Review: pzizz sleep
February 22, 2010
Overview
Pzizz sleep is a medical app designed to help you sleep better. Does it work? Yes. Pzizz sleep consists of a musical track and a male voice gently talking. You can adjust the volume of both the voice and the music. The major claim to fame for this app is that the soundtrack changes every time you use it. Pzizz sleep app is also famous for it's huge price! 9.99? Wow!! This app must be amazing. Although this app does work well, there is a lot of room for improvement here.
Features
If you have been using pzizz sleep on your computer, then you know what this app is all about. Pzizz uses a combination of techniques to help you sleep; slight hypnotization to help bring on relaxation, soothing tones that illicit calm brain waves, and supportive nurturing serene words.
Pzizz allows you to adjust the length of the sleep track from 10 to 60 minutes. The voice can be made stereo or "Aurora 3D" but they are basically indistinguishable. You can adjust the music and voice volumes independently, from 0 to 100%, allowing just talking, or just music or any combination in between. You can also choose from five bland wallpapers.
The Breakdown
The Good: This app REALLY will put you to sleep. I have been using pzizz for weeks now, but just after the first few nights I noticed a difference and felt more rested when I awoke in the morning. The ability to adjust the volume of the music and the voice independently is an important feature and is where a majority of your customization will come in. This app keeps it simple - you open the app, press start and it begins. No need to fuss with decisions on what to fall asleep to or listen through annoying jungle/beach/forest/babbling-brook sounds before you find the least annoying combination. I find this to be the case with the iRelax Melodies Premium Edition app. Battery life is always an issue with sleeping apps, and with the maximum listening time set to 60 minutes, you will find that pzizz won't drain much battery life if left unplugged. The voice that guides you to sleep says inspiring and relaxing things such as, "You know deep down that you are going to awaken ready for the day." If sleep is a serious issue for you or ten bucks isn't too much for you to spend, pzizz sleep is simple and effective.
The Bad:
If you use Pzizz to sleep, you can't use an alarm clock app, but that's an obvious downside. The developers claim that a different track plays every time you listen, but that's a bit misleading. The first five minutes are always the same, and quite often I don't stay awake past the first five minutes.
There are random bells and chimes that go off that are strangely louder than the rest of the music and can interrupt sleep, but I found this happening less and less often as I came to expect it. There are random moments of silence that last up to three minutes, which I found can be confusing to the point that it has interrupted my process of falling asleep. The limit of 60 minutes can be a bit restricting especially if it takes you 61 or more minutes to fall asleep.
Pzizz sleep works best with headphones but sleeping with headphones can be uncomfortable enough to keep you from sleeping, or might even have you waking up with an earache. I found pzizz sleep to work just fine through speakers while only losing a slight amount of effectiveness.
The wallpapers are limited. There are five choices none of which display movement and three of which are just advertisements for Pzizz. This app leaves me feeling like there should be WAY more features for the lofty price, most of which could be easily implemented.
