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Comment by slater | Hacker News Reader

Use a smartwatch, or ask your doc to have a sleep study done

Is there something I can just keep next to my pillow? Or something like that?

I don't like wearing (and don't wear) watches or any kind of bands/rings/etc at all - they feel like a constant weight and then there's sweat, and pressure, and all that.

The Eight mattress will measure sleep stages without you having to wear anything.

My experience with them is mixed. I’ve had a couple of theirs and they’ve been markedly inaccurate in some categories. For example, reporting I was not in bed when I actually was, or vice verse on other nights. As a result, the sleep hours were off. I still love it for the temperature control (set to manual, not their ‘auto’ algorithms), but if it can’t reliably report something as simple as whether I’m in or out of bed, then accurately judging sleep stages should be even less likely.

My oura ring has been far more helpful in identifying patterns leading to less quality sleep. For example , by highlighting elevated resting heart rates and asking me if I ate later that night, consumed spicy foods or alcohol, etc. That said, it’s not terribly durable. After a couple years it refused to accept firmware updates. Then a few weeks ago (after maybe 3 years of use) it stopped connecting to the app altogether and support tickets are going unanswered. This is greatly disappointing but I may spring for a replacement anyway because of how helpful it’s been in correlating lifestyle choices to sleep parameters (& quite consistently so).

Agreed on preferring my oura vs my eight bed for sleep tracking. Just found out that their web interface gives you a lot more analytic tools than the app, check that out if you have not already.

Before Apple bought them and discontinued the product last year, the Beddit sleep monitor was the best option for me. I’ve had mine for years and use it religiously. It’s a small sensor that goes on your mattress. You may be able to find one still for sale. It’s far more practical than wearing an Apple Watch to bed.

I have not personally tried it but I have heard good things about this: https://www.withings.com/dk/en/sleep-analyzer

You can also get a less accurate but potentially still useful reading with only the phone in some apps. You'll get false negatives because it can only really measure movement but if it says your sleep is shit it probably is.

Color me septal…

Can you cite a medical study that evaluates the accuracy of your smart watch’s assessment of your quality of sleep?

Preferably one not sponsored by the manufacturer?

"Performance of seven consumer sleep-tracking devices compared with polysomnography" Sleep. 2021 May PMC8120339

Seems to accurately analyze them. Conclusion "Device sleep stage assessments were inconsistent."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8120339/

This research was funded by the Office of Naval Research, Code 34. (see also Disclosure Statement)

From the study: "Most devices (Fatigue Science Readiband, Fitbit Alta HR, EarlySense Live, ResMed S+, SleepScore Max) performed as well as or better than actigraphy on sleep/wake performance measures".

Great news.

Yes, the study evaluates the accuracy, and the results are not good!

The Garmin one is discontinued.

Also, is there a more "layman readable" version of this paper/report?

The Garmin watches have been replaced by newer versions with upgraded sensors. Garmin's tracking isn't perfect, but each version has made small improvements.

Your skepticism is justified. Oura publish their data, and to quote them:

>Oura ring was 96% accurate in detecting sleep compared to polysomnography, 48% accurate in detecting wakefulness, 65% agreement in detecting “light sleep,” 51% agreement in detecting “deep sleep” and 61% agreement in detecting REM

So it's basically wrong with sleep categorization about half the time.

oura ring hardware is horribly limited in terms of precision. let it not be a barrier to invest in a good wrist/arm/head band

Garmin publishes their accuracy data: https://www.garmin.com/en-US/blog/health/garmin-health-annou...

Many have already pointed that there have been studies to measure the accuracy of sleep analysis by wearables. They aren't that great. If you have a concern, you should definitely seek out a polysomnograph, and wearables should not be a replacement for that. However, you can't get a polysomnograph every night, and wearables are probably the best option for regular analysis. Just because they're not that great doesn't mean they're useless, and doesn't mean they won't improve.

they can be

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8120339/

Most devices (Fatigue Science Readiband, Fitbit Alta HR, EarlySense Live, ResMed S+, SleepScore Max) performed as well as or better than actigraphy on sleep/wake performance measures, while the Garmin devices performed worse.

heh, I recently got a GW4. it's telling me that i get approx 22 mins a night of "Deep sleep" (average of 7 hours total asleep)

this sounds like i'm screwed...

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