Somnus Explained · Issue Nº 02
What We Do
With Your
Sleep.
The most intimate data there is, and a plain answer about what happens to it.
Editor's Note: This is part of Somnus Explained, a series describing who we are, what we make, and the principles that guide our work.
Sleep data is some of the most intimate information a person can hand over. It is what happens in your bedroom, every night: your breathing, your snoring, the rhythm of the hours when you are least guarded. Most companies that want this data tell you they value your privacy. We would rather tell you what we actually do.
Somnus is building a closed-loop data network for upper airway dysfunction. The honest tension in that sentence is the word data: the loop only works because information moves through it: sensing, scoring, routing, outcomes. So we owe you a plain answer to the obvious question: if your sleep data moves through the system, what happens to yours?
How we think about where the listening happens
BSA™, our acoustic breathing-and-snoring engine, runs on your phone: on the device, in your room, under your roof. The analysis of the night's audio happens there. We designed it that way deliberately, because the alternative (streaming the sound of your bedroom to someone else's server) is the kind of architecture you accept only if you never expected scrutiny. We expect scrutiny.
How we think about the business
Unlike many technology companies, our business model is not based on monetizing personal data. We are not in the business of selling the people who come to us for help; our business is upper airway care. We say it that plainly because the difference between a company that serves you and a company that sells you should never require a lawyer to find.
How we think about your choices
At launch, patient choice is explicit. Connecting your information to a provider is your action. Sharing is never presumed. The picture your nights build belongs first to you; it exists to make things clearer to you and, when you choose, to the clinician you bring it to.
How we think about what the loop learns
The network gets smarter from patterns and outcomes (which kinds of signals preceded which results, which pathways helped), not from knowing you by name. The Somnus Index™ is a wellness measure that tracks your own progression over time, in plain and general terms. It is not a diagnosis, and care decisions belong with clinicians, not with an app.
How we think about being early
We are early, and some of what is described here is architecture and commitment rather than shipped product. We would rather say that plainly than imply otherwise. But the commitments are the point of writing this down now: they are easiest to make before there is pressure to bend them, and hardest to walk back once they are published. That is why we are publishing them.
A note on the paperwork
Our privacy policy and our terms are the governing documents for how information is handled, and they say in legal language what this installment says in plain language. If those two ever disagree, that is a defect; tell us, and we will fix it.
We are glad to talk further about how we think and how we build. Reach us at [email protected].