Fit sleep monitor
But there are many, many people telling us it helps them.”ĭr. “Can some people become obsessed with this and have anxiety?” he said. A late meal? Too much coffee? Too much to drink? Skipped the gym? If you sleep poorly, the app will send a prompt asking what might have gone wrong. Eugene Spiritus, chief executive of SleepWatch, an app that pairs with the Apple Watch, said that his company’s focus was on getting users to pay attention to their behavior and change it.
“Each experience is unique to that app,” the company said.ĭr. The app makers are responsible for the algorithms that interpret them. Apple says that its watch tracks heart rate and motion data. Users of devices like Apple’s smart watch have noticed something similar, with different apps giving different scores on the same night. The trackers can also recognize the heart rate and movement patterns associated with various stages of sleep, he said. He said that the bands can provide reliable estimates based on algorithms that the company had developed using machine learning in sleep laboratories. “What we’re trying to do is give people a tool to understand their own sleep health,” he said. It also can underscore the effects that factors like alcohol and exercise can have on sleep patterns. He said tracking sleep can drive home the importance of a consistent bedtime and wake time. Conor Heneghan, a research director for Fitbit, said that few people experience extreme sleep anxiety.
The makers of tracking devices and apps defend their use and accuracy. Fitbit and other companies say the threat of anxiety is overblown “Then why does my Fitbit say I am sleeping poorly?” she asked. But after being told that she had slept deeply in the lab, she was not reassured. She was given medication for restless leg syndrome, tested negative for disordered breathing and underwent a formal sleep study. One cautionary tale from the case study: A woman came in reporting that she had an average sleep efficiency of only 60 percent, according to her tracker. While devices that track heart rate or breathing give a more complete picture, they are still only generating estimates. If you are lying awake in bed, the tracker might think that you’re asleep. Researchers say that trackers can overestimate the amount of sleep that you get, particularly if they focus on tracking movement. “This means that we need to understand sleep technology - including its limitations - without dismissing this potentially valuable resource.” “We want to partner with our patients to improve their sleep,” she said. She appreciates the greater awareness the new sleep tech promotes, but is wary of the pitfalls of inaccurate data and increased worrying.
Seema Khosla, medical director of the North Dakota Center for Sleep and chairwoman of the technology committee of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, said she and other clinicians had scrambled to stay abreast of all the devices and apps on the market. The flood of data and buzzwords can easily become confusing: sleep debt percentages, heart rate dips, sleep rhythms, graphs of sleep disruption and comparisons to other users.ĭr. There’s something wrong with me.’” As gadgets proliferate, so do concerns “Like, ‘I’m afraid I’m not getting enough deep sleep. “People were putting a lot of stock in what it was telling them,” she said.