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Three-Minute Take-Home Test May Identify Symptoms Linked to Alzheimer's Disease

(www.smithsonianmag.com)
107 points pseudolus | 5 comments | 19 Sep 25 19:03 UTC | HN request time: 0.652s | source
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pedalpete ◴[19 Sep 25 22:23 UTC] No.45307457[source]▶
There is a growing body of research showing that increasing slow-wave activity during sleep can improve outcomes, including sleep quality[1], memory, and correlations with amyloid response[2].

Sadly, our latest grant application did not receive funding, but we are supporting other clinical researchers with our technology. Our technology is based on more than a decade of research with 50+ published, peer reviewed studies.

We focus on sleep directly rather than the disease, which means people do not have to wait years for regulatory approvals before they can feel day-to-day benefits.

For those curious about learning more, our approach and links to additional research are on our website https://affectablesleep.com .

Mild-to-moderate Alzheimer’s changes in sleep https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jagp.2024.07.002

Slow-wave activity, memory, and amyloid response https://doi.org/10.1093/ageing/afad228

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arunabha ◴[20 Sep 25 07:20 UTC] No.45311227[source]▶
Getting better sleep has been a bit of a personal quest for me. Having said that, much as I would love to get the device, having been bitten by a bunch of subscription locked devices by startups, I have (reluctantly) settled on a policy of not purchasing hardware that can't work independently of the company.

Startups are hard at the best of times, hardware startups are harder. When the company making the hardware inevitably goes under, you are left with a useless piece of plastic that you paid a ton of money upfront for, and then paid a hefty sum every month on top.

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1. pedalpete ◴[20 Sep 25 08:09 UTC] No.45311432[source]▶
Thanks for this thoughtful response.

The reason we use a subscription is to keep the upfront cost much lower. It's important to us that we make better sleep as accessible as possible. A one-time payment makes that more challenging at this stage.

We also wanted to keep things simple at checkout. Too many options can be confusing, and at this early stage our priority is making it straightforward for people who want to try the technology.

It's a delicate balance.

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2. sebasvisser ◴[20 Sep 25 08:23 UTC] No.45311505[source]▶
Having to select 2 items for 1 sleep intervention is a weird way of keeping things simple..

To help you a bit: 1 is easier… So 1 hardware product working independently is what we want. If you must to appease the shareholders do a subscription…make it add some functionality that would be impossible without a subscription… But locking people in a subscription to “keep upfront cost lower” is devious at best. Add to the world..don’t (cash)grab.

3. esperent ◴[20 Sep 25 11:27 UTC] No.45312364[source]▶
It's understandable why you would need to do that. I'm not against subscriptions in cases like this.

From my side as a customer, here's what I would need to see before supporting you:

1. A one off payment to own the current version of the device. This must include the ability to download all of my data that I generate from using the device. It can be in raw, unporcessed form.

2. A subscription is acceptable but would pay for cloud based data processing, generating reports etc. Processing and storing my data, in other words

3. A clear privacy policy stating that you will never sell my data in either raw or processed form. But I assume as a medical device that's already in place?

4. zamadatix ◴[20 Sep 25 12:42 UTC] No.45312890[source]▶
I have a hard time believing it's about the complexity of having a toggle button to switch to "one time purchase" during checkout. The ability to make such a selection is the option which enables the product to be accessible to more users, not the other way around.
5. quesera ◴[20 Sep 25 14:06 UTC] No.45313549[source]▶
> The reason we use a subscription is to keep the upfront cost much lower. It's important to us that we make better sleep as accessible as possible. A one-time payment makes that more challenging at this stage.

Ugh. Just say "recurring revenue". We're not naive.