Inflatable pillow with adjustable height

Abstract

A novel pillow is provided to easily adjust its height by pulling a lever on the side of the pillow to activate the air control valve configured to personalize the head support needed for that individual. Pulling the lever to a fully open position creates a larger air passage to the inflatable bladder and activates an air pump for rapid inflation of the pillow so as to increase its height. With a user head laying over the pillow, pulling a lever slightly opens up a smaller opening suitable for gradual deflation of the pillow and reducing its height caused by the pressure generated by the head. Soft comfort portion on top of the pillow enclosed in a stretchable fabric reduces surface tension and creates a softer feeling for the user thereby improving comfort and consequently sleep quality. An altimeter may be incorporated with the bladder to easily monitor sleep patterns of the user.

Claims

1. An inflatable pillow with adjustable height comprising: a top comfort portion enclosed in a stretchable material, an inflatable portion located under said comfort portion and configured to raise said top comfort portion when inflated, said inflatable portion comprising an inflatable bladder with an air passage leading thereto and an air control unit, said air control unit in turn comprising an air inflation element and a three-position air valve operatively connecting the air inflation element to the inflatable bladder via the air passage and configured to both inflate and deflate the air bladder through the air valve and through the air passage, said air valve is configured to operate by moving between the following three positions: a closed position in which said inflatable bladder is isolated and said air passage and the air valve are closed, an intermediate “slow deflation” position in which said air valve is partially open, said “slow deflation” position is configured for reducing a height of said inflatable pillow by releasing air from said inflatable bladder through the air valve and the inactivated air inflation element, and an open “inflation” position in which said air inflation element is activated and operated to infuse air into said inflatable bladder through said air passage, said air valve is fully open to an extent greater than in said “slow deflation” position, whereby adjustment of height of said pillow is conducted by operating said air valve between said closed position, said intermediate “slow deflation” position and said open “inflation” position.

2. The inflatable pillow as in claim 1 wherein said three-position air valve comprises a spring-loaded rocking L-shaped lever positioned across from and in close vicinity to a hard stop, wherein in neutral state the air valve is closed in a first position thereof, partial squeezing of said L-shaped lever towards said hard stop between two fingers causing partial depression of a spring-loaded stem of said air valve and partial opening of said air passage in a second position thereof, and full squeezing towards said hard stop causing full depression of the spring-loaded stem of the air valve in a third position thereof leading to full opening of the air passage and activation of the air inflation element to inflate the air bladder.

3. The inflatable pillow as in claim 2, wherein said stretchable material is extended to cover both said top comfort portion and said inflatable portion of said inflatable pillow including said air valve, said L-shaped lever and said hard stop protruding under said stretchable material whereby allowing operating said air valve through said stretchable material.

4. The inflatable pillow as in claim 1 further comprising said inflatable bladder filled at least partially with compressible foam pieces, said foam pieces configured for urging said inflatable bladder to expand to an inflated shape when not constrained.

5. The inflatable pillow as in claim 1, wherein said inflatable bladder contains one or more compressible foam tubes, said one or more foam tubes configured to urge said inflatable bladder to expand into an expanded shape when said one or more foam tubes are not constrained.

6. The inflatable pillow as in claim 1, wherein said inflatable bladder comprising a central section having a height lower than a height of side sections thereof.

7. The inflatable pillow as in claim 1, wherein for monitoring quality of sleep, said pillow further comprising an altimeter exposed to the air pressure inside said inflatable bladder, and a controller configured to detect and record air pressure inside said inflatable bladder using said altimeter, said controller is further configured to operate said altimeter in a pressure range equal or above ambient air pressure.

8. The inflatable pillow as in claim 7, wherein said controller is further configured to detect time intervals when said pillow is in use corresponding to time intervals when said air pressure is above an air pressure baseline level, said air pressure increase caused by compression of said pillow by a head of a user.

9. The inflatable pillow as in claim 7, wherein said controller is further configured to detect head motion over said pillow by detecting air pressure variations above said air pressure baseline level.

10. The inflatable pillow as in claim 1, wherein said air inflation element is an electrically-powered air pump.

11. The inflatable pillow as in claim 10, wherein said control unit is configured to de-activate said electrically-powered air pump after a predetermined delay following switching said air valve away from said open “inflate” position.

