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We have all experienced waking up in the middle of the night and not knowing what time it is. While it's not essential to know the time, we all want to. If we only have 15 minutes until we need to be up, it's not necessarily worth the effort to try and fall back to sleep. Unfortunately, the act of checking the time usually makes it more difficult to sleep, but now we have zLight to fix the problem.

When we wake up and check the time, we tend to do it with a screen. Either a digital display clock or more likely the clock on our phones. But, the bright light of the screen has its drawbacks - the blue light telling our brains to wake up, and even the act of having to focus to discern the time can make falling back to sleep more difficult. The zLight takes a different approach, not telling the time but instead giving you an idea of where in your sleep cycle you are.

The technology was originally developed by Mark Zuckerberg for his wife. The zLight builds on the concept, making it customizable and beautiful. The wood-grained box gives off a very faint light, the color of which changes as the night goes on. Imagine starting it on red and ending it on green, by looking briefly at the color of the light, you can determine how long you have to sleep based on the color of the light and where it is in the gradient cycle between red and green.

You can pre-order a zLight now in white, light, and dark wood colors. You can also get a model with a Qi charger on the top, making it an even better bedside companion. The retail price will be $79, while the preorder price is currently $39. Learn more or pre-order your device at the company's website.

Interview by Scott Ertz of F5 Live: Refreshing Technology and Christopher Jordan of The Talking Sound.