Product Concept: The Weight-Sensitive Mattress Alarm

So here's another paper I wrote for a graduate class (like this one) that might be interesting to someone out there. I don't see myself trying to put this into practice, but I would like it to actually exist. While I have my tips for getting up early, rousing myself from slumber has always been a challenge in my life. Perhaps this paper will get a few noggins joggin'. I can only hope...

According to Sleep Review Magazine, 57 percent of Americans admit that they hit the snooze button when their alarm goes off and 58 percent admit that they stay in bed for at least five minutes after. In Britain, that number is 64 percent. (1)

I count myself among these unfortunate people and suspect that the actual numbers are quite a bit higher. People tend to be overly kind to themselves when taking surveys. Most people probably aren’t completely honest about how many times they eat ice cream or how often they go to the gym. They also probably underplay the number of times they hit the snooze button and the amount of time they spend in bed after the alarm goes off.

People also care a lot about their mattresses. An entire variety of mattresses are sold on the market, ranging from memory foam, pillow tops, gel, innerspring, air bed, water bed, adjustable bases and latex mattresses. In 2018, Americans spent $14.8 billion dollars on mattresses. (2)
Despite the rise of cell phone alarm clocks, the alarm clock industry has also “held stable at around $250M per year in the United States,” according to VoiceLabs.co. (3) People still like having an alarm clock at their bedside to wake them up in the morning… and then wake them up again after they have hit the snooze button.

Unfortunately, hitting the snooze button doesn’t actually help someone become more rested. After consulting with various sleep doctors, Kevin Loria noted that,

“…From what sleep researchers have said, we can derive an answer. Unfortunately for those of us who enjoy that idea of just a few more minutes, it's not great news…
​
“…Perhaps the most insidious snooze effect hits those who are already overtired. If you aren't getting enough sleep, you're more likely to fall back into the beginning of a sleep cycle after hitting the button, as a popular AsapScience video on the topic explains. This kicks in the production of hormones that encourage deep sleep. And as psychologist Maria Konnikova writes in the New Yorker, the beginning of a sleep cycle ‘is the worst point to be woken up,’ leaving us feeling like we slept poorly in the first place.” (4)

Furthermore, the economist Dan Ariely makes the case that “we're training our minds to be confused by the alarm sound. Instead of recognizing it as the ‘get out of bed’ tone, it's the ‘just a few minutes more' sound — something that can continue indefinitely.” (5) In other words, hitting the snooze button is even worse than useless.

Just think how much time we waste even if we just hit the snooze button every morning for an average of 15 minutes. At that rate, you would lose the following amounts of time doing nothing more than lying in bed:

• Every week you would lose 1.75 hours.
• Every year you would lose 91 hours or 3.8 days.
• Over 70 years (approximately the average lifespan after starting school) you would lose 6378 hours or 266 days.

In other words, you lose close to a year of your life just lying on your bed pretending to rest. If you hit the snooze for 30 minutes each morning, you would lose well over a year.
Life is way too short for that!

What this all seems to make clear is that there is a large market for people who want a better way to wake up earlier. And Americans are already willing to spend a substantial amount of money each year on mattresses and alarm clocks. So why not combine them into one product that could notably help people get out of bed without hitting the snooze button?

This product would integrate an alarm clock into the mattress. You could set the alarm with a remote controller (or cellphone app) that would provide several different options. One of those options would prevent the person from turning the alarm off for at least a certain amount of time after it went off.

The alarm would be set based on whether someone was on the bed or not. That way, when the alarm began to ring (or play music) at the time it was set to, it would continue to ring until the person got off the mattress. If the person got off and then lies back down, the alarm would begin to ring again.

Oftentimes, all someone needs to do in order to get up is to actually get out of bed for a while. Taking a shower or drinking a cup of water or coffee helps, but just the act of getting up and moving around is enough. It’s that first step, namely getting out of bed, that’s so hard. This is definitely true in my experience as well as many people I’ve talked to.

It’s for this reason that many have recommended to put your alarm clock far enough from your bed that you are forced to get up. But even in this case, you can always return to bed after hitting the snooze button. Admittedly, this is something that I have done before.

But the mattress alarm wouldn’t allow for this because as soon as you put your weight back on the mattress, the alarm would start to ring again. The mattress alarm would all but force you to get up for a while, which is all that most people need in order to actually “wake up.”

Given modern technology, installing an alarm system inside a mattress that was weight sensitive, along with a WiFi connected remote controller would not be particularly expensive. The product would be little more expensive than buying a mattress and an alarm clock separately.

In addition, small modifications could be made for each individual’s situations. For example, a mattress could base the alarm on whether there was weight on one side or the other side of the mattress for couples who sleep on the same bed at night.

Modern technology would also make it fairly simple for the alarm to record the weight of those who normally sleep on it and only stop ringing when the “correct person” has gotten up.  For example, if a 180-pound man and a 120-pound woman sleep on the same bed, the alarm could record their approximate weight. Then, if the man had to be up at 7:00 and the woman at 8:00, the alarm would go off at 7:00 until approximately 180 pounds had been removed from it. Then it would go off again at 8:00 until approximately 120 pounds had been lifted.

I believe this product would be very easy to advertise and also easy for consumers to understand and adopt. A television or online video ad could simply follow a standard morning routine at first. The protagonist repeatedly hits the snooze button only to jump out of bed screaming something like “Oh no! I’m going to be late.”

A voice will then provide calculations like the ones listed above, noting how much time the average person wastes hitting the snooze button. It will also cite medical research about how hitting the snooze button doesn’t do any good for you. Then it would show the same person using the mattress alarm. He would get up and then try to get back down, but it would go off again. Then he would shake his head and get up. The commercial would then cut to him looking refreshed while drinking a cup of coffee and eating a piece of toast. He would then look at his watch, smile and say something like “Good, I’ve got plenty of time.”

Ads with a similar theme could be designed for print media and radio. The product concept would also be rather unique and should get some media coverage in the business and consumer press. Hopefully (although by no means guaranteed), the manufacturer could also secure a patent on the concept.

The product should appeal to just about everyone who has trouble getting up in the morning (approximately three out of five Americans according to the survey above). But it should especially interest busy people who are always on the go. These days, that’s a very large market. Business professionals, college students, doctors, lawyers, professional athletes and just about everyone else would be interested in saving themselves 15 to 30 minutes each and every day.

Finally, this product wouldn’t require a significant amount of research and development since all of the technological components already exist today. There would not need to be a substantial upfront investment. And furthermore, it would be easy for a mattress company to either create a product line for these or license the alarm from a company that specifically built the mattress alarm component.

In other words, the market is already there and the product wouldn’t be particularly challenging to develop. It’s just a matter of bringing them together. In my judgement, if such a product were launched, it could and should be advertised successfully.
 
(1) “57% of Americans Hit the Snooze Button,” Sleep Review, August 27, 2014, http://www.sleepreviewmag.com/2014/08/americans-snooze-button-withings/
(2) “Mattresses,” Statista, Accessed October 17, 2018, https://www.statista.com/outlook/17020200/109/mattresses/united-states
(3) Adam Marchick, “Voice is Eating the World: Death to Alarm Clocks,” VoiceLabs.co, October 26, 2016, http://voicelabs.co/2016/10/26/voice-is-eating-the-world-death-to-alarm-clocks/
(4) Kevin Loria, “Most scientists say you shouldn't hit the snooze button — here's how to snooze the right way,” Business Insider, May 21, 2017, https://www.businessinsider.com/snooze-button-effect-on-sleep-2017-5
(5) Ibid