iBand+ Wants To Help You Put a Steering Wheel on Your Dreams

We were recently approached by Arenar to take a look at their product, a sleep wearable aimed at tracking and controlling your sleep. At the time of this writing, iBand+ had hours to go on their Kickstarter campaign. Since they’ve more than crushed their goals, they don’t need any press from us, but if you want to get on board before the campaign ends, you just missed your chance.

(Source: rafadip.tumblr.com)

Intended to give you control of your dreams, something called lucid dreaming, the iBand+ straps technology on your skull so you can be the architect of dreamland.

The device, not yet in production, could be one of the coolest wearables ever created if it works. Forget virtual reality. Your dreams are your own private play land where you can melt walls.

Per their Kickstarter results, clearly, people are into the idea of lucid dreaming. We have to admit, it sounds cool. The bigger question on the table is can the team behind this promising product deliver?

Need better sleep. Check out our article on Thim.

For most of us, we are victims to our dreams. The idea of taking control of our dreams without losing sleep is enticing. No more nightmares? Maybe you want more nightmares? Deal.

The technology behind iBand+ sounds like it should work, but we’ve not had our hands on it yet. At the very least, the companion app should help us learn more about our sleep, but can it steer our dreams?

The Goods

(Source: kickstarter.com)

At a glance, iBand+ is simple. It wraps around your melon like a sweatband, attaching in the back. The front of the band houses the technology, EEG brain sensing technology with integrated health tracking sensors.

To communicate with your smart device iBand+ also uses Bluetooth 4.0. There are two LEDs on the front of the device, which it uses to stimulate your eyes at keys times. We’ll come back to that.

On the front of the device, you’ll find the power button and a micro-USB charging port.

The package also includes the pillow speakers for playing music or white noise.

The App

(Source: kickstarter.com)

The app logs your sleep activities, because why not? This is where you customize your iBand+ experience, changing the LED light patterns, audio cues or intensities.

This is also where you set your smart alarm, which utilizes the LEDs to raise you from your slumber.

Over time, you can analyze the effectiveness of the iBand+, which says something about the confidence of the designers. They expect you will see improvements in your sleep.

The Experience

(Source: kickstarter.com)

How the device works is simple. The EEG sensors track your sleep pattern, waiting for you to drop into the level of sleep where you are most likely to dream, the rapid eye movement phase (REM).

Once you’ve entered REM, iBand+ pulses your eyelids with a gentle pulse of LED light. The pulses are not enough to wake you from your sleep, but enough that you will recognize them as part of your dream.

The gentle cue of light, if it works, lets you know that you are in a dream so you can take control. Once you are lucid in your dream world, then the architecture of your dreams are yours to manipulate, a la the movie Inception.

The Verdict

(Source: kickstarter.com)

Without a test run, it’s impossible for us to judge, but we have to admit the prospect is exciting. The ability to control dreams could be like a VR experience no headset could duplicate.

The Arenar crew also made their device open to devs, suggesting that one could connect to his smart home hub; maybe turn off lights or activate security from the dream state, which is super interesting.

For a guy who is not a big fan of sleeping longer than necessary, this could be the thing that makes me want to spend more time sleeping. Forget movies. I’ll craft my own entertainment in my dreams.

(Source: kickstarter.com)

If the technology works, it’s interesting to propose what the future could hold. The concept almost creates more questions than it answers.

Once we are able to control our dreams, could we game that experience? Could a future version of iBand+ introduce pre-selected elements at random, so we could handle them like playing a game? Could we really turn off the lights from the other side of our sleep?

First, let’s see how well iBand+ does in the open market. as with any wearable expanding the category, we wish them the best.

If you want more information on iBand+ or Arenar, head over their site, or watch this video: