Should I sleep with smartwatch

Is Your Smartwatch as Good as an At-Home Sleep Test?

Many of us use tech to help us track and manage our sleeping patterns. It's not hard to see why -- it can help spot issues and diagnose sleep disorders. But they're not all the same. There are a lot of options out there for sleep tracking and testing. Many devices even look the same, leading to confusion about which one you should invest in.

Watches and at-home sleep tests are often confused because they're used at home. It's understandable but potentially bad for your wallet. Several substantial differences between the two will determine which you should buy.

What is an at-home sleep test?

Before comparing the two devices, let's define what an at-home sleep test is. At-home sleep tests are easy-to-use medical devices prescribed by a doctor and used to diagnose sleep apnea. There are several types on the market; some are simple finger clips, while others have chest straps or nose cannulas. At-home sleep tests are a more affordable and accessible alternative to traditional sleep studies.

However, they are not used to diagnose other sleep disorders like insomnia or narcolepsy. But if your doctor suspects you likely have sleep apnea and just needs to confirm, an at-home sleep test is a good option. They are suited only for people with a high probability of sleep apnea and no other medical conditions that may interfere with results.

At-home sleep tests and smartwatches are different

The two devices aren't the same thing, nor are they intended to be. However, when comparing at-home sleep tests with smartwatches or sleep trackers, you'll notice a lot of overlap, namely in what they measure while you wear them.

At-home sleep tests and sleep trackers both measure the following:

• Breathing -- pauses and interruptions that indicate sleep apnea
• Heart rate
• Blood oxygen levels

Both also will result in documentation you can access to see the results of your sleep data. Though the use of that data is another difference. At-home sleep tests diagnose sleep apnea, while smartwatches track how you sleep. Let's get into how else they're different.

Smartwatches measure more than just breathing

Despite the name, at-home sleep tests won't tell you anything about how you are sleeping. They measure breathing, not the quality or type of sleep you get. They're really only good for determining if you have sleep apnea.

If you're looking for a device that can help you track your sleep and adjust your lifestyle, then you are best suited for a sleep tracker or smartwatch.

Smartwatches and sleep trackers measure:

• The amount of sleep you get
• The quality of sleep you get
• Your sleep phases
• How often you wake up during the night

Sleep trackers and smartwatches also have apps to monitor your sleep data. For example, I have a Fitbit Luxe. In the Fitbit app, I can access graphs that tell my sleep quality daily, weekly, monthly and yearly. It also tells me how often I am awake and at what time during my sleep cycles. This is essential to ensuring I balance the proper amount of sleep in each stage. And helps me connect the dots between what I do during the day and how it impacts my sleep.

At-home sleep tests also have data that a doctor will help you interpret, but they are not devices that are intended to wear long term. So you will never have the catalog of data you would have with a watch.

Only at-home sleep tests can diagnose sleep apnea

The main difference between the two devices is that at-home sleep tests are medical devices that require you to speak to a doctor before buying and using them. That's because an at-home sleep test's single most important purpose is to diagnose sleep apnea. If you don't have the signs of sleep apnea -- interrupted breathing, snoring and excessive daytime fatigue -- then you should not use an at-home sleep test.

Your smartwatch is never going to diagnose sleep apnea. The best it can do is help you monitor your sleep disturbances and assess how long you stay in each sleep stage. You can assess your data and notice themes that point to sleep disorders, but they are not medical devices. They're great for people who want to monitor their sleep health and make changes if necessary.

Nothing beats a lab sleep study

Watches that track your sleep are the best choice for the everyday person. However, if you are having prolonged sleep troubles, then medical intervention is necessary. Sometimes that is an at-home sleep test to diagnose sleep apnea. But in terms of performance, tracking the most factors, and having the best interpretation, nothing will be as good as lab sleep studies with a doctor. At-home sleep tests and sleep trackers are very limited in comparison.

There are plenty of things to consider about lab sleep studies -- they are expensive, often inconvenient and can take months to get into. However, you can't beat the accuracy of them. I would only recommend a lab sleep test if you need to diagnose sleep disorders and seek assistance.

Too long; didn't read?

For the average person who isn't looking to diagnose sleep apnea or other medical conditions, your smartwatch or sleep tracker is the best option. It will offer you a ton of information to help you monitor your sleep and adjust your lifestyle as needed.

Your doctor will recommend at-home sleep tests if you show signs of sleep apnea and need a diagnosis, which is something your smartwatch can't do. It does track your breathing and can suggest something that needs looking into, though additional testing will always be needed to confirm.

