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Life & fun · July 5, 2026

AB

A bedside camera detects REM sleep and agrees with a clinical EEG

I build a device called the INSPEC that detects REM sleep from a bedside infrared camera instead of electrodes. It watches the face under IR light and measures frame-to-frame pixel variance in the eye region. During quiet sleep the face is stable. During REM the eye movements under the lids produce measurable variance, which the device aggregates over time before it flags a REM period. Toss detection, whole-frame motion rejection, and face tracking filter out body movement and out-of-frame periods. After I gave a talk on contactless REM detection, a sleep lab loaned me a clinical-grade EEG…

In plain words

INSPEC is a bedside infrared camera system that detects REM sleep without electrodes by tracking eye movements beneath closed eyelids. The device measures pixel variance in the eye region under infrared light, using face tracking and motion rejection to filter out body movement and distinguish REM periods from quiet sleep. The maker tested INSPEC against clinical-grade EEG recordings and independent sleep stage classifiers, finding REM detections aligned with professional diagnostic results. It is for sleep researchers and individuals interested in contactless sleep monitoring.

written from the facts on this page · September 2026

From the sources

In the maker’s words, at launch

I build a device called the INSPEC that detects REM sleep from a bedside infrared camera instead of electrodes. It watches the face under IR light and measures frame-to-frame pixel variance in the eye region. During quiet sleep the face is stable. During REM the eye movements under the lids produce measurable variance, which the device aggregates over time before it flags a REM period. Toss detection, whole-frame motion rejection, and face tracking filter out body movement and out-of-frame periods. After I gave a talk on contactless REM detection, a sleep lab loaned me a clinical-grade EEG device. I recorded a full night wearing the EEG with the camera running at the bedside. I scored the EEG with three independent sleep stage classifiers: ez6 and ez6moe from ezscore, and DreamentoScorer from Dreamento. The REM periods fell at the same times the camera had flagged REM from the video. The long REM periods late in the night, around hours three, five, and seven, matched in every classifier.

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