Meet SNOOZ from SNOOZ on Vimeo.
You want to sleep. SNOOZ wants to help.
SNOOZ, a hardware startup run by a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alum, is aiming to make the Nest of ambient sound machines. The SNOOZ device is an acoustic white noise machine that uses a proprietary fan to produce a constant soothing sound. SNOOZ is portable, uses 98 percent less energy than a typical fan, and can be controlled through a mobile device. In order to scale the product, the UIUC Enterprise Works-affiliated startup just launched a Kickstarter campaign with the aim of raising $100,000 to help us all sleep a little bit better (UPDATE: As of Wednesday 9/9 they reached their goal, nine days into the campaign).
The team behind SNOOZ decided to innovate in the audio space after noticing that parents were using fans to help their kids get to sleep, because of the constant, calming white noise it produced.
"It is a total product-use mismatch. Fans are designed to move air and engineers try to minimize the sound they make," said co-founder Eli Lazar, a 2011 PhD mechanical engineering graduate of UIUC, over email. "As a result, the decision was made to design the opposite; to design a fan to create sound, but minimize air movement."
In researching the problem further, they found that sleep disturbances due to noise can cause chronic health issues, and many white noise machines created for infants could go up to volume levels deemed unsafe for nurseries. In addition, a 2008 Consumer Reports survey found that sound machines helped people sleep nearly as often as prescription medication.
Enter SNOOZ. The 2.5 inch tall device is controlled through a rotating dial on the top of a circular body. Users can adjust the fan volume by rotating the dial, and change the tone by rotating the outside of the device. Volume, speed, on/off, and nursery volume calibration can be controlled using an accompanying mobile app. They completed nearly 500 hours of computer simulation to "create broadband turbulence sound and filter the sound with an adjustable acoustic enclosure." In other words, make it sound right.
"As a room gets quieter your hearing becomes more acute," the team said on their Kickstarter page. "One of the key reasons white noise is effective is that it reduces the delta between your baseline sound and containment noise so many disturbances aren't heard and the others sound much quieter (i.e. the "startle factor" is reduced). "
"SNOOZ literally smooths the bumps in the night," they add.
Since the internal fan doesn't blow out air, the SNOOZ uses 98 percent less energy than a box fan. However, it isn't wireless: the cord for the device wraps in a small compartment below.
SNOOZ comes in two colors: charcoal and cloud. The device was designed by Herbst Produkt, a product design firm that has worked with Logitech and CB2. No word on pricing yet, but the $59 reward includes a Snooz device.
Though it can be tough to stay on schedule with hardware Kickstarter campaigns, but Lazar said they have already established their distribution center, and done a lot of work on app development and fan motor selection (two major parts of the device).
"We have also made some hard simplifying decisions - it seems so easy to keep wanting to add features," he added. "The greatest tool is the team we have put in place which has a heavy emphasis on business (as opposed to a team of strictly engineers), as well to reaching out to some other Kickstarter campaigns to learn about their mistakes. The greatest lesson we have been told from other campaigns is to keep our rewards simple, and we have."
Note: The story has been updated with quotes from Lazar.
