What should I think about when choosing a sleep tracker?
When choosing a sleep tracker, you should think about what you are using it for, as there are different types of units. In this video, sleep expert Michael Breus, PhD, discusses how a wearable activity tracker compares to a bedside sleep tracker.
Transcript
The bedside trackers actually are a little bit more accurate, and the reason is 'cause they can measure more things while
you're sleeping. [MUSIC PLAYING]
If you're gonna choose a sleep tracker, there are several different things that you want to think about. So number one, do you want it to be just a sleep
tracker because there are some devices that actually sit by your bedside and those will track your sleep and only
your sleep whereas others like more of these activity trackers will actually measure activity during the day, if you exercise, things like that.
So first of all, decide is it a bedside unit for me or an under the sheets unit for me or is it something that I wear on a regular basis.
You get different pieces of information from each. Personally, I actually like both. I like the wearable as well as the bedside unit
depending upon what it is I'm trying to monitor. So I like to use the activity tracker, and then I will coordinate that with my bedside tracker.
The bedside trackers actually are a little bit more accurate, and the reason is 'cause they can measure more things while you're sleeping.
So an activity tracker, again, mostly motion but when you look at the bedside trackers, they also by the way give you information about your data.
That's the big thing that's missing right now is there's a lot of data floating around, but we're not always sure exactly what to do with all that data.
I mean, I'm a sleep specialist, and sometimes I don't even know what to do with all of their data. So I'm not expecting everybody out there to know what to do with it, but some of the newer ones
will actually send you emails or give you a text and say, hey, you didn't sleep a lot last night because there was a loud noise in the middle of the night
and that corresponded to an awakening. So you may want to check and make sure that your air conditioning units on or that the dog wasn't barking, things like that.
So there's a lot of different things out there. Don't be fooled by a 99 cent app that you put on your phone
and lay next to your pillow. That's going to be the least accurate of the bunch. [AUDIO LOGO]
sleep disorders
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