Nora, the smart, non-invasive snoring solution

Snoring is no joke. As well as being a symptom of conditions such as sleep apnea, sharing a bed with a heavy snorer can seriously compromise the health of your relationship.

Whilst the snorer often sleeps soundly, their partner has to endure repeated awakenings in the night; a recipe for frustration, resentment and lots of sleep deprivation.

Snoring is caused by the relaxing of the soft-tissue in the breathing airways at night, so finding a permanent cure isn’t easy. Solutions run the gamut from herbal sprays, nasal patches, lozenges, to mouthguards, nasal strips, and even surgery.

But there hasn’t been a really ‘smart’ way to beat snoring yet. Until now, that is. Because Smart Nora Inc, a small company from San Francisco have invented a unique solution that promises to bring peaceful nights to long-suffering partners of snorers.

Having just completed a successful campaign on Kickstarter, Nora promises to be the “first non-invasive smart anti-snoring device that’s designed specifically to stop snoring before it wakes your sleeping partner“.

Like all good ideas, the concept behind Nora is simple and elegant. Instead of attempting to ‘cure’ or prevent snoring, Nora instead detects the very first signs of snoring, and attempts to stop it before it wakes up the partner.

It does this with a clever 2-part apparatus; a pebble-shaped bedside device which contains a microphone, and a small inflatable pad that slips into your pillow.

When you fall asleep the pebble listens out for any signs of snoring in the room. As soon as snoring is detected, a small pump inflates the pillow pad, elevating your head slightly.

This is just enough to stimulate the relaxed throat muscles, after which the airway assumes its natural position allowing you to breathe normally again.

Nora comes with an iOs smartphone app which can monitor your night’s sleep and potentially identify if your snoring indicates medical problems. The makers also hope to integrate Nora with Apple Health in the future.

So if you or your partner is struggling with snoring, it’s well worth checking out Nora. We think it’s an interesting and innovation solution to a problem that affects lots of people.