12. The inflatable pillow as in claim 1, wherein said air inflation element is compressed foam constrained within said inflatable bladder upon deflation thereof.

13. The inflatable pillow as in claim 12, wherein said air inflation element is a compressed foam tube.

14. The inflatable pillow as in claim 10 further equipped with a silent alarm, said silent alarm caused by intermittent activation at user selected times of said air pump for periods of time sufficient to cause vibration internal to said inflatable pillow but insufficient to cause inflation of said inflatable bladder.

15. The inflatable pillow as in claim 14, wherein said control unit is further configured after activation of a snooze request to adjust snooze duration using an altimeter-based motion detection of the head on said inflatable pillow, said silent alarm is activated once said altimeter-based motion detection exceeds a predetermined threshold within a snooze time interval.

16. The inflatable pillow as in claim 14, wherein said air pump is activated for a period of time under 10 milliseconds for the purposes of delivering said silent alarm.

17. The inflatable pillow as in claim 1 further comprising a stretchable pillow cover surrounding both said top comfort portion and said inflatable portion of said inflatable pillow.

18. The inflatable pillow as in claim 7 further equipped with a wireless transmission link to a cellular phone, tablet or a personal computer running a mobile application configured to receive sleep data accumulated using said altimeter data.

19. The inflatable pillow as in claim 18, wherein said mobile application is further configured to receive user input on subjectively perceived quality of sleep as well as environmental, activity and dietary inputs, so as to facilitate correlation analysis and provide actionable recommendations as to improvements in sleep quality.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

(1) Subject matter is particularly pointed out and distinctly claimed in the concluding portion of the specification. The foregoing and other features of the present disclosure will become more fully apparent from the following description and appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. Understanding that these drawings depict only several embodiments in accordance with the disclosure and are, therefore, not to be considered limiting of its scope, the disclosure will be described with additional specificity and detail through use of the accompanying drawings, in which:

(2) FIG. 1a is a general view of the pillow of the present invention,

(3) FIG. 1b shows a general view of a stretchable comfort portion of the pillow above the inflatable lower portion of the pillow,

(4) FIG. 1c shows the height adjustable portion of the pillow,

(5) FIG. 2a is a side view of a user on a pillow, which is too high,

(6) FIG. 2b is a side view of a user on a pillow, which is optimal,

(7) FIG. 2c is a side view of a user on a pillow, which is too low,

(8) FIG. 3 is a general side view of the pillow in an unloaded state,

(9) FIG. 4 is the same in a loaded state with a predefined load,

(10) FIG. 5 is the same as in FIG. 4 but with the air valve activated for deflation adjustment of the pillow under load,

(11) FIG. 6 is the same showing the height of the pillow after adjustment,

(12) FIG. 7 is a block-diagram of the pillow of the present invention,

(13) FIG. 8 is a general cross-sectional view of the pillow of the invention,

(14) FIG. 9 is a general side view of the inflatable bladder of the pillow,

(15) FIG. 10 is a cross-sectional view of the inflatable bladder,

(16) FIG. 11 is another general cross-sectional view of the inflatable bladder,

(17) FIG. 12 is another cross-sectional view of the air-filled inflatable bladder,

(18) FIG. 13 is a cross-sectional view of the air-filled and foam-filled inflatable bladder,

(19) FIG. 14 is a cross-sectional view of the air-filled inflatable bladder containing resilient foam tubes,

(20) FIG. 15 is a view showing an operation of opening the valve of the bladder,

(21) FIG. 16 is a top view of the inflatable bladder of the present invention,

(22) FIGS. 17 (a), (b), and (c) are respectively a top, a side, and a bottom view of the control unit of the inflatable portion of the pillow,

(23) FIG. 17d is an isometric view of the control unit of the invention,

(24) FIG. 18 is a general side view of the control unit showing an air valve levers on top in the initial position,

(25) FIG. 19 is a cross-sectional side view of the same,

(26) FIG. 20 is a cross-sectional side view of the air valve in its initial closed position,

(27) FIG. 21 is a close-up cross-sectional view of the air valve in an intermediate “slow deflation” position,

