Other sleep trackers we've tested
Photograph: Simon Hill
Google Nest Hub 2nd Gen for $90: second generation nest hub Uses radar to track your sleep, meaning you don't need to wear anything, but it also has a microphone to track snoring, sleep talking, and other nighttime sounds. I like the Nest Hub on my nightstand for smart home controls, family photos, and listening to sleep sounds or podcasts in bed, but the sleep tracking consistently underestimated my REM stages and waking periods recorded by other trackers. reduced. While I used multiple trackers simultaneously, the Nest Hub stood out.
Sleep Routines: Tracker & Alarm at $7/month or $60/year ,iOS,Android): You don't need any new gadgets, as many sleep-tracking apps exist. I tested Sleep Routines on my iPhone 14 Pro. The app provides a report for each night, breaking down your sleep into awake, light, deep, and REM. The results seemed accurate and roughly matched the Ultrahuman Ring Air. You can add notes to help you better understand your sleep, and it creates a sleep pattern analysis and shows your statistics over time. Smart alarm function wakes you up gently. You can try Sleep Routines for a week before subscribing. Problem? The app can be a little glitchy. A few times a week, I got an error message in the morning with no report or very little recorded sleep. The annoying thing is that there was no indication as to why it failed.
Withings ScanWatch 2 for $350: Withings Scanwatch Wear 2 (7/10, Wired recommends) Go to bed and you'll get a sleep score out of 100 in the morning. It covers the same four stages as other trackers (awake, REM, light and deep) but boasts a PPG sensor to measure your respiratory rate. It can also track your heart rate, temperature and blood oxygen level. The ScanWatch 2 provides abundant data and advice in the Withings app. But some people may find it heavy and uncomfortable for sleep, and it was having trouble distinguishing between light sleep and when I was awake while lying in bed.
Muse S Gen 2 Headband for $400: This headband has sensors capable of tracking your brain activity, similar to an electroencephalogram (EEG), an accelerometer and a gyroscope, as well as a PPG sensor to measure heart rate and blood circulation. It's primarily a meditation aid designed to help you relax, but it can also track your sleep, by recording your heart rate, respiration, sleep time, and how much you moved around. Can give you an overall sleep score. Sadly, I found it uncomfortable to wear and often woke up to find that sleep tracking had failed, usually because I had removed it at night. It is also very expensive.
Philips Sleep Headphones with Cocoon for $270: While pairing earbuds with sleep tracking is a smart idea, wearing these headphones made it difficult for me to sleep. The tiny earbuds plug into a curved control unit designed to sit on the back of your head, and they're relatively comfortable because everything is covered in flexible silicone. The companion app offers meditations, soothing sounds, and sleep stories to help you quit or snooze your snoring partner. You can also connect via Bluetooth to play your content. The sleep tracking is limited, reflecting the familiar four stages, sleep efficiency and consistency, but I'd often wake up and find they had stopped during the night and my sleep tracking was down.
Biostrap Kairos for $900, This lightweight wristband has a PPG sensor and accelerometer to track your heart rate, respiration and HRV. It tracks sleep divided into waking, light and deep sleep (REM will be added soon), and combines your biometrics to give you a sleep score. It also surveys you every morning on the quality of your sleep and how refreshed you feel, as well as asking how you felt when you woke up and before you went to sleep. It seems accurate enough, but it's designed for researchers, medical staff, and organizations monitoring employee health or studying the impact of new services or products, so purchasing it isn't available to most people.