Shop Talk: Making a Snoring Solution you Actually Want to Use

What goes into making a non-invasive snoring solution that's simple and delightful for snorers and their partners to use? These are the type of questions that keeps us up at night. We also know that many of you are particularly interested in Nora’s product development process. To help all of us sleep betterment enthusiasts geek out together, we're starting a series of posts called Shop Talk. 

In the past two month we’ve been obsessing over all the details that come together to make Nora a delightful device, making sure that sleepers (snorers and their bed partners) can seamlessly integrate the snoring solution into their bedrooms and sleep routines.

These days, we’ve been focused on microphones, light displays and naturally, Nora’s overall user experience (UX). Here’s a bit more about our process going from industrial design all the way to tooling at the factory.

We’ve explored a number of microphone types, different mounting positions and the acoustic and processing possibilities we could afford with each. We consulted with folks with expertise on high-performance bluetooth microphones to fully understand the implications of each choice and settled on the option with the biggest functional pay-off without over-engineering the parts or introducing unnecessary R&D cycles.

Light display and UX was another area that we dove into in great detail. Staying true to the original vision, we want the Bedsider to be your main point of interaction with Nora. To keep the sleek look and finish of Nora we considered many combinations of inputs on the bottom of the Bedsider. We want to give you an intuitive interaction without jamming too many actions into a single button. (We’ve all been there, looking at a coffee-maker with one button that flashes different colors and you have no clue what each one means.) We are really happy with the final direction. Despite all the edge cases we need to address, still all you need to do before going to bed is tap Nora, simple.

Another decision point that we reviewed multiple times was ambient light. The options were (A) Nora should be a dark device overnight or (B) Nora should have a faint visible light overnight. As you might guess, the two camps rallying each choice are people who are sensitive to light pollution in the bedroom, and those who can sleep in the brightest room with no problem. At the end we picked the option that works for everyone: no light pollution at night, and a simple tap will tell you what Nora is up to.

We are expecting to go to China after the Lunar New Year to visit the factories we have identified. From that point on we will iterate right in factory, which will make for a speedy process on tooling and fine-tuning.