Sleep Tracking Devices - Enhancing Sleep Health

Sleep tracking devices are technology tools that monitor and analyze sleep patterns, duration, and quality to help users improve their sleep habits and overall health.

Sleep Tracking Devices FAQ

Image credit: sleepfoundation.org

What is a sleep tracker?

A sleep tracker is a device that monitors one or more aspects that reflect your sleep patterns, habits, stages, quality, and/or duration. This measurement is indirect, relying on more easily detectable physical signals of sleep, rather than basing it on brain activity and eye movement as they do in some formal medical tests.

Are commercial sleep trackers a medical device?

Commercial sleep trackers aren’t medical devices, but a good sleep tracker should be able to accurately capture and assess how your heart rate, energy output, blood-oxygen level, body temperature, and other metrics affect—and dictate—the quality of your sleep.

How do wearable sleep trackers work?

Rings: This is another wearable sleep tracker but far more basic. It uses sensors along the inside of the ring to collect data and track your sleep. Under mattress or nearables: There are some models, like the Withings Sleep Tracker Pad, that simply slide under your mattress for an unobtrusive solution to sleep trackers.

How do you use a sleep tracker?

Wear your sleep tracker on your non-dominant hand. Studies have shown if you wear it on the dominant hand, this tends to overestimate results. Remember to keep your tracker charged. Make sure your tracker is firmly attached to your wrist, so there is adequate skin contact for the sensor.

How to choose a sleep tracker?

If you want a sleep tracker that tracks the sleep of both you and your partner, you may want to look for an under the mattress tracker that comes with two sensors. Smart alarms wake you up at the optimal time each morning by using data to figure out when you’re in the middle of light sleep.

How do sleep trackers work?

Wearable devices remain on the sleeper throughout the night to measure data. Other trackers may rest on the mattress, under the mattress, or next to the bed to collect information unobtrusively. Virtually all sleep trackers upload this data to a device that runs it through an algorithm to analyze and display the results.