(28) FIG. 22 is the same but with the valve in an open position for rapid inflation or deflation of the bladder,

(29) FIG. 23 is the same as FIG. 22 with the valve in a fully open position and with the electrical switch for the motor activated,

(30) FIG. 24a is an exemplary depiction of a screen of graphic user interface used to collect data on how the user feels and activities in an interactive-messaging-like interface,

(31) FIG. 24b shows exemplary motion data collected from the pillow that contains an altimeter, and

(32) FIG. 25 is a general depiction of the process used to collect user sleep data from the pillow and combine it with user input data in order to develop better sleep recommendations.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT OF THE INVENTION

(33) The following description sets forth various examples along with specific details to provide a thorough understanding of claimed subject matter. It will be understood by those skilled in the art, however that claimed subject matter may be practiced without one or more of the specific details disclosed herein. Further, in some circumstances, well-known methods, procedures, systems, components and/or circuits have not been described in detail in order to avoid unnecessarily obscuring claimed subject matter. In the following detailed description, reference is made to the accompanying drawings, which form a part hereof. In the drawings, similar symbols typically identify similar components, unless context dictates otherwise. The illustrative embodiments described in the detailed description, drawings, and claims are not meant to be limiting. Other embodiments may be utilized, and other changes may be made, without departing from the spirit or scope of the subject matter presented here. It will be readily understood that the aspects of the present disclosure, as generally described herein, and illustrated in the figures, can be arranged, substituted, combined, and designed in a wide variety of different configurations, all of which are explicitly contemplated and make part of this disclosure.

(34) FIG. 1 a shows a general view of the pillow 100 of the present invention and FIG. 7 shows a general block diagram thereof. The pillow 100 includes a comfort top portion 110 supported underneath by an inflatable lower portion 130. Although in this illustration the comfort portion 110 is seen as covering the lower portion 130 on top only, it is also contemplated to have the comfort portion 110 surrounding more or even the entire lower inflatable portion 130 on all sides or just on a top and on the bottom. Both the lower inflatable portion 130 and the top comfort portion 110 may be enclosed in a pillow cover 180 made from suitably soft and comfortable fabric, which is preferably a stretchable knitted fabric to reduce the amount of wrinkles and surface tension in the fabric. In embodiments, the lower portion 130 may be attached to the upper comfort portion 110 and not be enclosed in a pillow cover 180. A manual or electrically operated air control unit 140 may be provided to facilitate adding air into the bladder or removing air therefrom in order to adjust the pillow height.

(35) In embodiments, the top comfort portion 110 may include an optional dedicated cover containing the fill material. Alternatively, other embodiments may contain a single piece of fill material or several pieces of fill material attached together and arranged to represent the top comfort portion 110 without a dedicated cover holding the fill material together.

(36) Conventional pillows are typically made from woven fabric that does not stretch, such as cotton. However, this fabric also creates surface membrane tension similar to a hammock. Consequently, the pressure distribution underneath the person's head is not uniform. To address this deficiency, the pillow of the invention in at least some embodiments combines the use of a soft polyfill material inside a stretchable knitted mesh that may be positioned on top of the inflatable portion 130. In this case, the inflatable portion 130 may act close to a partially filled balloon—so as to lift the top comfort portion 110 of the pillow and a person's head to a specifically desired position, see FIG. 1b. The entire pillow may be wrapped in a stretchable knitted material 180 to provide very soft feel through uniform pressure distribution (i.e. improved tactile comfort).

(37) In embodiments, a variety of fill materials can be used for the purposes of supporting the user head and distribute pressure over the larger surface of the pillow 100. Down, polyfill, polyester, polyester pellets, microbeads, beanbag fillers, wool, shredded rubber, memory foam, polyurethane foam and other traditional materials may be used individually or in combination to fill the volume of the upper comfort portion 110 as the present invention is not limited in this regard.

