Is there any technology more ironic than Sleep Tracking? Tech companies say their wearables and apps that study your body as you snooze can help you get a better night’s rest. But many sleep experts, and the companies themselves, say technology itself is to blame when you don’t sleep well.
Our brightly lit smartphones and social networking apps create distractions that may be keeping us up and contributing to poor sleep. So one of the most common pieces of advice you’ll read about getting better sleep, including in sleep-tracking apps, is to stop using tech a few hours before bedtime.
So why are we adding more tech to our sleep routine?
The latest attempt to solve the problem of sleep comes from Amazon. Last week, the company began selling the $140 Halo Rise, a ring-shaped alarm clock with a built-in sleep tracker. It uses motion sensors to study your movement and breathing patterns to assess your sleep. To wake you up, the device includes a light that can be programmed to gradually get brighter.
With hopes of solving my own sleep problems, I have been testing sleep tracking technology for several years, including products made by Fitbit and Oura and apps available for the Apple Watch. I have repeatedly felt let down because the data gathered from the devices simply confirmed that I had poor rest, and at times made me feel even more anxious about that.
Still, I was curious to sleep alongside the Halo Rise for a few nights to see what it would offer. Yet again I was disappointed: It provided data with questionable accuracy, and even though I liked being woken up by the yellow light, the same result could be achieved with a light bulb plugged into a power. Plus, the benefits weren’t strong enough to warrant giving even more of my data to Amazon.
The most useful insight derived from all the hype over sleep technology isn’t the tracking itself. It’s the actionable guidance found inside sleep-tracking apps for how to get a better night’s rest — advice that I can share with you.
Here’s where I became skeptical. For four sleep sessions, during which I didn’t feel that I slept particularly well, the Halo app graded my sleep “Good.” On each of these nights, my Labrador, a dog in her senior years with special needs, woke me up at an odd hour to go outside.
Monday night was especially problematic. I went to bed at 10:30 and tossed and turned, occasionally looking at the clock, for at least three hours before finally falling asleep. The alarm went off at 6 a.m. The Halo app reported that I had slept six hours and 37 minutes and considered this good.
I shared my results with Amazon and asked how the company could guarantee the accuracy of the Halo Rise. Dr. Michael Miyamoto, a medical director for Amazon, said the company had done internal studies comparing the results of its algorithms with data measured with polysomnography, the gold standard of sleep tracking that involves hooking up sensors to someone’s face and neck to measure eye movements and brain activity.
Dr. Miyamoto said that Amazon found the Halo Rise results to be accurate, but that the company had yet to work with a third party to validate the accuracy of the product, though it plans to.
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