it! What data would you want to see come out, and what would you do with it?

Best, Ben

I would be interested in comparing my sleep patterns and how I feel, with those of others. Do you anticipate having the option for a user to see how other Zeo users are sleeping? Perhaps this could be an opt-in choice, anonymously of course.

To Ben:
(I couldn't click a reply link under your comment.)

If this is not to be integrated in software updates, I would like to do:
- Wait for REM and then play a trigger sound for inducing lucid dreaming.
- Find points of best awakening by myself, because Zeo doesn't support a narrow time window to be applicable for 20min naps (and doesn't take the hypnogram characteristics of this into account?).
- Maybe link Zeo's wake time with the light and my vibration alarm clock, which can be turned on and off with radio frequency.

Greetings, Joni

After reading this discussion, a thought came to me. Could you offer a discounted version to those who allowed you to use their data? Or a surcharge for those who wanted extra software to analyze on their own computers and have their data remain protected? That way, there would be 2 options and those whose data was being used for your own purposes to grow the company would feel somewhat compensated. Just a thought.

Thanks Ian-- I hope Zeo stays in business, too. I know you want (er, need) them to stay in business, since you won't be able to get at your data if they don't. So your post actually points out another reason why direct use of the data is necessary. Without it, you are banking on Zeo being around to get full use of your hardware. If they aren't, you'll be in the same boat as we are--you can only use the data anecdotally, unless you want to take a picture of your graph every morning and use a raster-vector converter to get numbers.

Of course, for a company to stay in business, they have to offer what customers want in the manner that customers want it. If they allow expected use of our data as urged by us here, they will probably sell more units, if Allen's post is any indication.

We think that Zeo's approach to our data is improper. I don't feel an obligation to subsidize their business with my data. If Zeo can't make the model work without exploiting the data of every single customer, another company will come along that can give the customer what they want. For customers like you that are more cavalier about their data or are on the fence, offer some cloud analysis features, or a discount.

As for them risking it all to start their own business--this doesn't mean anything if they aren't meeting customers' expectations. That's the American Way. This isn't a kid's lemonade stand. If someone spent all their money making a meth lab or buying burglar's tools, society isn't interested in having their enterprise succeed. Okay, I admit that analogy got a bit weird.

I continue to urge Zeo to offer direct access to the data, even if the software to decrypt it is a crude command-line/no-support/no GUI module. I'll sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement if that will help.

My continued best wishes to Zeo and good luck in 2010!
Tim

Uploading my data to Zeo's website does not bother me at all. I really like some of the features available online, especially the "cause and effect" tool. I think Zeo is great and has helped me identify a few subtle ways I can improve my sleep (I found that wearing a retainer helps me sleep better because I grind my teeth). I have not utilized the download feature yet, but I think it is a nice option.

Relative to most corporations in America today, I think Zeo is doing a great job of trying to keep customer service in the forefront. A lot of these blog posts make some negative assumptions about how Zeo is running their business. Personally, I think Zeo is trying to be as transparent as possible and this blog supports my sentiments.

Nate

I am a new user have no qualms about confidentiality as long as it is anonymous. In fact the website features (and it's quality) were a big part in my decision to go with Zeo. Anything to expand the relevance of the data by comparison with other users and help improve the product make it more valuable to me. i see a bigger picture using this info to improve the science of sleep.

I've been using the Zeo for a few weeks and am just starting to read some of the extra content and your blog. I'm a little surprised to see so many negative comments about the sleep data upload. It's just sleep. What's so sensitive about it? Who cares, make mine fully public--it's just sleep data. There's no threat, harm, or issue with anyone knowing whether I slept well last night or not.

The bottom line of my message is that I want Zeo to spend its resources on the important things--helping us improve sleep quality--and not on programming desktop apps and such. While the site isn't perfect, mostly because Flash is slow and buggy, it does the job quite well and has provided me a lot of usable data which I can directly use for personal improvement. A desktop app brings in issues with operating system choices and many new support problems. Wasteful.

I also don't have a problem with my data being used.

I DO have a big problem with my not being able to access my data without going through your website. I think that fact should have been made very clear in the purchasing process. As it stands, it looked to me that web access was a "$79 value." Some kind of extra cost option, not a necessity.

The argument that it would be difficult to port this to PC's is pretty lame. The decryption software is probably written in Java, and a decent programmer could convert the whole thing, graphing and all, in a month. I don't see it taking more than a couple of days to read the SD card and spit out a CSV file without using your site at all.