How to Maximize Your Sleep Quality with Smartwatch Sleep Tracking

Introduction

Sleep plays a crucial role in maintaining our overall health and well-being. By tracking sleep quality, we can better understand our sleep patterns and make informed decisions to improve our rest. Spade & Co offers a smartwatch sleep tracking solution that helps users optimize their sleep quality, ultimately enhancing their overall health and fitness journey.

The Science Behind Sleep Tracking

Understanding the sleep cycle and its stages is crucial for optimizing sleep quality. There are three primary stages of sleep: light sleep, deep sleep, and REM sleep. During light sleep, our body begins to relax, and our heart rate slows down. As we progress into deep sleep, our muscles relax further, and our body undergoes restorative processes. Finally, during REM sleep, our brain is highly active, and we experience vivid dreams.

Smartwatches track sleep quality through a combination of movement tracking, heart rate monitoring, and detecting sleep stages. An accelerometer within the smartwatch measures movement, while heart rate monitoring provides insight into our body's state during sleep. By analyzing this data, smartwatches can determine which sleep stage we are in and provide a comprehensive picture of our sleep patterns.

Recognizing our sleep patterns and stages is beneficial for various reasons. It helps us identify potential sleep issues, monitor the effectiveness of sleep improvement strategies, and ultimately optimize our sleep quality for better overall health and well-being.

How Spade & Co's Smartwatch Sleep Tracking Can Help Improve Sleep Quality

Spade & Co's smartwatch offers sleep tracking features designed to help you optimize your sleep quality. These features include sleep duration tracking, sleep stage analysis, and a silent alarm feature. Sleep duration tracking provides insight into the amount of sleep you are getting each night, while sleep stage analysis offers a detailed look at the different stages of sleep you experience. The silent alarm feature gently wakes you up without disturbing your partner, ensuring a more pleasant morning routine.

To use Spade & Co's smartwatch sleep tracking data for sleep improvement, start by analyzing your sleep patterns and identifying areas that need attention. Once you understand your current sleep habits, set goals for sleep duration and quality. These goals might include increasing the amount of deep sleep or REM sleep you get each night or aiming for a more consistent sleep schedule. As you work toward these goals, use the smartwatch sleep tracking data to monitor your progress over time and make adjustments to your sleep strategies as needed.

Tips for Maximizing Sleep Quality with Smartwatch Sleep Tracking

Using smartwatch sleep tracking data effectively requires establishing healthy sleep habits. One essential aspect is maintaining a consistent sleep schedule. Aim to go to bed and wake up at the same time each day, even on weekends. Setting an alarm for bedtime can help you stick to this routine and ensure a sufficient amount of sleep each night.

Creating a sleep-friendly environment is another crucial factor in improving sleep quality. Keep your bedroom dark, quiet, and cool, as these conditions promote restful sleep. Investing in a comfortable mattress and pillows can also enhance your sleep experience.

Developing healthy sleep habits includes reducing screen time before bed, as exposure to screens can interfere with your body's natural sleep-wake cycle. Instead, engage in relaxing activities such as reading or meditation to signal to your body that it's time for sleep. In addition to these habits, tracking and adjusting lifestyle factors that affect sleep quality can lead to better rest. Monitor your caffeine and alcohol consumption, as both can disrupt sleep patterns. Incorporating regular exercise into your daily routine can also improve sleep quality, as physical activity promotes restorative sleep.

How Spade & Co's Customer-Focused Approach Ensures Maximum Benefits from Smartwatch Sleep Tracking

Spade & Co's commitment to customer satisfaction is evident through their 30-day satisfaction guarantee, ensuring you can confidently try their smartwatch sleep tracking solution. Choosing a reliable, high-quality product for sleep tracking is essential for obtaining accurate data and making informed decisions to improve your sleep quality.

By opting for Spade & Co's smartwatch sleep tracking, you're not only investing in a tool that helps optimize your sleep but also supporting your overall health and fitness goals. With the combination of Spade & Co's innovative technology and customer-focused approach, you can confidently work towards better sleep and improved well-being.

Conclusion

In summary, sleep quality plays a crucial role in our overall well-being, and smartwatch sleep tracking can provide valuable insights to help us optimize our rest. We encourage you to explore Spade & Co's smartwatch sleep tracking solution to improve your sleep quality and support your overall health and fitness journey. With Spade & Co's commitment to customer satisfaction and high-quality products, you can be confident in your choice and take the necessary steps towards better sleep and improved well-being.

How to track sleep on a smartwatch or fitness tracker

A fitness tracker or smartwatch with sleep tracking can offer valuable data to help you optimise your bedtime routine.

Discover how this data can help with sleep and the limitations to be aware of. Plus, expert tips on choosing the right product for you and other ways to improve your sleep.

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Why is sleep important?

