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Ask HN: Best sleep trackers?

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Re: Ask HN: Best sleep trackers?

#131

Post by samatman »

gonehome wrote: post #106
narak wrote: post #100

I agree with the posts saying most are of little to no value, maybe even negative considering anxiety from monitoring. I think a decent proxy for obstructions is a good pulse oximeter. I would also recommend getting your vitamin D levels checked. The normal range is far below what you should be at from my experience. 60-80ng/ml is an ideal range ("normal" from my lab is anywhere from 30-100) from what I've read. Can…

60-80? That seems high - I don't think you could be at that without taking a lot of supplements every day. I think 30 is the lab normal (and it was recently raised to 30 from 20) - though a lot of people are below that when tested.

There's no guarantee that the optimum Vitamin D level is one that the skin can synthesize under even optimal conditions.

It might be. But it could also be more.

Re: Ask HN: Best sleep trackers?

#132

Post by Groxx »

eindiran wrote: post #79

If you want to get into the habit of sleep tracking before you buy something expensive and you have an Android phone, this is worth checking out: https://sleep.urbandroid.org/ Sleep for Android has some problems, but it has a free-tier and is easy to start using. For better sleep tracking, there are some mattress cover devices, which will help with the leg movement problem a bit better than SoA can. The most common o…

The two times I've tried "Sleep as Android", with different phones and watches (including paired with watch, and ignored), it has produced such utterly garbage data that I don't trust it one bit. Claims sleeping for hours, while awake and walking around (which Wear / Fit detected as walking) (with watch connected, phone has been fine here). Or missing sleep for hours (both watch and not). Or claiming deep/rem cycles while it sits on my dresser (both watch and not).

Re: Ask HN: Best sleep trackers?

#133

Post by overeater »

xlaacid wrote: post #123

None. Period. I was in human sleep research for 14 years as a technologist and proj manager. I tested dozens and dozens of devices- a mattress pad that claimed to track sleep. None of them are accurate. to track limb movements you need EMG attached to your legs and then to a recorder. Then a sleep tech certified in scoring must review the results. A board certified sleep doctor can get you home devices to track perio…

Can you say a bit about how you know this? Like are all these trackers you tested compared against polysomnography/EMG? Wouldn't everything of course be not as good as that (since we're treating that as 100% perfect?

How do you know that the certified sleep tech is reporting good results? How do you know that the results have good external validity (i.e. the results are not due to the unnatural sleep study environment with EMG attached and being forced to sleep at a certain time in an artificial bedroom?

Re: Ask HN: Best sleep trackers?

#134

Post by rossnordby »

jacobwilliamroy wrote: post #121
rossnordby wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe not a bad first approximation, but this approach would suggest I should be asleep always... Sometimes information can be handy, even if all you're getting is an automated way of collecting information you already had access to.

Sounds like something other than lack of sleep. Maybe dietary or environmental issue. A lot of people who spend time in air conditioned rooms are actually mentally impaired due to high concentrations of CO2 building up in the room. I am not a real doctor, by the way, and this is not medical advice.

It's a sleep disorder- one that I probably would have been able to detect and mitigate decades earlier if I had the information I collect now (and the knowledge I have now).

"Quantified self" style tracking usually isn't going to unlock amazing improvements in perfectly healthy people, where heuristics like 'if you're tired, try sleeping more' work well. But you might be able to squeeze out some benefit- 5% here, 5% there- that you might not have captured without automated assistance.

And if your baseline is way worse than where you could be, then the potential benefits of tool-assisted tracking could be larger, and many 'common sense' strategies just don't help (enough).

Re: Ask HN: Best sleep trackers?

#135

Post by xmodem »

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?

So, I am currently suffering from toxicity-induced sleep problems from an adverse drug reaction that happened in November. Without medication it is almost impossible for me to get more than 3 hours sleep in a night.

One problem is that I now build tolerance to medication extremely quickly. As in, something will work great for a few nights and 5 days later I'm back to baseline and totally miserable.

