We could all use a better night's sleep, and the key to getting there is a mix of good sleep habits and understanding the things that keep you from getting the best sleep you possibly can. That's where sleep tracking gadgets that you wear, and smartphone apps that monitor your sleep cycles all come into play. This week, we're looking at five of the best sleep tracking tools, based on your nominations.
Earlier in the week, we asked you to tell us which sleep tracking gadgets or apps you thought were the best. We tallied your nominations, and here's a look at the top five. We know it's a bit unfair to include gadgets alongside smartphone apps, but depending on what you're looking for when it comes to sleep tracking, it's good to have options, both robust and complete (but may cost money) and affordable for the gear you already own (and free).
Sleep tracking is just one of the features of the FitBit One. Clip it on your pocket or somewhere else on your person and it'll keep track of the steps you take over the course of the day and how active you are overall. It'll also generate great-looking reports and feedback on your activity levels. When it comes to sleep though, just slip your FitBit One into the included wristband and set it to sleep mode. It'll track your movements overnight, including the times you get up and move around, or when you're awake tossing and turning in bed. Turn it off in the morning, and after you sync it with the FitBit web site or app, you'll get a complete report of how well you slept, along with how many times you woke up and what times during the night you were active. It won't diagnose sleep issues, but if you're worried you're tossing and turning a lot, or if your partner is the root of your sleep ailments, this gadget will tell you. iOS and Android apps complete the picture and give you access to all the data the FitBit collects from your smartphone. The FitBit One is $100, and the apps are free.
Sleep As Android is (as the name implies) Android only, but it does a great job of watching your sleep cycles. Originally it was intended to just wake you gently at the best possible time of the morning when your sleep cycle was at the best time for you to rise, but the app has come a long way since then. The app still helps you track your sleep and shows you graphs of your sleep habits overnight, but the app will also warn you if you're running on a sleep deficit and you should get back into a regular sleeping pattern. The app even pays attention to the sound in the room while you're sleeping to catch you snoring, record you talking in your sleep if that's a problem you have, or help you diagnose sleep illnesses you might not otherwise know about, like sleep apnea. Sleep As Android will wake you up gently at the best time in the morning for you to wake without being late with nature sounds, soothing music, captcha or puzzle alarms, or whatever you choose from the music on your phone or a special playlist to get you started. You can snag a 2 week trial free, after which you'll have to drop $3 for an unlock code, and a few bucks more for other useful in-app purchases.
After a bit of a rocky start with the original Jawbone, the Jawbone Up has come a long way and addressed a number of the concerns that made the original a tenuous buy. Like most activity and fitness trackers, sleep is only one thing the Up pays attention to. It'll also track your steps and your activity level, and even makes it easy to log food and drink to keep track of your diet. It'll even remind you if you've been idle too long and tell you to get up and move around. When it comes to sleep, the Up can track how many hours you've slept, and pays attention to your activity overnight, including when you toss and turn and when you're sleeping deeply versus sleeping lightly. The Up will show you everything it's recorded in a report the next day on the web site, or through the Jawbone Up iOS or Android mobile apps, so you can start trying to figure out what the root cause of your sleep issues may be, and work your way to a better night's rest. A Jawbone Up will set you back $130, and the mobile apps are free.
Sleep Cycle is an iOS app that also watches your sleep habits from your nightstand in order to help wake you up at the best possible time of the morning. We've mentioned it before, a long time ago, but the app has grown a good bit since then, and still has a loyal following. It's $1, and for the money you get motion monitoring (and even advises you on where you should place your iPhone while you sleep so it can make use of its accelerometer—right next to your pillow) so the app will know when you toss and turn and when you wake in the middle of the night. The app collects its data and then presents it to you in easy-to-understand graphs, and lets you even mark conditions for the night, including behaviors you may have changed, so you can see their effect on your night's rest. The app also functions as an alarm clock, and will wake you to your own music or any one of over a dozen soothing alarm melodies for a gentle start to the day. Plus, the app runs in the background so you can set your regular alarm and go about your business.
SleepBot for Android is another great Android utility for tracking your sleep patterns and measuring how well you sleep over the course of several nights. We covered it a while ago, but the app has grown and added a wealth of new features since then. The app tracks you sleep, but it also tracks movement overnight, auto-recording so you can hear whether you snore or if you're having breathing problems overnight (or if you're talking in your sleep), and is even packed with tips to help improve your sleep hygiene and fall asleep faster (and stay deeply asleep). The app also has an easy-to-use widget that lets you "clock in" and "clock out" when you go to bed and when you wake up to start and stop the app from tracking your activity, and it supports a number of other Android alarm clocks, so you don't have to give up the app you love to use Sleepbot to track your sleep. Best of all, the app is completely free, and pairs with the Sleepbot webapp for even more detailed analysis.
Now that you've seen the top five, it's time to put them to an all out vote.
Honorable mentions this week go to Sleep Time for Android and iOS, which does a lot of what many of the others app here in the round up also do: it keeps track of your movements and your sleep cycles, and wakes you up gradually at the right time during your sleep cycle so you're not late, but you're also not groggy and feel terrible when it's time to get up. For more information on Sleep Time, check out our article about it. It's free for Android users, and $2 for iOS users.
Also, before you buy a sleep tracking gadget or try out an app to help improve your night's sleep, our own Adam Dachis did a lot of the work for you. Check out how he got a better night's sleep with the help of technology to learn what worked (and what didn't) for him.
Have something to say about one of the contenders? Want to make the case for your personal favorite, even if it wasn't included in the list? Remember, the top five are based on your most popular nominations from the call for contenders thread from earlier in the week. Don't just complain about the top five, let us know what your preferred alternative is—and make your case for it—in the discussions below.
The Hive Five is based on reader nominations. As with most Hive Five posts, if your favorite was left out, it's not because we hate it—it's because it didn't get the nominations required in the call for contenders post to make the top five. We understand it's a bit of a popularity contest, but if you have a favorite, we want to hear about it. Have a suggestion for the Hive Five? Send us an email at tips+hivefive@lifehacker.com!
Title photo by groenmen.
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