For some time now it has been fashionable to monitor the quality of your own night’s sleep with a sleep app. Healthy sleep is important for our well-being and determines how balanced and energetic we start the day. Many people find it difficult to get out of bed in the morning or toss and turn in bed for hours at night without being able to fall asleep. Apps for sleeping are designed to help us fall asleep and stay asleep and also ensure that we wake up more gently the next morning. But does technology keep what it promises?
Sleep apps: digital helpers for restful nights
Do you need a little more sleep? Many people are relying on digital support for power nap in the form of sleep apps. They should be suitable for everyday use and easy to use, but app users also want efficient and measurable results from their application. Simple apps such as the “bedtime” function of the pre-installed iPhone clock app are clear and easy to use. Android also has a simple clock function with an alarm option in the standard repertoire. Other providers have set up real digital sleep laboratories that not only monitor our sleep but also want to improve it. What’s wrong with the promises of apps for sleeping? And how exactly does such a digital sandman actually work?
This is how sleep tracking works
Usually, you have to place your smartphone next to your pillow. Using the movements of the mattress, the nap app is supposed to analyze the length and quality of the night’s sleep using an acceleration sensor in the smartphone. Incidentally, this also works if you have activated flight mode so as not to be disturbed at night.
Some apps go beyond that and record the noises in the bedroom. In this way, users should be able to find out whether they snore, talk in their sleep or do it more restlessly when the background noise increases in the environment, for example, due to loud engine noises on the street.
Welltory – sleep analysis app, presents the results of the nocturnal measurements the next morning in clearly structured graphics that show the relationships between nocturnal movements and external factors. Also, it is a meditation tracker app. It makes it possible to identify and implement potential for improvement in order to increase your own sleep quality and meditation. Besides, apple’s health blood pressure monitor in Welltory helps in analyzing other health factors. When you check blood pressure with iPhone using this heart rate app, you can better understand your health status.
Sleep Better
The fantastic application is available in the free basic version for iOS and Android and has an ambitious goal: Sleep Better should improve our sleeping habits and make days when we can hardly get out of bed a thing of the past. It is also great that this app can be used as heart rate measuring device.
The app offers:
Tracking of sleep duration and sleep efficiency: In the sleep diary, users can view their data over time. Not only the duration and efficiency of sleep are recorded here, but also the respective moon phase. A nice extra! The heart rate variability is also can be measured.
Smart Alarm: The wake-up phase for the Smart Alarm can be set anywhere between 0 and 45 minutes. Snooze, volume, vibration and sound offer individual adjustment options, so that gentle waking is guaranteed even in light sleep phases.
Sleep statistics: The average bedtime as well as the duration and efficiency of each individual night’s sleep are clearly presented for the user. You can define the categories for the evaluations yourself: week, month, year or total duration.
Daily habits: Custom entries are not possible here, that’s a real minus point! The app user only has a preselection of defined habits (including fitness, not my bed, stressful day, etc.).
Dream diary: With the integrated dream diary, the fun factor is not neglected! Here you can assign smileys for your dreams and also create personal notes for the respective dream. This does not affect the tracking.
Sleep cycle
Sleep Cycle is an alarm clock that tracks sleep activities and promises a relaxed start to the day by waking us up in our lightest sleep phase.
The app offers:
Smart Wake Up: Sleep Cycle promises a particularly pleasant wake-up by waking you up in light sleep phases. You can specify a specific time window (up to 90 minutes) in which you want to get up. Shake the smartphone or tap twice to snooze.
Sleep analysis: Sleep Cycle’s sleep analysis uses sound recordings to measure the quality of our night’s sleep. However, not every user feels comfortable with this.
Sleep statistics: The free version of the app for sleep offers detailed daily records of our sleep quality. For a long-term analysis, we would have to upgrade to premium.
Alarm tones: As with the other apps, we can choose the most pleasant alarm melody for us from a selection of specific sounds.
Conclusion: can sleep apps increase our sleep quality?
Sleep better with Welltory, the free apps are particularly suitable for people who are curious and want to get to know their own sleep pattern better. If you can’t sleep late and are dependent on the alarm clock anyway, a smart alarm can actually help you start your day more smoothly. An application for sleep makes us aware of our own bedtime habits and provides us with valuable data – at the end of the week, for example, we can see whether we have had enough sleep or whether we need an extra night’s sleep.
However, you should be aware that your personal data is stored by sleep apps. The app knows how long you sleep and knows your movement pattern. In addition, the tracking service provided by digital sleep aids is often imprecise, difficult to understand and should therefore be used with caution. This is especially true if you share your bed with other people or pets.
As tempting as the promises of the apps appear, they are no substitute for a comprehensive analysis in the sleep laboratory. Anyone who has chronic sleep problems should therefore not rely on the use of a sleep app, but rather consult an expert. These applications, however, make us aware of how important good and restful sleep is for our health and encourage a more conscious approach to our night’s sleep.
Our conclusion: You don’t necessarily need an application if you just want to fall asleep quickly and wake up refreshed. To start the day full of energy and woken up, you can optimize your morning routine, for example, or browse through our wake-up tips for morning grouches. This guarantees you a relaxed start to the day! 😉
