Ireland's BiancaMed has raised €6 million ($8.5 million U.S.) to help bring its wireless sleep monitors to market.

The company's devices track and analyze a person's sleep and night-breathing patterns without disturbing the sleeper. The person doesn't need to wear electrodes or lie on a plastic pad. Instead, a wireless device tracks the sleeper's movements.

Software devised by BiancaMed separates the signals corresponding to breathing and other body movements. In the morning, users log on to a personal website to see when they were awake, when they slept, how long it took them to fall asleep, and other metrics, including sleep efficiency (that is, how much of time spent in bed was time spent sleeping). Ideally, the information can then be examined to determine if a person is having problems falling asleep, etc.

The company is both fine-tuning wireless baby monitors (so nervous parents won't wake them up to prove that they are still breathing) and versions for grown-ups.

Why are we writing about it? The lifestyles of health and sustainability (LOHAS) market is expected to grow over the coming years. Residential solar panels and solar hot water heaters were the first manifestations. Then came better water purifiers and organic hand cleaners. Sleep monitors are a natural extension of the trend. You wouldn't have Ambien jokes on sitcoms if everyone could sleep easily.

The company grew out of NovaUCD, a technology incubator out of University College Dublin. Starting around 2000, Ireland – realizing that it wouldn't be a cheap center for logistics for much longer – began to invest more heavily into R&D centers with the hope that it could create its own Silicon Valley-like corridors. Big companies have begun to move their factories from Ireland to Poland. In the next few years, the world will see if the next part of the plan works.