Many of us routinely skimp on sleep in fact, two thirds of adults throughout developed nations get less than eight hours' sleep a night.

Getting the NHS-recommended seven to nine (on average eight) hours' sleep and making sure its good quality sleep can improve your health, memory, mood, appearance and decision-making.

Insufficient sleep has health impacts such as affecting your immunity and increasing your risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, stroke and numerous other health problems, according to Matthew Walker, author of 'Why We Sleep' and director of the Centre for Human Sleep Science at the University of California, Berkeley.

It can also affect your weight, as lack of sleep increases levels of a hormone that makes you feel hungry, while suppressing a companion hormone that makes you feel sated.

What do sleep-tracking wearables monitor?

Many fitness trackers and smartwatches, even the cheap ones, offer some level of sleep tracking. Typical stats they monitor include:

Sleep duration how long you've been asleep or awake. All sleep tracking wearables offer this.

Sleep quality data whether your sleep has been restless or good quality. Many offer this, some also assign you a sleep score.

Sleep stage data how long you spent in each stage of sleep (Light, Deep, REM).

Sleep cycle alarm some trackers will wake you up at the optimum point in your sleep cycle closest to the time you've requested.

Sleep problem detection some can detect sleep apnoea, a potentially serious health issue in which breathing stops and starts while you're asleep. As they're not medical devices, you shouldn't rely on them but you can take up any flagged abnormalities with your doctor.

Sleep tips many will give you tips for sleeping better. Some also act as a dashboard or journal, allowing you to record factors that might be affecting your sleep, such as exercise and caffeine intake. This can be helpful for understanding what's impacting your sleep patterns.

Do sleep-tracking wearables really work?

To some extent, yes, though they aren't perfect.

Older and cheaper wrist-worn sleep trackers rely on an accelerometer (which tracks movement) to auto-detect sleep. If you're inactive for a certain length of time, or your movements such as rolling over are considered to be typical sleep behaviour, then the tracker will assume you're sleeping.

Newer models that can detect your heart rate and breathing are generally more accurate, as they have more data to go on.

However, even these can incorrectly think you've been asleep when you've just been dozing on the sofa or that you've not slept at all because your sleep has been short.

Tracking sleep stages is more of an estimate than something that should be viewed as scientifically accurate. Laboratory sleep-tracking, known as polysomnography, involves measuring electrical activity in the brain, breathing pattern, body position, snoring and more.

Making data easily accessible

Wearables may not do a perfect job of recording your sleep times, but they can present the data in an easily digestible format. They can also help you get a picture of your sleep habits and how your daily behaviours impact your sleep quality.

Some people find this kind of data-led approach helpful for spotting and resolving sleep issues, but it depends on your personality. It can swing the other way and make you anxious that you aren't hitting your sleep targets, so it's worth thinking about if it's right for you.

Which? tests of sleep-tracking wearables

When we test wearables with sleep-tracking functionality our testers wear them for up to three nights, assessing:

• how detailed and easy to understand the sleep data is
• how plausible the sleep durations seem
• any outstanding capabilities or unusual features.

If the sleep functionality is hard to use, or the data is hard to make head or tail of, we'll flag this in our reviews.

If you do buy a wearable for sleep-tracking, make sure you pick one that's light and comfortable enough to keep on your wrist all night.

Fitness trackers tend to be smaller and more comfortable to wear than smartwatches, so might be a better bet if you're particularly keen to use this function.

Use our fitness tracker reviews and smartwatch reviews to find a model that ticks your boxes.

What does a typical sleep-cycle look like?

A typical night's sleep consists of several cycles of deeper and lighter sleep stages, known as REM (rapid eye movement) and Non-REM sleep.

We typically cycle through Non-REM to REM stages every 90-110 minutes, with REM cycles getting longer each time.

Non-REM sleep

• Stage 1 lightersleep, where you drift in and out of sleep and can be easily woken. Your eyes move slowly and muscle activity slows.
• Stage 2 while sleep is still fairly light, your body prepares for deep sleep. Eye movements, heart rate and brain waves slow down, and your temperature drops.
• Stages 3-4 known as deep sleep or slow wave sleep, your heart rate and breathing rate are at their lowest, muscles are relaxed and brain waves slow down further. In this stage, you'll be difficult to rouse and can feel disorientated if woken up.

REM sleepvivid, hallucinogenic dreams that seem to form a narrative come from REM sleep. Breathing becomes faster, irregular and shallow and your brain returns to a more wakeful state. Your limbs may become paralysed to stop you acting out your dreams.

Insufficient REM sleep can blunt our ability to discern others' facial expressions, making it harder to navigate social situations. Lack of REM also affects memory and general cognitive performance.

