How the Sleepbuds maker, Ozlo, is building a platform for sleep data

Ozlo, the maker of comfy, easy-to-use Sleepbuds that drown out exterior noise so you will get higher relaxation, is popping its product right into a platform.

The corporate’s plan started to take form final month with the announcement of a partnership between Ozlo and meditation app Calm. Nevertheless it kicked into excessive gear on the Shopper Electronics Present in Las Vegas this week as the corporate met with potential companions to increase its attain.

These new companions might assist Ozlo faucet into new audiences and construct a income mannequin past consumer-focused {hardware} and into the profit-margin-rich world of software program subscriptions and healthcare. As an example, software program options that use AI or are designed to supply reduction to customers with tinnitus may very well be provided as premium subscriptions. And a latest acquisition of a neurotech startup ought to assist Ozlo increase past being a shopper product to coming into the medical system market, too.

How Ozlo’s platform ambitions started

Based by former Bose staff, Ozlo at all times meant to construct an ecosystem, Ozlo co-founder and CEO NB Patil defined on the sidelines of CES.

“The best way we did that from the start is we constructed the iOS and Android SDK — so our first-party app truly runs on that SDK. Which means no matter you see in our app will be made accessible to anyone,” Patil mentioned.

The psychological wellness firm Calm, as an illustration, is utilizing the SDK to inform whether or not its sleep and meditation content material is definitely resonating with its clients. Whereas Calm can’t inform from its personal app if clients have fallen asleep, Ozlo’s sensors can. The system detects how physique actions and respiration charges change, and that information is distributed to the Ozlo charging case. There, a machine studying algorithm determines whether or not somebody is asleep or is relaxed.

Ozlo’s sensible case has different sensors as properly, together with a temperature sensor and a light-weight sensor that may add extra information.

Now, that data will be shared with apps like Calm and others.

For instance, if a person began enjoying a respiratory train, Ozlo might inform if their respiration fee had gone down and share that information with its accomplice. If the train is unsuccessful, the accomplice would know they should change the sample or do one thing totally different.

“So there are two components,” Patil notes. “Taking real-time motion when the client achieves the specified state [which Ozlo does with its feature that can shut off sounds after the user falls asleep] and the opposite half, which is essential, truly — that content material creators are usually not fairly eager about — is, are they investing in the appropriate content material?”

Patil explains that content material creators for most of these meditation and sleeping assist apps are likely to put money into quantity with out measuring whether or not or not their content material is efficient.

“They don’t perceive, truly, the way it works within the discipline as a result of there is no such thing as a information,” he says.

This relationship might additionally add one other income stream to Ozlo’s enterprise past promoting {hardware}. As an example, if a buyer is prompted to improve their subscription to the accomplice’s product, Ozlo might take a portion of that transaction.

Patil instructed Trendster the corporate is already in discussions with different sleep and meditation apps, however this closed-loop suggestions system may very well be used with any form of content material, together with remedy and even audiobooks.

Ozlo can also be engaged on tinnitus remedy instruments to handle the ear-ringing drawback that impacts 15% of its buyer base. The corporate teamed up with Walter Reed Hospital final yr to launch a medical research of the issue and located that enjoying the appropriate masking frequency in a single day for a lot of weeks can idiot the mind into stopping the irritating alerts producing the ringing sounds.

Patil says the tinnitus therapies shall be accessible through a subscription and can roll out within the second quarter of 2026.

An AI that can assist you sleep higher

Ozlo can also be working to increase the insights it supplies its personal clients, and AI is an more and more essential piece. The corporate launched Sleep Patterns inside its app in November to assist clients perceive how lengthy and properly they’ve slept, what their patterns are throughout the previous weeks, and what elements may very well be disturbing their relaxation.

This yr, Ozlo plans to introduce an AI agent that clients can textual content with and use as a “sleep buddy.” (The corporate revealed the “buddy” identify for its AI agent in an Easter egg throughout the app. The app shows an animated character — “buddy” — that runs throughout the highest of the display if you open and shut the case 5 occasions in a row.)

By integrating with different wearables and Apple’s HealthKit, Ozlo will be capable to higher perceive a person’s patterns and what they should sleep higher. It additionally needs to have the ability to join with IoT gadgets, like sensible thermostats, to set the appropriate sleeping temperature for customers as quickly as they open the case at evening.

The AI options are anticipated within the second quarter.

New {hardware}, EEG insights on the best way

Ozlo’s next-generation case will tackle the difficulty of the earbuds generally not being correctly seated within the charger.

“We modified the contours contained in the case — if you place [the sleepbud], it’s excellent. After which we’ll have a Bluetooth button to do the pairing,” Patil says.

Plus, the brand new system will embrace a redesigned antenna and extender for improved vary, and can add an amplifier to spice up how loud the headphones will be to drown out aircraft and practice noise, when wanted. This up to date {hardware} may even arrive in Q2.

By way of merchandise, Ozlo will launch a bedside speaker in Q2 that can supply comparable performance to the Sleepbuds, however received’t must go within the ear. A 4×6-inch speaker would even have its personal sensor, permitting it to do issues like monitoring what number of occasions you awoke for toilet breaks, or alert others in the event you had fallen.

The speaker would enable the corporate to market to households with youngsters beneath 13, as youngsters aren’t suggested to put on earbuds at evening. It might additionally make sense for aged people who aren’t as technically savvy and don’t need to fiddle with in-ear gadgets.

Like the favored Hatch alarm clock, Ozlo is engaged on including a light-weight to a product sooner or later to softly wake you up. (The time-frame to launch remains to be being decided.)

The acquisition play

Acquisitions are additionally a part of Ozlo’s development technique.

The 60-person, Boston-based firm simply acquired Segotia, an EEG-focused neurotech agency from Eire, that has been constructing “hearable” applied sciences. Ozlo believes this can enable it to deliver brain-level insights to its shopper system and later develop instruments to do real-time sleep intervention.

“Principally, we’re customized designing the eartip that’s going to measure {the electrical} alerts out of your ear. From that, truly, you’ll be able to derive the delta alerts from the mind, and you need to be capable to say what your mind is doing in the case of sleep, or in the case of consciousness, and all that,” Patil defined.

A product incorporating the EEG know-how will launch in 2027, permitting the corporate to maneuver into the medical merchandise discipline, as properly.

With the busy yr forward, Ozlo might want to execute properly on every new function and product in speedy order to take care of its present tempo and develop its buyer base. It can additionally want extra capital. Patil instructed Trendster the corporate is within the strategy of closing a Collection B spherical now, with extra particulars to come back within the month forward.