The sad fact of the matter is that you may very well go out of business, leaving my Zeo as a nice bar graph display device with no data accumulation. (Until I run out of sensor pads.)

I'm seriously considering returning this device because of what I've read here, and a few other issues as well.

I received a Zeo for Christmas. On the surface a great gift, have used it a few nights now, but have discovered that some of the data is being withheld like deep sleep by night. I guess I must go on line to see all the details. Yet as I understand it I must pay a monthly fee to give you my data that you will then sell, generating income from the machine, the user and researchers. You guys are taking the meaning of “the gift that keeps on giving” to a whole new level. Help me understand what part of “my data” actually behaves like something I own.
At this point it appears that the best way to own “my” data is to return “your” Zeo.

I just got my Zeo and I think it is missing an important feature. I am glad to hear that there is a serial port and ability to support firmware upgrades that may be used in the future to add it.

Many devices today are internet connected. I used an Audiotron for my alarm clock before this, and I loved that I could do all my setup via a web browser rather then hitting all these little buttons on the alarm clock itself. I am really shocked that you did not include a network port or wireless support in a new device like this.

I don't like the idea that I have to take the SD card out of the Zeo, to my computer and upload it, and then remember to put it back. You should do that for me with the network connection, upload it each morning... If I don't want to share my data then let me download to Excel right from the Zeo via my web browser.

I also don't like the idea that I have to click all these buttons to setup the alarm clock settings. A nice web form would do much better.

I know consistency is desired, however I would like to see the ability to set different alarm settings for different days of the week. I would like to just have the Zeo know that no alarm is needed on weekends, and Fridays I don't have to be up as early. Then M-Th is my normal early morning.

Just a few initial thoughts about the Zeo.

I've recently purchased a Zeo and have been very surprised by the results that (even without any coaching so far) have been very enlightening. When browsing the comments on this page, I was quite disturbed by some of the things that were said. I assumed that it was a given that this highly personal information would be exclusively my own. Whereas I was looking forward to logging on and getting input, I'm now very hesitant. This is my information, whether or not it came from a device you all created. It is interesting to claim that the sharing of information is voluntary and free of HIPAA protection. I recently got a blood test measuring a variety of things, and it was certainly voluntary. Noone compelled me to get said test; it was recommended by a physician whose suggestion I chose to follow. Said tests were *certainly* protected by HIPAA. I'm severely disappointed by Zeo's choice to compromise my sense of privacy, especially given the high price of your product. I feel that I've bought the right to my own data, and that, while you may have a legal right (maybe), your use of it is highly unethical.

OK, I can get on the website, I figured that out. But what about the other things I mentioned like:

The sad fact of the matter is that you may very well go out of business, leaving my Zeo as a nice bar graph display device with no data accumulation. (Until I run out of sensor pads.)

pj--have you thought about running for president?

Nice post, kind of drawn out though. Really good subject matter though.

Joni and all,
We are working on a Zeo Raw Data Library that will give access in real-time to sleep phase and brainwaves. It hasn't been released yet - but follow the conversation here in the forums:
http://blog.myzeo.com/forum/zeo-raw-data-library/

Don,
We just released a suit of sharing features - including print, email, and tweet your Zeo data.

See more here:
http://blog.myzeo.com/new-improved-myzeo-features-better-navigation-conv...

Albert and all,
We just released a Data Decoder Library that opens up the data on the SD card (sorry it has taken so long!). This library is for developers (ie. it doesn't have a pretty UI) and gives unrestricted access to your data without uploading to mySleep.myZeo.com.

We are listening, we are learning, and we are making changes! It's you data and you can do what you like with it.

You can check out the release and download it here:
http://developers.myzeo.com/data-decoder-library/

I blogged on the topic here as well:
http://blog.myzeo.com/accouncing-the-zeo-data-decoder-library/

And feel free to discuss the library in our forum here:
http://blog.myzeo.com/forum/zeo-sd-card-decoder-library/

Good news - in our mission to continue to open up the Zeo platform we have released the Zeo Raw Data Library. Direct access to brainwaves!

More here:
http://blog.myzeo.com/zeo-raw-data-library-free-your-mind/

Is there a way to export the raw data from the mobile app to my computer without first uploading it to myzeo.com? Thanks