How Apple watches track sleep

If you're using watchOS 7, 8 or 9 (compatible with all Apple Watches apart from the Series 1 and 2), you can use the Sleep app on your Apple Watch to track sleep, including:

• set up bedtime schedules and goals
• set a wake-up alarm
• set a wind-down time, meaning the watch will go into Sleep Mode (which turns on Do Not Disturb) for a period before the sleep time you're aiming for
• find out how much sleep you had
• view your sleep trends over the past 14 days.

We found that older Apple watches (pre-Series 8) struggle with enough battery life to get through the night for sleep tracking. Check out our Apple Watch reviews, or head to our guide on choosing the best Apple Watch to find the best match for your needs.

If you'd like to buy an Apple Watch, you can go to Apple directly or compare prices and availability from other retailers below:

How Fitbits track sleep

All Fitbit fitness trackers and smartwatches will track your sleep when you wear them to bed. After an hour of your body being immobile, your Fitbit will detect that you're asleep. You'll get information on:

• how many hours you've slept for and your weekly average
• your sleep score for the week and your weekly average
• your sleeping and waking up times for the week.

Fitbits with heart-rate monitors (apart from the Fitbit Charge HR and Fitbit Surge) are designed to track sleep stages and to give you graphs showing daily, weekly and monthly stats. Some also measure blood oxygen levels (pulse oximetry).

There's also the option to subscribe to Fitbit Premium with certain devices to get a more detailed 'sleep profile' and snoring monitoring.

See our reviews of Fitbit smartwatches and Fitbit trackers to see which ones we recommend.

If you'd like to buy, you can compare prices and availability at major retailers below:

How Garmin tracks sleep

Many Garmin devices offer what Garmin calls 'advanced sleep tracking'. Similar to Apple and Fitbit, these devices monitor:

• what time you fell asleep and woke up
• how much time you spent in light, deep and REM sleep
• respiration.

Some also assign you a sleep score and monitor your blood oxygen levels (pulse oximetry).

Older Garmins (those which base their sleep-tracking on your movement only) can't track your sleep stages.

Check our Garmin smartwatch reviews to find out more.

Compare prices and availability of Garmin watches that can track your sleep below:

Sleep-tracking rings

If you don't fancy a wrist-worn wearable, another option is to buy a smart ring. This is still a relatively niche market, but it is growing.

Many smart rings focus on smart payments, but some also have sleep-tracking capabilities, including the Oura (currently only available from the Oura website), which has a special focus on sleep and health.

Smart rings collect data such as your movement, heart rate, heart rate variability, body temperature and breathing to give you insights about your health and habits.

Smartphone apps for sleep-tracking

If you don't want to wear sleep tech to bed (or can't, because the short battery life requires you to stick it on charge every night) there are plenty of smartphone apps you can use instead.

Smartphone apps rely on an accelerometer to detect movement and, by extension, sleep. So, even more than with wrist-worn devices, you can't expect them to track super accurately.

Still, many offer useful tools for example, playing 'dreamscapes' (music, voiceovers and sound effects) to help you sleep better, giving you tips from sleep experts and teaching you cognitive techniques and behavioural strategies to reset your sleeping patterns.

The NHS recommends the following smartphone apps:

• Pzizz free for certain features, with the option to make in-app purchases
• Sleepio free with GP referral
• Sleepstation free with GP referral.

Looking for a more general mindfulness and meditation app? See our guide tomindfulness apps compared

How to sleep better

If you're struggling to drift off despite avoiding obvious things like avoiding caffeine, phone screens and heavy meals before bed, here are some other tips to try:

• Stick to regular sleeping hours, rather than 'catching up on sleep', even if you've had a bad night's sleep the night before.
• Don't believe the myth that older people need less sleep. You may struggle to get as much restorative sleep as you age, due to medications, medical conditions and day-time dozing. But you should still aim for seven to nine hours at night.
• Cut down on evening alcohol. Alcohol makes you feel drowsy but increases your chances of waking early and blocks REM (leaving you feeling groggy next day). As it's a diuretic, it also makes it more likely you'll wake up needing the bathroom.
• Understand your rhythm. There are biological and evolutionary reasons why some of us are owls and some are larks. If you're an owl forced into an early-to-bed routine, don't beat yourself up if you can't sleep instantly. Get sunlight first thing eat your breakfast near a window to help reset your circadian clock
• Keep your bedroom dark and cool (18-24C). Use our mattress reviews to buy a comfortable mattress, and don't neglect bedding make it seasonally appropriate and breathable, and replace old pillows that have lost their support.

Get more expert tips about sleep aids for beating insomnia, including whether sleep sprays and supplements really work.