INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
I barely slept, the second night in Chunking Mansions
The loud neighbors, the hot Hong Kong air, the landlord banging on the door after midnight
None of these things are particularly conducive to a peaceful rest, and for once in my life I actually looked forward to attempts at shut
eye on the 15+ hour flight home in the morning
For all the dread of returning to the notorious Hong Kong hostiles that evening, after a day of exploring the area, I was actually looking
forward to the strapping this weird thing to my head — closing my eyes and embracing the luxury of forgetting where I was for a few
I&d tried Silentmode PowerMask earlier in the day, in the middle of the Brinc accelerator well-lit meeting room
The whole thing was oddly soothing, if fairly awkward — a big, foam black out mask with headphones embedded on either side
Probably not the sort of thing you want to wear out in the open, though Lucas happily modeled it above — because we clearly don&t have
enough pictures of our in-house VR guy wearing weird crap on his head over at TechCrunch.com.
I&d be lying if I said I didn&t enjoy the
minute or two I spent with the mask on, wondering if this is how pet parrots feel when you cover their cages with a blanket for the night
Maybe that just the jetlag talking.
It a momentary respite from the cloying terrors of the world, a way to briefly trick our overactive
brains into thinking, yeah, sure, everything is just fine with some new agey music, breathing exercises and, most importantly, just
complete, utter darkness.
I&m a sucker for this stuff
If have the Calm app on my phone and started getting pretty into the Muse headset before leaving for my two-week trip
I&ve shared the fact that I&m a bad and anxious meditator plenty of times before on these pages, but find even my failed attempts to be
Someone described the PowerMask as a kind of small scale take on a sensory deprivation tank, and sure, why not I&ve had worse nights.
A bit
of a wrinkle in all of this: it isn&t a sleep device, exactly
Or at least the company isn&t branding it as such, Initially pitched as a &Power Nap& product, there does appear to be some in-house
confusion with regard to how exactly to position the product
Certainly the startup wants to distinguish itself from the eight million connected sleep masks I see at tech events, particularly when
traveling in Asia.
The company surprisingly doesn&t discuss current zeitgeisty startup phrases like meditation or mindfulness, either.
&We
are on a much bigger mission to train the world in the art of relaxation,& cofounder Bradley Young writes in a followup email
The company site is far less subtle, with language rarely heard outside of supplement ads
&Reach peak state,& it writes in bold all caps font, &become a peak human.& I mean, sure, why not
That last bit of hyperbole is courtesy of
the company focus on something called CVT (CardiacVagal Tone)
Silentmode claims the device can be used to help us normal folk achieve the resting heart rate of an athlete
Look, here a graph:
I won&t go too deep into that stuff here, because frankly, I don&t know what I&m talking about
Though I can see how buying some blackout curtains for your head b/w &psychoacoustic and therapeutic sonic experiences& could go a ways
toward helping one chill the eff out
It did bring a momentary and much needed respite from my vaguely horrific lodging experiences.
Despite the company move away from sleep
talk, it also went a ways toward helping me crash on this flight
The music is soothing, and while the padded headset isn&t a pillow exactly, it a lot more comfortable than just leaning your head on the
Assuming you can get over the awkwardness of wearing a giant thing on your head
Of course, no one looks good sleeping on a plane, weird head accessory or no
And the company plans to offer up premium audio through an additional app subscription
Silentmode is also working with some large companies to pilot these products in office spaces, where relaxation is a rare commodity indeed
