Sleep tracker for segmented sleep?
September 9, 2018 2:24 AM Subscribe
I need to log my fragmented sleep in some kind of sleep diary; would like to use a device to help with this vs manually notating sleep/wake times (& having to clock-watch). My iPhone sucks at this (as do many trackers, apparently) - it only counts the last chunk of sleep (or movement-free time) as sleep. I’d like to pay less than more, but a bit on the more side is ok if that’s going to be necessary. TIA!
I get up 2-4 times a night, it has to capture the total hours of sleep, as well as the times. My understanding, from a review of devices, is that many consumer devices are crap at capturing idiosyncratic (or pathological) sleep patterns.
If I have to wear a chest strap, that’s ok.
I get up 2-4 times a night, it has to capture the total hours of sleep, as well as the times. My understanding, from a review of devices, is that many consumer devices are crap at capturing idiosyncratic (or pathological) sleep patterns.
If I have to wear a chest strap, that’s ok.
Best answer: I have a Fitbit Charge 2, and it captures sleep as either Awake, Light sleep, REM, or Deep sleep. It saves historical data and lets me zoom in. It’s pretty detailed.
Lots of folks use ITTT to scrape the fitbit.com site and push their data into a Google spreadsheet for better analysis.
posted by wenestvedt at 4:13 AM on September 9, 2018 [3 favorites]
Lots of folks use ITTT to scrape the fitbit.com site and push their data into a Google spreadsheet for better analysis.
posted by wenestvedt at 4:13 AM on September 9, 2018 [3 favorites]
Best answer: Another vote for the Fitbit Charge 2 -- during the times in my life when I was working 30 hour shifts, the Fitbit was able to detect and accurately tabulate all the sleep I got, from the 45 minute catnap at 2 AM to the highly segmented catch up sleep the following day. I'm still not a great sleeper (I'm usually up a couple of times per night, sometimes for an hour or more) and Fitbit captures it accurately.
While the Fitbit does a great job of tallying my total time slept, my only minor complaint is that it sometimes misrepresents total time awake. For example, last night I slept from 9 PM to 1 AM, got up for two hours, and then slept from 3 AM to 8 AM. Fitbit is accurately reporting that I got 9 hours of sleep last night, but it reports my "Time awake" as only 58 minutes -- that's the sum of my little awakenings during the two blocks of sleep, but doesn't include the long period of wakefulness between 1 and 3 AM. I think that's a necessary tradeoff of accurately representing idiosyncratic periods of sleep, but sometimes I bump on it.
posted by telegraph at 6:27 AM on September 9, 2018 [2 favorites]
While the Fitbit does a great job of tallying my total time slept, my only minor complaint is that it sometimes misrepresents total time awake. For example, last night I slept from 9 PM to 1 AM, got up for two hours, and then slept from 3 AM to 8 AM. Fitbit is accurately reporting that I got 9 hours of sleep last night, but it reports my "Time awake" as only 58 minutes -- that's the sum of my little awakenings during the two blocks of sleep, but doesn't include the long period of wakefulness between 1 and 3 AM. I think that's a necessary tradeoff of accurately representing idiosyncratic periods of sleep, but sometimes I bump on it.
posted by telegraph at 6:27 AM on September 9, 2018 [2 favorites]
Also, the Fitbit Charge 2 has a fantastic battery life (about a week between charges). I found this and other aspects make the Fitbit far superior to Apple Watch and/or iPhone options, where daily charging is requisite.
posted by Doc_Sock at 8:32 AM on September 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Doc_Sock at 8:32 AM on September 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Throwing in a vote for Garmin here. I have a VivoActive HR. Garmin has some fantastic graphs. It measures deep and light sleep (plus awake periods if you went pee at night for example) along with sleep movement in 1-min intervals and can also graph your sleep trends over time. I find the information to be very accurate. Battery lasts well over a week without charging and it's very comfortable to wear.
posted by tra at 11:44 AM on September 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by tra at 11:44 AM on September 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
My Fitbit Alta Hr also tracks detailed sleep and it’s cheaper and sturdier than the Charge I had before.
posted by winna at 2:48 PM on September 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by winna at 2:48 PM on September 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
Just to repeat, the Fitbit web site sucks and the device doesn’t interoperate with other software — but if you scrape the web site and move the data elsewhere, you should be all set.
posted by wenestvedt at 6:22 PM on September 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by wenestvedt at 6:22 PM on September 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
I've been using the ResMed S+ for so many years, it's probably obsolete. But it does everything you've asked for without having to be in the bed with me, which is a plus.
posted by ereshkigal45 at 10:46 PM on September 9, 2018
posted by ereshkigal45 at 10:46 PM on September 9, 2018
I've used IFTTT to track work hours, and see no reason why it couldn't work for sleep. I linked an IFTTT button to a Google Sheets spreadsheet. When I tapped the button on my tablet or smartphone, it sent the time to the sheet.
posted by The Almighty Mommy Goddess at 5:03 AM on September 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by The Almighty Mommy Goddess at 5:03 AM on September 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
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posted by katinka-katinka at 4:12 AM on September 9, 2018 [1 favorite]