Zeo: Big Data, Inception Style Dreaming and the Sleep of Your Future

Zeo: Big Data, Inception Style Dreaming and the Sleep of Your Future

Big Data Catches Some Z’s

Part of the make up of Big Data is the fact that individual human beings are now measuring and tracking their own personal data like never before. To track this data, they are plugged into or utilizing some newer device that is typically accompanied by a mobile application or web interface (or both). This entire movement, tracking one’s personalized performance metrics is dubbed the quantified self. Unfamiliar with the term? Watch this TopCoder Innovation Series video and read this post defining the 5 pillars that comprise the quantified self.

Big Data is a huge part of the quantified self movement in 2 unique ways. It is both an element of the quantified self user experience and the data it helps generate is also an output. First, data that tens of thousands, and eventually millions upon millions of individuals are generating via some quantified self device, is being fed back into platforms and algorithms that help reshape the user experience for that next individual. Then when that “next individual” begins to digitally measure some aspect of their being, they themselves add to this massively multiplying set of data and the cycle continues.

One extraordinarily interesting  and exciting metric – or rather series of metrics surrounding one central topic – is that of tracking your sleep performance, or put more simply, how well you actually sleep and understanding the factors that help you achieve better and better sleep. Zeo is both a leading device and data platform in what is an already competitive space. TopCoder was invited up to Zeo HQ in Newtonville MA (about 15 minutes West of Cambridge) and we sat down with two leaders from team Zeo, co-founder Ben Rubin, and the president and CEO of Zeo, David Dickinson.

The below video goes well beyond what you might expect. Sure, you’ll get a better understanding of the device and mobile app, but you’ll also find out how various individuals are using this newly available data to self improve, how Zeo’s stance on open data and their open API has led to some amazing hacks, including a real-life Inception style connectivity between two lucid dreamers, and even how  a surprising demographic – elite athletes – have embraced the Zeo platform to help speed recovery during training.