Back in 2014 Nintendo Co. Ltd. announced its plans to release a “Quality of Life” (QOL) device that purportedly would help people sleep better at night. The company was to team-up with medical technology company ResMed to create a non-wearable, non-contact, non-operating (no human effort needed), non-waiting, non-installation effort gizmo that would watch you as you sleep and give you important feedback when you wake up.

In 2014 Nintendo President and CEO Satoru Iwata said, “Despite a huge potential market, there are no decisive products because all solutions so far required user effort, which made continuing difficult. You simply put our QOL sensor next to the bed and that’s it.” Such a product would sense you are asleep and update your sleeping behavior to the cloud. Once you were awake it would give you the results and offer information concerning how you might achieve a better night’s sleep in the future.

In 2016 there are still no decisive products such as the one Nintendo was going to give us. The device was supposed to come out in March this year, but following remarks this week by Nintendo’s CEO and president, Tatsumi Kimishima, concerning QOL it looks like the company’s dream of a sweet-sleep device is going to stay just that. Kimishima stated that Nintendo had put the project on hold, indefinitely, and that investors had not come forward to ask about the device.

Wired translated part of Kimishima’s speech: “In regards to the Quality of Life [device], which was not mentioned in any of today’s questions, we do not have the conviction that the sleep-and-fatigue-themed [device] can enter the phase of actually becoming a product.”

The CEO added that while it looks like the device in question won’t ever hit your bedside table Nintendo is still interested in developing non-wearable products to improve your quality of life.

Photo credit: Alyssa L. Miller via Flickr