Ask HN: Best sleep trackers? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Best sleep trackers?

#81

Post by jerrytsai » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 10:10 PM UTC

dahfizz wrote: post #7

I have found the built in sleep tracking of my samsung active 2 to be good. Maybe you could strap the watch to your ankle instead of your wrist?

I've found my Samsung Galaxy Watch Active2 to be hilariously incorrect with estimating sleep tracking, and I miss my Fitbits for getting that measurement.

Example: on Sunday, I woke up, drove 20 minutes to a trailhead, proceeded to strenuously hike for an hour, drove 20 minutes back. When I checked the sleep log later that day, the watch had automatically assumed I had been sleeping through the entire hike.

I like most other things about this watch, but sleep tracking is not one of them.

Re: Ask HN: Best sleep trackers?

#82

Post by syntaxing » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 10:10 PM UTC

I have a Garmin Vivoactive 4. I love it and it beats my Fitbit Versa in all ways. It's nice since it tracks pulse ox and respiration on top of wrist movement. Though I am not entirely sure how it would work for restless legs.

Re: Ask HN: Best sleep trackers?

#83

Post by city41 » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 10:14 PM UTC

dbcurtis wrote: post #80

Not a user myself. My wife loves her Oura ring. Super comfortable, with the caveat that it doesn't come in ring half-sizes. My college-age kid uses an older FitBit for sleep tracking and is happy with that. I have no insight as to whether the Oura ring is going to give you restless-leg data directly or indirectly, but it is extremely reliable for recording other sleep disturbances in my wife's experience.

I feel like my Oura is pretty accurate. The fact it's a ring makes it very comfortable for sleeping, no issues at all.

FWIW, my sleep doctor says Oura rings are not accurate at all, but anecdotally I don't agree with him.

I do find the Oura is terrible at tracking activity like exercising, it's just wildly wrong. But for sleep it seems very accurate.

Re: Ask HN: Best sleep trackers?

#84

Post by cbHXBY1D » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 10:20 PM UTC

syntaxing wrote: post #82

I have a Garmin Vivoactive 4. I love it and it beats my Fitbit Versa in all ways. It's nice since it tracks pulse ox and respiration on top of wrist movement. Though I am not entirely sure how it would work for restless legs.

I find Garmin watches superior to Fitbits in everything BUT sleep tracking.

Re: Ask HN: Best sleep trackers?

#85

Post by agumonkey » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 10:20 PM UTC

hoopism wrote: post #32

I recall reading a paper that found that compared to clinical sleep study equipment (you know, electrodes all over your head) that most devices were random at best in terms of measuring REM sleep. I did a lot of research when a friend went all in on sleep monitoring and wound up worse than when he started (worrying over data). I didn't exhaustively research but based on un-biased available science I found at the time…

I tried the dark trick, it was marginal at best. compared to social factors (job that suits you, regular schedule etc) it was 0.1%. At that time I could sleep very (if not more) well even with some light and some noise.

since then stopped focusing on this kind of variables

Re: Ask HN: Best sleep trackers?

#86

Post by jacobwilliamroy » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 10:21 PM UTC

Do you feel tired? You didn't sleep enough.

Do you feel fine? You slept enough.

C'mon OP. What's a computer going to tell you that you 3-million year-old endocrine system doesn't already know?

Re: Ask HN: Best sleep trackers?

#87

Post by johnsillings » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 10:26 PM UTC

jacobwilliamroy wrote: post #86

Do you feel tired? You didn't sleep enough. Do you feel fine? You slept enough. C'mon OP. What's a computer going to tell you that you 3-million year-old endocrine system doesn't already know?

My endocrine system is only 31 :/

Re: Ask HN: Best sleep trackers?

#88

Post by RickS » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 10:29 PM UTC

rapnie wrote: post #16

Are some of the suggestions FOSS and/or privacy-respecting?

Autosleep's privacy policy was impressive:

> Anonymous Data Collection

> AutoSleep does not collect any information.

That's pretty much the whole thing. Apparently they do everything on-device.

http://autosleep.tantsissa.com/privacy

Re: Ask HN: Best sleep trackers?

#89

Post by VectorLock » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 10:36 PM UTC

dsaavy wrote: post #23

Autosleep for Apple Watch has had a significant impact on my life and I always rave about it to friends. I've been able to recognize choices in my daily life that significantly impact my sleep quality and have made changes that have improved my sleep because of it. I don't know how accurate it is in terms of tracking restless legs unless the movement of your legs causes movement of your upper body that would impact w…

How did Autosleep change your life? Like what decision did it impact?

Re: Ask HN: Best sleep trackers?

#90

Post by _nothing » Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 10:37 PM UTC

jacobwilliamroy wrote: post #86

Do you feel tired? You didn't sleep enough. Do you feel fine? You slept enough. C'mon OP. What's a computer going to tell you that you 3-million year-old endocrine system doesn't already know?

Um, a lot of things?

A computer can give me clues as to why I still feel tired after sleeping for 10 hours every night. The right tracker can tell me what my oxygen levels were while sleeping, or how restless I was during the night. It can estimate how much time I spent in each sleep cycle, and identify anomalies in how much REM sleep I seem to be getting, for example.

Many, many people suffer from various sleep abnormalities and insight into their behavior while sleeping can be helpful for helping their conditions, or at least giving them insight into what's going on.