General

“Snoring U” (SU) is an application for smart phones that attempts to help people who suffer from snoring.

SU does not claim to be, nor intends to be, a medical or clinical application. It endeavors to help people with sleeping disorders using a radically different approach compared to other methods.

The inventor of SU would start snoring at night when he went to sleep lying on his back. His wife would be woken up by his snoring and whisper to him, "Turn over and lie on your side!" He would do so and his snoring would promptly stop. He wouldn't remember this incident the following morning. One day his wife remarked that as his cell phone was already so smart, surely it could identify snoring and be programmed to instruct him to "turn over and lie on your side"? Hopefully, this action could be undertaken before she was woken up. This is how “Snoring U” came into being.

Basically, “Snoring U” attempts to assist the user by performing an “action” which is triggered by a set of complex rules that are applied to the noise level, noise pattern and desired user behavior.

General Instructions

You need to place the iPhone as close as possible to your mouth, the noise source. The phone can be placed on your bedside table or nightstand or even under your pillow if you wish to use the vibration feature. Should you be worried about cellular radiation, the phone could be switched to “Airplane Mode” before you go to sleep.

If after using the application for a few nights and you do not feel that it resolves the problem, or if it bothers your spouse, you can try tweaking some of the options and/or playing with the sound level and/or placing the iPhone in a different place.

The Main Screen

Before going to sleep, make sure that you press the large “Start” button. Only then will “Snoring U” actually start. The button changes its appearance to a standard “Pause”.

At any time during the night, you may pause the application from listening to you and then enable it to continue listening by pressing this button again.

While listening, a sensitivity bar will display the noise level:

Options (in the “Settings” menu)

It is advisable that you familiarize yourself with the different options of this program. The options are factory-preset to some regular defaults but you may want to practice with them in order to achieve better results.

All options that you change are being remembered indefinitely by the phone. It is possible to reset all the options to factory settings in the “Advanced Options” screen.

· The noise threshold bar: This determines how sensitive the phone is to the ambient noise. To increase its sensitivity, drag the bar all the way to the left. To make it respond only to the loudest snoring, drag it all the way to the right.

· Action: This decides how the application responds when determining the need to set off the action that will terminate the snoring. The following actions can be implemented:

1. Vibrate: The phone vibrates for few seconds.

2. Play Sound: The phone plays a pre-selected recording.

3. Select Sound: This enables the user to choose / record a sound clip to be played.

· Max Tries – This sets the maximum on the number of actions that “Snoring U” can make through one session. This option is any number between 1 and 100. Alternatively, it can be disabled in which case there is no maximum. The factory default is 10.

Advanced Options (in the “Settings” menu)

The advanced options control the algorithm that is used to identify snoring and when the “Action” will be activated.

Some of the options are intended to prevent “Snoring U” from being too unbearable.

The following advanced options are available:

· Snores to Wait: This determines how many snores “Snoring U” must identify before activating the action. Any number between 1 and 20 can be selected. The factory default is set to 4.

· Shortest Snore: This defines the length of the shortest sound (louder than the noise threshold) that is considered to be a possible snore. It prevents “Snoring U” from thinking that a loud but short sound is a possible snore. The factory default is 1 second. Setting the value to a very low number enables the application to respond to sharp, abrupt noises

· Longest Snore: This defines the length of the longest sound (louder than the noise threshold) that is considered to be a possible snore. This is an optional action and prevents “Snoring U” from thinking that a loud but long sound is a possible snore. The factory default is 7 seconds. A toggle disables this option completely.

· Longest Silence: This determines how many seconds of silence need to pass after a snore before “Snoring U” decides the user is not snoring. It then restarts to count snores until “Snores to Wait” is reached. The factory default is set to 12 seconds. Longer silences may be used by people suffering from sleep apnea.

· Wait After Action – This determines how many seconds must elapse after an action. The factory default is set to 10 seconds. If the factory defaults are retained, “Snoring U”, after 4 snores, will activate the action (vibrate and/or play a sound clip). It will then wait 10 seconds without listening to snores, count 4 new snores and then reactivate the action.

· Auto Increase After Action – This enables the user to optionally select a factoring number that gradually increases the “Wait After Action” period. A number between 1 and 10 can be selected. For example: By setting this value to 2, the “Wait After Action” to 10 and the “Snores to Wait” to 4, the resultant actions take place:

1. After 4 snores, “Snoring U” activates the action

2. It then waits 10 seconds without listening to snores.

3. It listens until it counts 4 more snores and then it reactivates the action.

4. It then waits 20 seconds before it listens and recounts snores.

5. Next time it will wait 40 seconds, and so on.

The factory default for this option is 1.5.

· Hysteresis: When the noise level is dropping below the threshold, the application must not decide that there’s silence until it drops an additional notch. This is needed in some scenarios in order to prevent rapid fluctuations in the application states

· Load Default Values: This allows the user to reset all the options and the advanced options to their factory settings.

Select Sound

This screen enables the user to manage a small list of sound clips. The selected sound clip is what is required to be played upon “action” (if this option is turned on). To choose a suitable sound clip, simply highlight a line in the list.

Support

For support, please write to snoring@pointer.co.il

Please, specify the device type you have.

Updates will occur frequently in the Ovi store.