Another problem, that my sleep tracker helped identify, is that at least part of my problem is paradoxical insomnia - where you go to sleep and dream about having a restless night not sleeping.

After some initial difficulties getting anyone to take me seriously, I'm now working with a psychiatrist and neurologist who actually understand what happened to me. By using sleep tracker data, we're able to measure actual medication response, which is much more useful for knowing when to make adjustments than perceived response.

It's also useful just knowing when perception differs from reality. I'm so tired all the time anyway that I can't tell a 3 hour night from a 5 hour night.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend the Dreem - it's a bit like a double slit experiment - the discomfort of wearing it is enough that it in itself worsens my sleep. I'd also not necessarily recommend other non-EEG headband trackers - the data is probably a lot less reliable. And the data that the Dreem exports is somewhat limited. I'm actually working on my own tool for working with it that I hope to release at some point.

Philips also has an EEG headband that looks like it might be a bit more comfortable, but it doesn't seem to be available outside the US.

As much as I hate cliches, what gets measured gets managed. And not-quite-accurate data from a wristband might be enough.

Re: Ask HN: Best sleep trackers?

#137

Post by airstrike »

gtbcb wrote: post #19

https://ouraring.com/ is pretty awesome. I've started sleeping more, at more consistent times, and consuming less caffeine and alcohol. $75 off - http://ouraring.com/partners/rohannatraj - doesn't benefit me, just a coupon I received myself.

All these sibling comments throwing $229 at a newfangled and unproven gimmick based on some anonymous online comment have really got me scratching my head...

Am I the only one who likes sleeping on these things before committing to a purchase?

Re: Ask HN: Best sleep trackers?

#138

Post by mattjaynes »

balfirevic wrote: post #113
mattjaynes wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have pretty big doubts about the usefulness of clinical sleep tests after having had one a few years ago. Perhaps they work well for very deep and immediate sleepers. But with the electrodes, a strange location, multiple interruptions, a sleep position I never sleep in, etc, it was probably one of the worst nights of sleep in my life. The doctor seemed to disregard all of that and treat it as my typical night sleep…

> The doctor seemed to disregard all of that and treat it as my typical night sleep and based the treatment recommendations on it What did the doctor recommend?

She recommended the standard CPAP route. Instead, I chose to lose weight, improve my fitness, and switch to side sleeping. Fortunately that resolved my issues.

Re: Ask HN: Best sleep trackers?

#139

Post by bfieidhbrjr »

xlaacid wrote: post #123

None. Period. I was in human sleep research for 14 years as a technologist and proj manager. I tested dozens and dozens of devices- a mattress pad that claimed to track sleep. None of them are accurate. to track limb movements you need EMG attached to your legs and then to a recorder. Then a sleep tech certified in scoring must review the results. A board certified sleep doctor can get you home devices to track perio…

Really?

I get it, at the margin this is probably true but for gross results?

If I drink, AutoSleep lights up like the fourth of July. If I don't, it reports every metric is better. If I drink, SnoreLab lights up. If I don't, it's fine.

Same if I exercise, it's all over the results very clearly.

I'm not claiming they can measure REM accurately but for major life factors they seem pretty damn good.

Re: Ask HN: Best sleep trackers?

#140

Post by lpa22 »

eps wrote: post #103
gtbcb wrote: post #19

https://ouraring.com/ is pretty awesome. I've started sleeping more, at more consistent times, and consuming less caffeine and alcohol. $75 off - http://ouraring.com/partners/rohannatraj - doesn't benefit me, just a coupon I received myself.

Bought it few months ago, mostly due to being impressed by the engineering side of it, then had a closer look at the data it was collecting at night and it looked very much like something pulled out of someone's ass. It literally did NOT correlate to what's been happening. It showed "deep sleep" for times that I was awake and was checking my watch, it also showed REM sleep when it was clearly a deep phase, etc. First…

I've been using it for a month now and have only seen this happen one night at first, but the past 2 weeks have been very accurate. Might be learning or something?
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