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How do Smartwatches Track Sleep?

The most comfortable part of the day is when it’s time to get sleep. When a person works all day long, and at the end of the day getting into the bed has some different level of comfort. After intense work our body needs rest. Till that everything is fine. But the problem arises when a person sleeps for too many hours and has a sleep disorder. To counter that habit, one needs such tools that give one the exact reading of sleeping hours. Smartwatches have these tools for monitoring heart rate and sleeping patterns. Tracking your sleeping hours can give the best information about your health need. But have you ever thought that how these sleep trackers work? What types of technology are they using? What about its accuracy? The accuracy is still a hot debate among the scientific community.

During sleep all your body’s function changes, heart rate, muscle movement, and respiration. To measure all these functions technicians attach sensors to your head and body and this is a professional way of tracking. That is a bit more complicated process to track your sleep. Besides, wearing a smartwatch can do it for you in an easy way. This is called a personal sleep study. Personal sleep trackers depend upon an accelerometer or actigraphy. An accelerometer is a small device that is composed of an axis-based motion sensor that tracks your movement when sleeping. While you are sleeping, your body performs less motion and in the case of dreaming your body is temporarily paralyzed. They also measure heart rate, noise, and temperature to track your sleep. How does it work? I have elaborated below.

Noise

Sleep trackers have noise detectors or microphones that help to detect the noise of the room or of your body. The noise of the room helps the detector to detect whether you are asleep and also the quality and the depth of your sleep. When a person is sleeping he also produces snoring or grunting sounds. This microphone in the watch also measures your respiration, so as to detect the snoring sound. Snoring is directly related to the quality of your sleep. Some sleep detectors detect snoring and tend to examine whether it was snoring or a grunting sound that is a serious sleep disorder called sleep apnea.

Moreover, the microphones also detect any other disturbing sounds in the room to notice the suitability of your bedroom for sleep. If there is any other disturbing sound in the room like if the TV is on or any other such thing, the sleep tracker will detect that will suggest to you that the noise is interfering with your sleep. Darkness and pin-drop silence is the ideal environment for sleeping.

Your Heart Rate

During sleep, the person’s heart rate and also blood pressure lower down. The heart stayed at a lower rate while the person is sleeping, except in REM sleep. REM stands for Rapid Eye Movement. Dreams often came in that stage of sleep. So, sleep trackers measure variations in your heart rate. Because when are awake you have a different heart rate to that of while sleeping. Smartwatch sleep trackers use personal trackers to detect the heart rate of your body by using the technology of Heart Rate Monitor (HRM).

Temperature

Smartwatches with a thermostat feature detect the temperature of your bedroom and its overall effect on your sleep. The perfect room temperature for sleeping is 60 degrees Fahrenheit for adults and warmer for children. You will find some of the best smartwatches for kids and adults in the market. These smartwatches work perfectly both for kids and adults to examine the temperature and suggest you adjust the thermostat for an ideal sleeping environment.

Motion Sensors

The motion of the body changes while sleep as compared to when the person is awake. That’s the way the sleep trackers detect the state of the person. We remain mostly at a single position while we sleep which helps the body to measure our sleep in a better way. Smartwatches use actigraphy or accelerometers to detect the motion of the body while sleeping when such sensors are worn around your wrist.

 Conclusion

To finalize the above discussion, these smart and best smartwatches are not just watches; they even care for your every action from your footsteps to sleep tracking. Unlike simple watches that only show time and have a decent look. Today, technology has advanced so much that everyone has first-aid in their pockets. They can check their heart rate, blood oxygen, foot-steps, calories burnt, and many more from a single device. Moreover, it is good to track your sleep so that you know about the hour you slept and what were the situations while you were sleeping. These trackers act as a first-aid to give you information about your body while sleeping and if there is any problem regarding your sleep or your heart rate, you can approach a doctor for better treatment.

 

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