Doplor Sleep: A Bedtime Monitoring Application for Hospital Sound Disturbances

Creating Awareness and Improving Sleep Quality for Critically Ill Patients

Doplor Sleep, designed by Yiling Liu, is a unique mobile application that captures environmental sounds using the microphone of a smartphone. The application then uses advanced algorithms to classify the recorded data into different sound source categories, including medical alarms, speech, incidental sounds, and snoring sounds. By connecting with the Fitbit sleep tracker and retrieving data from the Fitbit API, Doplor Sleep generates daily sleep-sound quality reports.

The user interface of Doplor Sleep is designed to be user-friendly and engaging. Friendly-looking illustrations are used to present the data and information, while a creative interaction allows users to view the dynamic of their sleep status and the acoustical environment throughout the night. The application utilizes boats as a time indicator, representing the sleeper, and a river as a timeline. Color blocks on the river indicate different sleep stages, while icons of picnic, flashlight, rocks, and nose bubble represent different sound classifications.

Before going to bed, users simply press the ship-icon button to start recording environmental sounds. The next morning, pressing the ship-icon again stops the recording and displays a sleep summary page with information on sleep quality and sound quality. By swiping to the left, users can access more detailed information about the presence of sounds and sleep stages during the night. Finally, users can fill in a short survey on their subjective feelings about sleep quality, and the data will be sent to the medical staff.

The Doplor Sleep mobile application is currently available for Android devices. It was developed using the Android Studio IDE and utilizes the Fitbit API for retrieving sleep data. The project, led by Yiling Liu, started in March 2020 and was completed in October 2020 in Delft, the Netherlands.

This innovative design was inspired by the need to raise awareness of sound as a sleep disturbance in hospitals. Research conducted in the Netherlands has shown that sleep duration and quality are suboptimal in hospitals, with sound being the most significant sleep disturbance. Doplor Sleep aims to present the influence of sound on sleep in a friendly and comprehensive way, benefiting both patients and medical staff.

The Doplor Sleep design has overcome several challenges, including designing a sound classification algorithm that accurately classifies hospital sounds and presenting sound and sleep data on the same timeline in a user-friendly manner. The result is a visually attractive and informative application that helps improve sleep quality for critically ill patients.

Doplor Sleep has received recognition for its design excellence. It was awarded the Iron A' Design Award in the Mobile Technologies, Applications, and Software Design category in 2021. This award recognizes well-designed, practical, and innovative creations that meet professional and industrial requirements, contributing to a better world.