THE WORLD’S FIRST wire-free sleep monitoring device which was initially developed in UCD has gone on sale.

The Omron Sleep Design HSL-101 has been almost 10 years in the conception and design and has cost more than €9 million.

It has been developed by BiancaMed, a UCD spin-off based in NovaUCD, the innovation and technology centre at the university.

The device retails at approximately €230 in Japan and is aimed at the general population who have troubled sleep patterns. The device measures sleep throughout the night and can report key sleep quality metrics, such as sleep onset time and total sleep time.

The critical technology is a radio frequency centre which was designed in UCD and allows a person to monitor their sleep without having wires or devices attached.

BiancaMed was acquired by US multinational ResMed last year and the technology has been incorporated into the device which was launched last week by Omron Healthcare in Japan. The country was chosen first because of its innovative approach to home health monitoring. It is expected to be available in Ireland within two years.

BiancaMed spokesman Colin Lawlor said the technology had the potential to be “huge” given the instances of insomnia worldwide.

“If you can monitor your sleep, you can manage it,” he said, “It can make specific recommendations as to how you can improve your sleep”.

– Ronan McGreevy