Local entrepreneur launches anti-snoring ‘smart’ pillow startup NoctIQ

NoctIQ includes both an anti-snoring pillow and a companion app. (Images courtesy NoctIQ) In his latest stint in the business of sleep and first time leading his own company, Brian Schwartz is looking to fill a pillow-shaped gap in the anti-snoring products market. The former longtime Hamilton Beach Brands employee recently launched NoctIQ, a startup that sells a “smart pillow” and companion app to track and prevent snoring. Customers use the app to listen to them while they sleep to detect when snoring is happening, filtering out other noises like babies crying or dogs barking. The pillow, which has 12 different sensors and six airbags within it, then repositions the head by gently inflating and deflating, causing a person to turn their head to the side while sleeping. Schwartz said the pillow determines the speed and amount of inflation based on how long it takes someone to stop snoring as the head is repositioned, though users can also set those things for themselves through the app. He noted that so-called “positional therapy” is a common practice used to manage snoring. “The user, the snorer, can set ceilings. If you say, ‘It’s waking me up at level five,’ you can set it to level three,” Schwartz said. A New Jersey native, Schwartz previously held roles at consumer goods firms like Reckitt and Groupe SEB, working in marketing for products like Lysol and Nespresso, before spending the bulk of his career at Henrico-based Hamilton Beach. He worked for more than two decades, most recently in the company’s mergers and acquisitions department. Following that, Schwartz was chief commercial officer for Smart Nora, a Canada-based consumer health tech startup that sold an anti-snore product before the company shut down last year due to “cash challenges” and tariffs, Schwartz said. Looking for his next move, Schwartz decided to stick with snoring as the problem he wanted to solve. He noted the large percentage of U.S. adults that are affected by snoring, himself (occasionally) included. “There’s tons of solutions for snoring, but honestly, most of them are ineffective or uncomfortable, or a combination of those two things,” Schwartz said. “I saw firsthand how close my prior company was to making themselves huge and sustainable on their own with that type of product.” Wondering what products he could potentially bring to the North American market after the dissolution of Smart Nora, Schwartz reached out to Nitetronic, a German-founded company that makes anti-snoring pillows in a manufacturing hub in China. Schwartz has inked a deal with Nitetronic, which is now serving as his distributor for his own smart pillow product. NoctIQ’s pillows are manufactured out of the same facility in China, and are purchased by NoctIQ for distribution, with Schwartz as the importer of record in the U.S. Though using Nitetronic’s technology, Schwartz owns NoctIQ by himself. He added that there is a possibility in the future for him to distribute through NoctIQ some of Nitetronic’s other sleep products, or to branch out and create some of his own products or look for other distributors. With Smart Nora out of business, Schwartz said he thinks distributing a smart pillow product in North America has real potential for growth. He noted that Nitetronic does sell to U.S. customers, but added that the company tends to focus more on other regions. Brian Schwartz “When my previous employer exited the business … it really left a huge gap in the North American market,” he said. “I ultimately expect to be a global company, but I’m focused first in the U.S., then I’ll add Canada and Mexico and worry about additional markets down the road.” Schwartz said he has also hired someone to take the “guts” of Nitetronic’s companion app and add more customer experience features for NoctIQ’s app. The app tracks how many minutes a user snores during the night, and gives them a score based on things like snore duration, number of unique snore events and snore intensity, with a recording available to listen to. The company recommends customers do a few nights of tracking through the app without using the pillow at first, to see their baseline snoring habits. NoctIQ plans to offer more features around snoring and breathing reporting in the premium version of the app. NoctIQ is currently in the pre-order phase for its initial smart pillow product, with its first swath of products set to ship in late September. A pre-order bundle includes the pillow, an extra pillowcase, a three-year warranty for the product and one year of access to the companion app’s premium features, for roughly $550. The standard product following the official launch, will be offered for roughly $500. Schwartz said he tried to make his prices comparable to those of Smart Nora. Schwartz is focused mostly on direct-to-consumer and Amazon sales as he gets off the ground. He remains based in Richmond as he works on NoctIQ. He has hired an operations manager for the company and plans to hire a few more employees, and along with Nitetronic, is working with an ad agency out of India. Schwartz is self-funding the company. He declined to comment on how much he has invested thus far, but noted he could look to raise investor capital in the future. The post Local entrepreneur launches anti-snoring ‘smart’ pillow startup NoctIQ appeared first on Richmond BizSense.