(38) Before describing the lower inflatable portion of the pillow, it is important to discuss the need for height adjustment in greater detail. To achieve a good night sleep, it is important to allow muscle relaxation of all parts of the body. When it comes to an upper portion of the body, it is desirable to keep the head aligned with the general center line of the spine. For a side sleeper, this translates into a necessity to select the mattress softness along with the height and softness of the pillow appropriately. Selecting too high of a pillow tends to cause bending of the head upwards as seen in FIG. 2a. Too soft of a pillow or a shallow pillow tends to allow the head to bend downwards—see FIG. 2c. Proper alignment is seen in FIG. 2b. Utilizing a lower inflatable portion 130 of the pillow may help in adjusting the pillow height to a desired level for a variety of individual users, whereby making it universally satisfactory for a broad range of customers, while at the same time reducing the cost of producing a large number of sizes and servicing a large inventory of products at a store.

(39) To further improve the ease of use of the pillow with an adjustable height, the inventors of the present invention have conducted a number of tests to evaluate the best inflation and deflation practices for an inflatable pillow. FIG. 3 shows an intact unloaded pillow characterized by initial undisturbed height H.sub.o.

(40) The tests were performed with a 10 lb bowling ball placed in the middle of the pillow and used to represent a typical human head—see FIG. 4. Placing the ball on the pillow results in a depression of the pillow height to a loaded height of H.sub.L1 when the bladder is fully inflated.

(41) Tests to examine the impact of various size openings between the internal inflatable bladder of the pillow and atmosphere were conducted by releasing air from the bladder. One way to accomplish such release is via using a pinch valve (see FIG. 5)—releasing air causes the bladder to deflate at a rate corresponding to the size of the opening resulting in a lower pillow height H.sub.L2—see FIG. 6.

(42) Importantly, this test simulates the most preferred conditions of how the pillow height needs to be adjusted—while the user's head is resting on the pillow. In that case, the pressure differential urging the air out of the bladder is defined by the weight of the head—therefore simulating real life conditions. The rate of deflation needs to be slow enough to allow for a fine adjustment of the pillow height—deflating too fast would not allow the user to properly adjust the height of the pillow and to try different positions of the pillow while using it. At the same time, too small of an opening would cause excessively slow deflation of the pillow and therefore extending the time for the adjustment procedure unnecessarily.

(43) These experiments resulted in a determination of an optimum size of a total opening during deflation, which is fast enough to be convenient and yet slow enough to allow for fine adjustments. In embodiments, the size of the bladder opening suitable for convenient deflation may be about 0.15, 0.20, 0.25, 0.30, 0.35 in.sup.2 or any number inbetween.

(44) In a separate series of tests, inventors of the present invention evaluated the minimum size of the opening needed for rapid inflation of the pillow. It was determined that a suitable total opening size needed for rapid inflation under 15 seconds is about 0.25 in.sup.2.

(45) In embodiments, the cross-sectional area of an opening to the inflatable bladder may be at or above about 0.40 in.sup.2 in order to achieve pillow inflation of about 10 seconds or less. Other openings may also be used such as 0.15, 0.20, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5 in.sup.2 or any number inbetween.

(46) As a result of these experiments, it became apparent that a suitable rate of pillow deflation when a user head is on the pillow and pushing it down is quite different from the suitable rate of pillow inflation. In embodiments, it may be desired to have a rate of pillow deflation be lower than the rate of pillow inflation. To achieve this difference between the rate of pillow deflation and pillow inflation, the pillow of the present invention features a design allowing to change the cross-sectional area of the air passage leading to the inflatable bladder.

(47) In some embodiments, the adjustment of the air passage opening may be made in a staged way. In other words, the opening size during deflation may have a smaller fixed value while the opening size during inflation may have a larger fixed value. In other embodiments, the size of the opening may be adjusted gradually over a range of values covering both preferred inflation and preferred deflation rates.

(48) A general conceptional cross-sectional view of the pillow of the present invention is seen in FIG. 8. A pillow cover 180 is shown containing the fill material 112 located on top of the inflatable bladder 132. The bladder 132 may be shaped as a general rectangle and sized from about 9″×4″ to about 15″×22″. Using intermediate ribs 133, the bladder 132 may be shaped to include three sections: a central section 134 of smaller height H.sub.c may be located inbetween side sections 136 and 138 of greater height H.sub.s—see FIGS. 8 through 14. In embodiments, the height H.sub.c of the central section 134 of the unloaded bladder 132 may be from about 2″ to about 5″, while when in use that height may be reduced to about 0.5″ to 3″. At the same time, the height H.sub.s of the side portions 136 and 138 may be from about 2″ to about 7″. This arrangement is designed to provide deeper cradle for the head of the user located over the section 134 of the pillow while at the same time supporting the neck of the user located over a side section 136 or 138 of the bladder 132.

