This glowing orb will help you sleep

There's a proud tradition of "bedroom technology" that's meant to keep you up all night, but a new device from Hello has something else in mind. It's a smart sleep aid that you can control with your voice, like an Amazon Echo or Google Home. And it contains a surprising number of bells and whistles geared toward improving your shuteye.

SEE ALSO: Use your iPhone's bedtime mode to get your sleep schedule on track

Sense with Voice, as the device is called, is a new version of Hello's existing sleep gadget. It launched Tuesday, priced at $149. Like the original Sense, it promises to provide actionable insights into your slumber every night. The device is a glowing orb that rests on a bedside table. And it collects a dizzying amount of data about what's going on in your room. 

Every morning, Sense tells you how things went the previous night via a connected app. Maybe your room was too noisy or hot, diminishing your overall sleep quality. Maybe it was a wee bit too bright or humid. Maybe the air was saturated with "volatile organic compounds" or carbon dioxide, which Sense can detect.

Image: Hello

It's a lot of information — arguably too much. We tried the original Sense and were constantly informed that our room was too loud, which is tough to mitigate in a rented apartment in the middle of New York City. 

We asked James Proud, the CEO of Hello, and Matt Walker, the company's chief scientist and a professor of neuroscience and psychology at UC Berkeley, about this. They understood the concerns about data overload but offered a couple of justifications for the volume of information relayed by the device.

"Human beings are miserable at changing habits. That's why you can't keep New Year's resolutions," Walker said. "But what is helpful is when you see clinical outcomes: They do this with heart attack victims. A lot of them drop out of physical rehabilitation programs. But if you start showing that effort, start plotting it… People start getting motivated."

Proud recalled an anecdote from a customer who was able to use the original Sense with her 8-year-old son who has sensory disorder. "I can see when he wakes up, when goes to sleep, and I can coach him into a better sleeping pattern," he recalled the customer saying.

The idea is not to be overwhelmed by the data, but to simply tweak what you can to improve your "sleep score" — which is determined by all of those factors, like noise level.

Image: Hello

Is this really necessary?

Sleep deprivation is a vexing health problem — it saps you of physical and emotional wellness, and there's no one-size-fits-all cure for it, either. 

Sense with Voice can't work miracles, but as sleep technology goes, it's solid. For one thing, it offers considerably more information than a wearable can. You may not realize that high CO2 levels can lead to poor sleep: Sense will understand your environment and encourage you to crack a window if necessary. The new unit can also connect to other smart devices in your home, so you can tell it to adjust your Nest thermostat or dim your Phillips Hue Lights. 

It can also play soothing noises to help you get to sleep in the first place, and its alarm clock function will select an optimal time to wake you up, like the Sleep Cycle alarm app you may be familiar with.

With the voice controls, all of this can happen without any tinkering on a smartphone. Blue light emitted by our devices can negatively impact sleep quality, so best case scenario, your phone is actually far away from your bedside every night. Sense with Voice can detect the light around your bed and will tell you if you're messing up.

"In the original version, we had a light sensor. Now, we have a color temperature of the light. Is this a blue light — is this a bad light for you?" Proud explained.

Bottom line, if you're serious about improving your sleep, this is the gadget you want. 

The future of better sleep

There's an issue with Sense. One third of American adults don't get enough sleep, but many don't have the spare cash for a $149 bedside gizmo that can help them.

Proud and Walker get this. 

"Throughout my childhood, my mum would do night shifts, stocking grocery store shelves at night. I saw someone firsthand being forced into an unnatural sleep pattern and how that destroyed their days. It's a huge problem," Proud said.

Their hope is to use the data collected by Sense devices, in aggregate, to positively impact a greater population than could buy the gadget to begin with. Walker suggested that "the masses of data that Sense has accrued" could convince governments that sleep deprivation has a major impact on education, health and wellness. In his ideal world, Sense would be subsidized as a preventative measure.

"Because they understand the cost to government on the back end far outweighs the cost on the front end — treatment is always more expensive than preventative measures," Walker said.

The data collected by Sense isn't traceable to you as an individual, and Proud says there are extensive privacy measures built into the device.

"We keep privacy and security very seriously," Proud said. "It's all completely encrypted. Each device has its own custom key. It's very similar to how you use an iPhone."

Piggybacking off of what the company has already started, Proud says Hello will continue to build devices "with people at the center," and that he has no plans to fold the technology into other digital assistants like the Echo.

"What is the center of these companies and how they view you as a person? With Amazon, it's the products that you buy. With Google, it's the information you search," Proud said. "With us, we're the first company that truly has you, the individual, in the center. We're not looking at the things you buy or the habits you have. We're looking at your sleep."

CORRECTION: Nov. 1, 2016, 3:54 p.m. EDT An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Hello CEO James Proud has an 8-year-old son. In fact, he was recalling an anecdote from a customer using Sense.