I have an app on my phone that tracks my sleep. After the initial novelty wore off years ago I deleted it, but lately I've been wondering if my sleep patterns have become truly as awful as I've suspected from the way I've been feeling upon getting up in the morning, so I reloaded the latest version.
The old version required that the phone be placed under the pillow on the mattress itself to track motion. I can only surmise there were some overheating incidents, so now it's designed to sit on the nightstand and instead of tracking motion it listens to your breathing.
While I can understand how the previous version of this software would track your sleep stages via mattress movement, how this works now simply by listening escapes me (especially with more than just me in bed, the ceiling fan, the gurgling aquarium, and the humidifier whirring in the background.)
Even not understanding how this works, seeing this data has been—pardon the expression—eye opening. It verifies that I do often wake up—and remain awake for some amount of time before falling back to sleep—anywhere from 3 to 5 am almost every night. The fact that I almost immediately fall into deep sleep after going to bed explains why I'm almost never aware of Ben coming in later. It also shows the times I get up to use the bathroom.
What's less clear is how "Sleep quality" is computed, because it seems the higher the score on that, the less rested I feel upon waking. Of the data I've posted here, the 67% night was subjectively the best night's sleep I've had in weeks, while the 91% night was among the worst.
Have you used this to change anything about you/your sleep?
I have a Grmin Fenix 3 HR that gives me the same stuff. I stopped wearing it to bed about 5 days after I bought it since it shows different times I wake up but not that I did so because one of the dogs was laying across my legs, or was having a dream, or had to go out.
I've used one of the garmin fitness trackers (currently the vivofit 3) for a few years now, and I have to say that one of the more useful features has been the sleep tracking. It has helped determine how much sleep I need to feel refreshed and function well (about 7 hours), and helped me prepare for days when I didn't reach that ("you know you didn't get enough sleep, so try not to take it out on your staff…"). The fact that you don't have to charge the vivofit models makes it a lot easier to deal with, too.