(49) A typical PVC bladder used in conventional inflatable pillows of the prior art is inflated such that it's membrane tension provides a firm and well defined inflated shape of the bladder. Consequently, it provides the desired shape of the inflatable item such as a mattress, pillow or an animation figure. While using such materials to make a bladder of the present pillow is possible, in at least some embodiments the present invention may use a bladder made from a cloth laminated with and sealed by a thin polyurethane or another polymer layer to provide soft elastic feel thereto. This approach would not have a final defined inflated shape and it is not used therefor to create a shape of a pillow, but to function as a lifting device that elevates a soft comfort layer on top of the inflatable bladder 132.

(50) In embodiments, the bladder 132 may be filled with only air as seen in FIG. 11. In other embodiments, the bladder 132 may be at least partially filled with a fill material—see FIG. 13. Having at least some foam inside the inflatable bladder 132 may be advantageous for a number of reasons: i. it provides for initial inflation of the bladder 132 due to natural foam expansion, ii. it provides for some resiliency of the bladder even without support from air pressure, iii. it allows for a better control of the shape of the inflatable bladder 132, and iv. it dampens oscillations and bouncing around when the user moved his head.
For all these reasons, this design may be advantageous for use in manually-inflatable hollow pillows. The fill material inside the bladder 132 may be the same or different from the fill material of the upper comfort portion 110. In embodiments, the fill material of the bladder 132 may be selected to be more elastic and less soft than the fill material of the upper comfort portion 110 so as to provide better support for the user, while the upper comfort layer 110 can provide for a greater pressure distribution to increase tactile comfort.

(51) The present invention contemplates passive as well as assisted inflation of the bladder 132. In case of a passive inflation, a simple blow-in tube may be provided at the end of the bladder opening. Such tube may be designed to be tucked away under the bladder once pillow adjustment is complete. Another way to cause passive inflation is to allow the inflatable bladder to expand based of expansion of the internal foam, which may have been previously compressed for storage purposes.

(52) The stiffness of reticulated foam is much greater than that of a polyfill material so such foam is conventionally shredded or cut into small pieces to fill inside a pillow that is typically used for camping since it can be compressed to a small size for travel. One alternative way to inflate the bladder is to use a circular foam tubes 139 (see FIG. 14) inside at least one, some or inside every section of the bladder 132. The foam tube 139 can be compressed much more than small pieces of foam as seen in FIG. 13. This approach would eliminate the need for a motor to inflate the pillow. The shape of the tube may be selected to match the size of each section of the inflatable bladder so that compressed foam pieces or the foam tube would urge the inflatable bladder to expand to its inflated shape when the foam is not constrained.

(53) A variety of mechanisms may be deployed to adjust the size of the air passage opening into the bladder, such as valves, manifolds, etc. To be convenient, such mechanism must be small, easily reachable and simple to operate by feel and without looking, even in a dark room. In this case, a simple and quick adjustment to the pillow height may be made by a user while resting a head on the pillow.

(54) In embodiments, inflation of the bladder 132 may be conducted by an electrically driven air pump using an air flow control unit 140. In this case, the air control unit 140 may be incorporated into the inflatable bladder 132 (see FIG. 16) and may include all the elements needed for air handling procedure, including microprocessor, a battery, a motor, an air pump, and one or more valves to control the flow of air in and out of the bladder 132. The microprocessor and the control logic may be located either inside the pillow or may be external to the pillow and communicating with the pillow elements such as a pump, a valve and optional sensors by using a wired or wireless communication link. In embodiments, a small electronic device such as a cell phone, a tablet or a personal computer may be employed to provide control function and present the user with a graphic user interface to operate the pillow and set desired parameters thereof. Reference to a “control unit” contemplates all of these arrangements, both inside and outside the pillow.

