5 Best Sleep Trackers To Optimize Your Sleep

The Fitbit Charge 2 is a fantastic device that offers sleep tracking and a whole lot more besides! Able to automatically recognize when you are asleep, there is nothing you need to do except check how long and how well you slept when you awake the next morning!

The Fitbit can tell you about your sleep stages – i.e. how many periods of the night in which you were awake, how restless you were and how much light sleep you had compared to deep throughout the night. You can also view your averages. These are broken down into ‘hours slept’ – the number of hours you slept on each night that week and how much you slept on average, your ‘sleep score’  – a summary of your sleep scores throughout the week, along with your weekly average score, your ‘sleep schedule’ which tells you when you went to bed and when you woke up throughout the week, and a summary of your ‘sleep stages’ and how many hours you spent in each one that week.

You can set sleep goals so that you can try to meet the daily recommended amount,   along with a sleep schedule where you can set a time for bed and/or a wake-up time.  If you set a wake-up time, you are woken with a silent, vibrating alarm. The insights in the app are based on the sleep you log and trends over time, and you will receive guidance on the different ways you can improve your sleep to benefit your health.

Of course, the Fitbit is a lot more than a wearable sleep tracker – it is also one of the best fitness trackers on the market! It uses simplified heart rate zones – fat burn, cardio, and peak – to help you get the very most from your workouts. It also allows you to get notifications of calls, texts, or calendar alerts from a synced device. Reminders to move keep you active throughout the day and you can track all sorts of things, from your steps and distance covered to the number of floors climbed and active minutes. You can even make the most of calm moments throughout the day with the Fitbit personalized guided breathing sessions, which may also be useful in helping you fall asleep.

The comprehensive Fitbit app syncs wirelessly and automatically with more than 200 Android, Windows and iPhone devices and it’s also a great way to connect with other friends and family who care about their fitness. There’s nothing quite as motivating as being challenged by someone on Fitbit to beat their fitness statistics!

Offering great value for money, this wearable sleep tracker provides sleep monitoring and fitness tracking too. With 24-hour heart rate monitoring, it can tell automatically when you are asleep and then provide you with sleep data including how long you slept and your sleep quality. This includes how much deep sleep you had compared to light sleep throughout the night.

When it comes to sleep tracking, comfort is everything. This device feels good on your wrist and is designed to be waterproof, so you can wear it whilst you are swimming or taking a shower (although you are advised not to press any buttons whilst it is underwater, or to keep it submerged for too long)

This little tracker covers all the important aspects of fitness tracking – it monitors your heart rate, your blood pressure, and your steps and keeps count of your calories throughout the day. And if you spend too long sitting still, a gentle reminder will get you on the move again!

When you connect to the JYouPro app you can check services like texts, Whatsapp, your calendar and social media and there is also the option to store up to 3 messages on the device. This can be really handy during a workout when you don’t want to open up your phone.

Charging this sleep tracker is easy – you can use any USB block and computer and don’t need a charging cable and dock. It also has a decent battery life – just one charge will last around 7 to 10 working days.

Another great offering from Fitbit is the Fitbit Flex, a sleep tracker and a fitness tracker all rolled into one! It is lovely and comfortable to wear, made of soft rubber, plus it has a slim design and comes with both large and small wristbands, and an interchangeable clasp.

The Fitbit Flex can give you lots of information about your patterns of sleep, including sleep quality and sleep time. It automatically detects when you are asleep, so there is nothing to set, and it comes with a silent alarm that vibrates – gently waking you but allowing your partner to remain undisturbed. Sleep tracking is important when it comes to identifying problems and helping you improve your sleep in the future, or for when you suffer from a condition like sleep apnea. When you want to see the sleep data that your Fitbit Flex has gathered throughout the night, just sync your tracker when you wake up and you can see your sleep stages and other statistics on the dashboard.

In addition to working as a sleep monitor, the Fitbit Flex will also track calories burned, distance covered, hourly activity, and stationary time. It is classed as a Fitbit everyday fitness tracker rather than a tracker designed for more serious athletes, but still has plenty of interesting data to offer and to help you maintain your health goals as well as improve your sleep cycle. The progress display is especially motivating when it comes to meeting goals – a row of LEDs light up one by one as you get closer!

This Fitbit isn’t swim-proof, but it is resistant to splashes, rain, and sweat, so you don’t need to worry that it will be affected by your body temperature during the night. It takes one or two hours to charge but will then give you a battery life of between 7 and 10 days. It automatically and wirelessly syncs via Bluetooth to computers, tablets, and more than 150 leading iOS, Android, and Windows smartphones.

One of the things we love about this Fitbit is how you can get a range of Flex accessories – sold separately – that allow you to style it just the way you like it!

Somewhat different from the more typical sleep trackers that are worn on the wrist is this non-wearable tracker from Withings Sleep. It is clinically tested to give you sleep-lab results at home and there is nothing for you to wear – all you do is simply place the tracking pad under the mattress on your bed.

You may not get the additional data provided by fitness trackers, but if your focus is solely on improving your overall sleep then this could be the best sleep tracker for your needs. It offers a very comprehensive analysis of your sleep stages, including deep, light and REM. It monitors heart rate variability, detects snoring, and provides you with a Sleep Score every day. The Sleep Score divides your night into six clearly understood indicators with color-coded feedback on each sleep stage, helping you identify poor sleep. For example, you can quickly see how good the depth of your sleep was, the time it took you to get to sleep initially and how many times you were interrupted.  The mat’s snore detection tells you how many times you snored and how long each episode lasted. You can then visit the app to learn more about different snoring patterns and what can trigger them.

Your movements, heart rate breathing and more are detected by the mat’s advanced sensors. This data is then processed by algorithms that allow this device to provide you with very accurate insight into your sleep patterns during the night, which is particularly useful if you have a condition like sleep apnea. This information is available to you in the Health Mate app as soon as you wake up and you can show it to your doctor during a visit, or share it with your healthcare provider via PDF. Interestingly, the manufacturers say that more than 1 in 3 users of this sleep tracking mat discovered that they had breathing disturbances.

Set-up is extremely easy – all you need to do is place the mat between the mattress on your bed and the platform or box spring. It has been tested with all kinds of mattresses – including latex, foam, memory foam and spring – with thicknesses from 10 cm to 45 cm. What’s more, you can create smart home automations to create a better sleep environment by integrating IFTTT, allowing Sleep to control your thermostat, lights etc.

Another non-wearable sleep tracking device, the ResMed S+is designed to help you achieve the ideal environment for the best possible night’s sleep. It works by gauging the factors that are influencing the quality of your sleep and helps you identify the changes you need to sleep more soundly.

Sensors in the device are able to detect things that might be stopping you from sleeping properly. These include the levels of light in your bedroom, the temperature of your room, and any loud sounds that may occur during the night. It is also sensitive enough to detect your movements in order to help gauge the quality of your sleep. Designed to be pointed at your chest as you sleep, it can detect your breathing and then provide all your sleeping data via its accompanying app. Along with your sleep score, you will receive information about how long you were in each sleep stage. There is also a ‘smart alarm’ designed to wake you gently when you are in a lighter sleep stage.

Despite being positioned separately to the bed, this sleep tracker will only pick up the sleeping data of the person it is closest to. If you sleep with a partner, it will be able to tell that there are two different people in the bed and will only track the sleep of one, which is why the manufacturers suggest placing it within arm’s length of the person wishing to track their sleep, preferably on a nightstand or side table next to the bed.