Something strange happened this week with Wakemate, a Y-Combinator-funded project that was a tech world high flyer for a while. The product, a wrist strap that sensed your movement during sleep and ostensibly woke you at exactly the right time, was on hold. In 2010 the product apparently burst into flames (literally) and little was heard from the company at all.
Suddenly, however, co-founder… → Read More
The story of WakeMate could be viewed as a warning to all tech-savvy entrepreneurs out there: building a hardware device is much more difficult than most web applications. The promise of WakeMate is compelling — it sells a $60 wristband that tracks your movements during the night, syncs to your smartphone, and wakes you up in the morning when you’re in the lightest stage of sleep, thereby… → Read More
It was only days ago that we wrote that after nearly a year of delays, the first WakeMate units were finally shipping to customers. And now there’s some more bad news — really bad. Some of the initial units are apparently bursting into flames because of any issue with the USB charger included.
Repeat: Do not use the USB charger included with the shipping WakeMate units.
The company has just… → Read More
If ever there was a case of a startup demonstrating the kind of hurdles involved with producing hardware, it’s WakeMate. We first wrote about the Y Combinator-funded startup over a year ago, which promises to help you kiss your groggy mornings goodbye with the help of a special wristband device that beams data about your sleeping habits to your Bluetooth-enabled smartphone. The company initially… → Read More
WakeMate’s quest to help you kiss your groggy mornings goodbye continues. The Y Combinator-funded startup has become something of a poster child for the mantra “Hardware is hard” — when the company debuted its gadget in November, it promised to start shipping devices the following January. That didn’t happen, and the company didn’t have a concrete date for when the first batch might ship. A… → Read More
Your groggy mornings aren’t over yet. A few months ago we wrote about WakeMate, a Y Combinator-funded startup that makes a small gadget designed to help you sleep better. Last time we talked to them, the WakeMate team had a planned ship date of January 25. Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen. Yesterday, the WakeMate team sent an Email to the thousands of customers who had pre-ordered the… → Read More
Ah, the curse of the groggy morning. You may have followed all the rules: no caffeine before bed, an early bedtime, and all the rest. But your best efforts are oftentimes for naught, foiled by the mysterious ways of sleep cycles. There may be an answer: WakeMate, a Y Combinator-funded startup that’s launching today, is looking to help you catch that ever-elusive good night’s sleep (and maybe… → Read More
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