(55) The air control assembly 140 may be built into the bladder 132 in such a way that only a control lever may protrude outwards therefrom—see FIG. 15. A closer view of the air control unit 140 is seen in FIGS. 17 (a) through (d). To facilitate attachment of the air control assembly 140 to the bladder 132, a polymer insert layer 141 may be incorporated with the air control unit 140 during assembly. In this case, the bladder 132 may be welded, glued or otherwise attached to the polymer layer 141 to sealingly assemble the air control unit 140 inside the inflatable bladder 132. The polymer material of the insert 141 may be selected to be the same or of similar content as the material used for making an inflatable bladder 132 so as to facilitate the welding or another method of attachment between the air control unit 140 and the inflatable bladder 132.

(56) The details of the air control assembly 140 are shown in FIGS. 17 to 19. The air control unit 140 generally includes an electrically-powered motor 174 rotating an impeller of the air pump 170. The motor 174 may be powered by a battery or another source of electrical power. The air pump 170 may be selected to provide enough air flow into the bladder 132 for rapid inflation.

(57) The valve portion of the air control unit 140 may be made using a movable spring-loaded L-shaped lever 155 positioned opposite a hard stop 153. The shape of the protruding portions of the lever 155 and the hard stop 153 may be made to allow the user to squeeze the lever 155 by pressing the end thereof towards the stop 153 when placing both the lever 155 and the stop 153 between two fingers of the same hand—see FIG. 21. The soft stretchable cover 180 may be configured such that both lever 155 and hard stop 153 may protrude from the pillow 100 while under the cover 180 and operation of the air valve may be accomplished by pushing the lever 155 through the stretchable material of the cover 180.

(58) When the lever 155 is moved towards the hard stop 153, it causes a spring-loaded valve stem 151 of the air valve to move downwards from its normally-closed initial position to open air passage between the valve plate 154 and the valve seat or membrane 152—see FIGS. 20, 21, 22, and 23. The shape of the air passage formed when the stem 151 is moved downwards depends on the position of the stem 151: initial movement of the stem 151 from a closed position to an intermediate “slow deflation” position causes only a small air passage opening to be formed to allow slow deflation of the bladder. The size of that opening may be selected to match the experiments described above—about 0.15, 0.20, 0.25, 0.30, 0.35 in.sup.2 or any number inbetween. This position is designed for slow deflation of the bladder and reduction of the pillow height caused by the weight of the user's head resting on the pillow.

(59) As the stem 151 is urged by the lever 155 to move further down to a full open “inflation” position, the air passage opening may be increased to allow rapid inflation of the bladder—see FIG. 22. As described above, the full opening of the valve may open a size of the air passage to be about 0.15, 0.20, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5 in.sup.2 or any number inbetween—that would allow inflating of the bladder 132 in under 15 sec when a suitable air pump is used. In embodiments, the shape of the air passage may be selected to allow continuously increasing air passage to be formed as the stem 151 is moved from a closed position to an open position—in that case the speed of bladder deflation may be progressively increased by further squeezing the lever 155 towards the hard stop 153.

(60) In other embodiments, the shape of the air passage may be selected to be consistently small once the stem 151 is moved from a closed position to the open position and increase in size dramatically once the open position is reached. In this case, the user may not be concerned with fine adjustment of the bladder deflation—it will be the same at most positions of the lever 155 except its final position. This configuration may be preferred for the purposes of a simple two-stage adjustment.

(61) The control unit 140 may be further designed to have the lower end of the stem 151 to activate the air pump switch 159 when it reaches the end of its travel—see FIG. 23. This would cause the pump to be automatically energized when the valve is in the open “inflation” position causing the bladder to be inflated. As the desired extent of inflation is achieved, the user may release the lever 155 causing inflation to stop and the valve to close. The control unit with a microprocessor may be used to modulate when the pump turns off. In one example, the switch 159 may directly connect the air pump to the source of power, in which case operating the valve away from the open “inflate position” would immediately cause the air pump to stop.

(62) In other embodiments, the switch 159 may be connected to a controller in which case the controller may be programmed to execute a slight delay to switch the pump off, for example about 0.5 sec. In this case, when the lever is released, the pump is still operating to inflate the pillow during this delay so as to minimize inadvertent deflation while the valve is in the process of being closed.

