UPDATE: Sense joins the elite projects that have managed to break the $1,000,000 mark on Kickstarter.

Sleep tracking is catching on, as are smart alarms – but a perfect synergy of the two hasn't arrived until now, with Sense.

The Sense project, from San Francisco start-up Hello, aims to simply help everyone sleep better and wake refreshed. It's already smashed its $100,000 Kickstarter goal and is at $340,000 at the time of publishing.

Why would I want Sense? If you've ever used a smart alarm you'll know. You sleep in cycles and if you wake at the top of a cycle you feel like you've gotten up naturally, feeling fresh. If you wake when your slipping back into deep sleep you'll feel groggy and grumpy from the start. Sense can wake you when you need to get up to feel good.

Say you set the alarm for 8am, but you're almost naturally awake at 7:45, Sense will wake you then so you feel good rather than leaving you until 8. It also has a plethora of sensors to give you feedback on how you slept and what affected your sleep in the night. If it was your partner snoring you'll know – how that can be solved isn't such an easy fix.

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Sense

Using the Sleep Pill sensor the user's sleep patterns are tracked using its 6-axis accelerometer and gyroscope. It syncs wirelessly using ANT+ and the battery lasts a whole year so you rarely need to unclip it from your pillow.

The Sense unit itself can light up to offer a natural awakening while also recording ambient light, temperature, sound, humidity and particulates. Using all this data Sense can learn what you like best so you can set the room up before bed for the perfect sleep.

Sense also uses Wi-Fi and Bluetooth so it can be connected to your smart-home making it future-proof.

Sense is available to backers now from $99 and should ship in November this year.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hello/sense-know-more-sleep-better/widget/video.html

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