Nothing is more frustrating than traveling on empty and there’s really nowhere to get a cat nap. Lying across three rows of hard seats in the boarding area doesn’t do the trick. Sitting on the floor and resting your head on your carry-on luggage won’t do it either. And if you don’t belong to a 100K club where you can relax in a plusher setting, then you’re trapped.
Until now. Well, in the near future. Maybe.
A Moscow-based company has just released its concept “Sleep Box”—a capsule mini-hotel that you can rent for 15 minutes or longer. Perfect for sneaking in a rejuvenating nap. And get this: it’s fully equipped with:
Now that’s pretty cool. But will we ever see these sleep boxes for real in the real world? And how will the real world treat these things?
Maybe they can work in airports and places where people have a reasonable wait time (30-60 min). I’m actually surprised it has taken us this long to come up with such an idea.
Metronaps, the Australian and U.K.-based company that makes sleep pods primarily for workplace settings, haven’t really taken off yet in the U.S. and would not be great in a public place (the pods are sort of futuristic and open to see people lying down).
Yelo, a New York based company, offers a place to nap and a reflexology massage that is awesome. The chair you sit in puts you into a zero-gravity position so you can completely relax. This is great for an afternoon break or to help with that lull we all hit between 1 and 3 p.m.
So if you are tired of hitting the vending machine (candy or an energy drink), the coffee shop, or those hard chairs in the boarding area, this new concept could be the next great way to take a well deserved nap.
Sweet Dreams,
Michael J. Breus, PhD
The Sleep Doctor™
www.thesleepdoctor.com
This article on sleep is also available at Dr. Breus's official blog, The Insomnia Blog.
Follow Dr. Michael J. Breus on Twitter: www.twitter.com/thesleepdoctor
Its clear that the future of low cost accomodation is in micro hotel structures....
we need those things here. American air travel has gotten to be torture....
How about they just get the planes to fly when they are supposed to and I will rest at home.
http://dvice.com/archives/2009/11/sleepbox-for-ca.php#
Space is too expensive so they'd cost too much for a nap.
Plus I see them being stacked up and looking more like coffins.
Personally, I'd be afraid of missing my flight. I prefer to fly at night and sleep through the flight. It's isn't comfortable, but it passes a boring time and helps me to adjust to the new time zone.
My first preference would be to travel by train (if intercontinental). I'd like to see them bring back the old fashioned suites and berths of the old time trains. I'd love to see modern train travel something like we saw in the 40s. I'd love to be able to buy a "pass" to allow me to get on and off at will and travel across the country, sleeping on the train and then disembarking for a few days of sight seeing. Alas, our train system has been almost completely destroyed by Big Oil and the automobile.
http://www.squidoo.com/traintravels
a) because we're spending all our money on the Iraq/Afghanistan ratholes;
b) because we bailed out bankers & hedge funds to the tune of $700 BILLION; [that would buy a LOTof high speed trains]
c) because neither Congress nor Obama has the cojones to raise taxes on rich guys and speculators to fund high speed trains and other needed infrastructure; and
d) because we all need to support the proposal by David Obey [D-WI] of a "war surtax," particularly on the rich, to fund this immoral folly in Afghanistran
Yes I would love a place for a nap in the airport, but what I would love is a life that doesn't require a nap in the airport.
Remember when travel used to be glamorous?
And if that is the idea of just some little booth in the middle of the walkways....well that ain't gonna work.
Have a bunch of them lined up with a little more privacy. Sort of like the old YMCA rooms I saw a long time ago. The rooms were not much longer than the length of a bed and wide enough to walk into with a small desk and place to hang clothes.
The sleep slots I saw in Japan were a cool idea, but not practical for our culture. Looked too much like a honeycomb.
But I've been in more than enough airports at 4 or 5 in the morning waiting for a connecting flight with more than a few hours to kill trying to relax in those godawful plastic chairs and catch a few winks,so this might be a good idea.
Done properly.