(63) Additional features may be provided by the novel pillow of the present invention. One such feature is a silent wake-up alarm. Traditional vibration alarms provided in various pillows of the prior art are not entirely silent. They utilize a dedicated motor, which is used to rotate a cam to create vibration, and in turn wake up a user at a resonance frequency which is typically in the range of audio frequencies. While effective, such systems are not silent, and may cause a partner of the user who sleeps nearby to wake up as well.

(64) The present invention addresses this problem by providing a silent vibration alarm, which does not require any additional components other than what is already present in the pillow of the invention. The silent alarm is achieved by momentary use of the motor of the air pump as an optional vibration actuator. The control unit may be programmed to activate the silent alarm at the desired time of the day by pulsing (activating) the motor for short periods of time such as about 1-10 ms about every 2 sec or so. This use of the motor doesn't cause the motor to turn or pump to infuse any appreciable amount of air into the bladder—but creates a small vibration that only the person sleeping on the pillow can hear and feel. This eliminates the need for a separate vibration motor needed to create a silent alarm.

(65) Another novel feature of the invention is incorporation of an altimeter to be exposed to the internal volume of the bladder 132. Altimeters are generally designed to measure atmospheric pressure and to determine the altitude of the user for applications such as mountain climbers, airplanes and drones. Altimeter is generally made using an absolute pressure sensor and detecting a reduction in pressure below an atmospheric pressure. They are not known to be used in the range of pressures higher than atmospheric pressure as this would indicate location of the user below sea level. Mass production of altimeters for use in cell phones and other common electronic devices makes them readily available and inexpensive. The present invention uses the altimeter located inside the bladder 132 as a pressure sensor to measure the sleep activity of the user. As the head of the user is rested on a pillow, the pressure inside the pillow increases above a previous steady baseline air pressure level. Detecting and recording of the bladder pressure by an altimeter both before and during sleep time may be useful in detecting the time when the user went to sleep, the time when the user woke up, how many times the user got up in the middle of the night as well as the relative motion of the user during the sleep as such motion would cause pressure fluctuations and variations inside the bladder of the pillow—and can be recorded using the altimeter or another pressure sensor.

(66) Information from the altimeter may be used to determine all the movements of the user very accurately in comparison to using other sensors such as conventional accelerometers. This novel approach uses the pressure region of the altimeter which is typically not used, i.e. when the pressure increases above ambient baseline level indicating compression of the bladder presumably by a head of the user. An altimeter provides absolute pressure so it does not have to be vented to outside the bladder for simpler construction. Altimeters are also made in small sized making incorporation into the control unit 140 easier to accomplish.

(67) The pillow of the present invention incorporating an altimeter and a silent alarm further allows to accomplish smart wake alarm—in embodiments, the controller 140 may be programmed to wake the user at the ideal light sleep state within a 30-minute window before the selected alarm time. Light sleep state may be detected when increasing head movement is identified. Awakening in a light sleep state reduces the feeling of grogginess and gives the person a more refreshed feeling.

(68) However, if the person has been sleep-deprived or they simply need more sleep, the smart alarm doesn't provide as much benefit since that person needs as much sleep as possible. In that situation the user may hit the snooze button to activate a snooze request—to sleep a bit more. Generally, the duration of the snooze on a conventional alarm clock has been fixed based on historical limitations of mechanical watches. The present invention may further provide a smart snooze function using the sensor in the pillow that can accurately monitor user motion using an altimeter-provided data—the snooze duration can be adjusted to fit the person's needs, for example it would cause the activation of the silent alarm again when the person starts moving his head again above a predetermined threshold indicating being in a light sleep pattern—all within a predetermined period of snooze time interval set by the user.

(69) How a person slept, other subjectively perceived quality of sleep data, as well as objectively recorded data such as duration of sleep and head motion through the night may be tracked accurately with the sleep tracking capabilities of the pillow of the present invention as described above. Incorporating a wired or wireless transmission capability into the pillow of the invention allows to establish a link with a smart mobile phone app or a computer program to record a variety of sleep parameters and combine them with the user input. Over time, such accumulated data may be used to track best sleep patterns and determine the best sleep practices for each individual user. The phone app may be used to combine the sleep data with information on how the user feels in the morning or throughout the day for example and what did the user do to help develop better insights on how to get better sleep. This may be accomplished with a simple graphic user interface (see FIG. 25) that lets the user select key activities and emotions. Correlation algorithms may be used to monitor trends in sleep data as well as lifestyle inputs to propose actionable suggestions on how to improve the quality of sleep.

