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Ask HN: Best sleep trackers?

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Re: Ask HN: Best sleep trackers?

#141

Post by canada_dry »

I've been tracking my sleep quality via a DIY setup. I.e. an ESP32 plus two mattress movement monitoring pads.

Each night I start the ESP32 recording the movement data from the 2 pads that are under the mattress. The ESP32 has ADCs to collect the analog measurements and sends the movement data to a debian based SQLite db wirelessly every minute.

When I wake up, I register my perceived sleep quality (from 0 to 5).

I've been gathering the data for several months and plan to run it through ML/scipy to see what insights I can glean.

The setup is very cheap - the mattress pads can be obtained for next to nothing at thrift stores.

Re: Ask HN: Best sleep trackers?

#143

Post by manmal »

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…

Have you looked at the Oura ring? They claim to be the best publicly available tracker.

Re: Ask HN: Best sleep trackers?

#144

Post by charlesju »

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…

The Fitbit looks pretty close. I don't think it's perfect, but it's directionally correct.

I feel like for a lot of self improvement frameworks it's about direction not accuracy. Like for example, body fat % machines vary greatly, but surely being closer to the 10-20% range is better than 30-40% range regardless of the method you use. Probably the same can be said for sleep.

Re: Ask HN: Best sleep trackers?

#147

Post by jerrytsai »

dahfizz wrote: post #120
jerrytsai wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mo…

Geez, that almost sounds like faulty hardware. Do you find it counts steps accurately?

The step counting seems to work reasonably well. At least, it's internally consistent. The same workout or same route done multiple times results in no more than 5% variation when counting steps.

But the sleep tracking has been awful. A lot of days I'll get up, sit in a chair, and will surf the web for several minutes, say 45 minutes, and the watch inevitably records this time as also sleep. It's quite ridiculous and the software doesn't allow you to edit the log with the correct time. You can only delete entries, not edit them.

Re: Ask HN: Best sleep trackers?

#149

Post by kbouck »

cassianoleal wrote: post #13

Dreem 2* is probably the best tracker you can get to use at home. The band is not uncomfortable (after a couple of nights, it's very strange at first) and it will give you lots of insights other solutions can't. You do have to put it on before bed and take it off and charge in the morning though. And it's expensive. * https://dreem.com/en

A very useful feature of dreem is that it also tracks your head/body position (sleeping on your side vs back).

When correlating the data with SnoreLab, I consistently see the snoring occurring only while sleeping on my back, and almost never when sleeping on my side.

Useful to know if you are trying to resolve snoring problems.

Re: Ask HN: Best sleep trackers?

#150

Post by bArray »

A good heart rate sensor - If you're getting into REM you should see your heart rate decrease, if not then you're likely not getting the benefits of proper sleep.

I wake up a lot in my sleep, so generally I have been looking to reduce my average sleeping heart rate through exercise, diet, sleeping positions, etc - which has been quite successful. if you chose this route, remember to change one thing at a time and leave enough time to measure the difference.

Another thing that could work is simply having a motion-detection camera. The more time the camera spends active, the more you moved that night.

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