(70) It is contemplated that any embodiment discussed in this specification can be implemented with respect to any method of the invention, and vice versa. It will be also understood that particular embodiments described herein are shown by way of illustration and not as limitations of the invention. The principal features of this invention can be employed in various embodiments without departing from the scope of the invention. Those skilled in the art will recognize, or be able to ascertain using no more than routine experimentation, numerous equivalents to the specific procedures described herein. Such equivalents are considered to be within the scope of this invention and are covered by the claims.

(71) All publications and patent applications mentioned in the specification are indicative of the level of skill of those skilled in the art to which this invention pertains. All publications and patent applications are herein incorporated by reference to the same extent as if each individual publication or patent application was specifically and individually indicated to be incorporated by reference.

(72) The use of the word “a” or “an” when used in conjunction with the term “comprising” in the claims and/or the specification may mean “one,” but it is also consistent with the meaning of “one or more,” “at least one,” and “one or more than one.” The use of the term “or” in the claims is used to mean “and/or” unless explicitly indicated to refer to alternatives only or the alternatives are mutually exclusive, although the disclosure supports a definition that refers to only alternatives and “and/or.” Throughout this application, the term “about” is used to indicate that a value includes the inherent variation of error for the device, the method being employed to determine the value, or the variation that exists among the study subjects.

(73) As used in this specification and claim(s), the words “comprising” (and any form of comprising, such as “comprise” and “comprises”), “having” (and any form of having, such as “have” and “has”), “including” (and any form of including, such as “includes” and “include”) or “containing” (and any form of containing, such as “contains” and “contain”) are inclusive or open-ended and do not exclude additional, unrecited elements or method steps. In embodiments of any of the compositions and methods provided herein, “comprising” may be replaced with “consisting essentially of” or “consisting of”. As used herein, the phrase “consisting essentially of” requires the specified integer(s) or steps as well as those that do not materially affect the character or function of the claimed invention. As used herein, the term “consisting” is used to indicate the presence of the recited integer (e.g., a feature, an element, a characteristic, a property, a method/process step or a limitation) or group of integers (e.g., feature(s), element(s), characteristic(s), propertie(s), method/process steps or limitation(s)) only.

(74) The term “or combinations thereof” as used herein refers to all permutations and combinations of the listed items preceding the term. For example, “A, B, C, or combinations thereof” is intended to include at least one of: A, B, C, Aft AC, BC, or ABC, and if order is important in a particular context, also BA, CA, CB, CBA, BCA, ACB, BAC, or CAB. Continuing with this example, expressly included are combinations that contain repeats of one or more item or term, such as BB, AAA, Aft BBC, AAABCCCC, CBBAAA, CABABB, and so forth. The skilled artisan will understand that typically there is no limit on the number of items or terms in any combination, unless otherwise apparent from the context.

(75) As used herein, words of approximation such as, without limitation, “about”, “substantial” or “substantially” refers to a condition that when so modified is understood to not necessarily be absolute or perfect but would be considered close enough to those of ordinary skill in the art to warrant designating the condition as being present. The extent to which the description may vary will depend on how great a change can be instituted and still have one of ordinary skilled in the art recognize the modified feature as still having the required characteristics and capabilities of the unmodified feature. In general, but subject to the preceding discussion, a numerical value herein that is modified by a word of approximation such as “about” may vary from the stated value by at least ±1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 12, 15, 20 or 25%.

(76) All of the devices and/or methods disclosed and claimed herein can be made and executed without undue experimentation in light of the present disclosure. While the devices and methods of this invention have been described in terms of preferred embodiments, it will be apparent to those of skill in the art that variations may be applied to the devices and/or methods and in the steps or in the sequence of steps of the method described herein without departing from the concept, spirit and scope of the invention. All such similar substitutes and modifications apparent to those skilled in the art are deemed to be within the spirit, scope and concept of the invention as defined by the appended claims.