Tracked the same night with both Up and Sleep Cycle (charts included)

[alexw]

I purchased an UP yesterday and wanted to show a comparison of bio-alarms on the same night. I've been using Sleep Cycle (an iPhone app where it similarly tracks your movement from the corner of your mattress using the iPhone itself as the movement sensor) for over a year now, almost every night I wasn't traveling. I like it a lot, but would like more statistical info, and that was my main attraction to the UP.

I'm attaching the charts for last night, using both UP and Sleep Cycle simultaneously. (EDIT: looks like I can only add one photo per post, so I'll show them separately.)

Obviously a motion sensor on the wrist can be more sensitive to movement than one placed on the corner of the bed. Both alarms woke me at 7:00 when set for the 7-7:30 range (and I was already quite awake at 7AM). UP's 6h33minutes seems to be how much time it thinks I actually spent sleeping vs Sleep Cycle's 7h44m which is how much time I _tried_ to sleep. Both numbers are important, but I am more interested in UP's number.

I also like the sleep quality # in the UP. Even if it isn't a perfect barometer of my quality of sleep, how that number goes up and down relative to previous nights . But the number I'm most interested in tracking is sleep onset time, which neither tracker gives me. 

Other notes:

Although I've had insomnia all my life, last night was the worst of the last week, at least partly because I found the UP to be terribly uncomfortable.

I think Sleep Cycle was the first bio-alarm to appear on the iPhone, and it's possible there's been superior competition in the last year. Sleep Cycle is now at a 3.0 release and their statistics info, while perhaps growing more accurate, has been pretty much unchanged when it comes to what information it tells the user.

I've tracked more than the 350 nights shown on my Sleep Cycle statistics page, but did a reinstallation when I upgraded from a 2nd gen iPhone to an iPhone 4.

Hope this helps.

UP stats page for last night:

[alexw]

And here's the same night with Sleep Cycle:

[demianseiler]

I tried the iPhone Sleep Cycle app a couple of nights, but had a couple of concerns; 1) That I would fling it off the bed at some point 2) My wife also moves in the bed, thus possibly corrupting the data.  

My hope is that the UP will eliminate the first problem as I don't find it too uncomfortable, and minimize the second issue I mention above.  I have high hopes for the UP, and hope to get a better understanding of my sleep patterns.

Nice comparison, thanks for posting alexw.  

[alexw]

Did you place your phone under your fitted sheet? The instructions page is pretty specific about how they say to use it. I don't think it's ever fallen off my bed FWIW. 

I had a similar concern about my wife's movements, though she's such a sound sleeper compared to me, it wasn't a _big_ concern. IIRC the Sleep Cycle people say that your own body's presence acts as a buffer between your phone and what's going on over there, but yeah, no idea whether the iPhone placed there is better or worse than something on your person like the UP, Fitbit, or a sleep tracking watch (closer to the user, but also closer to a sleeping partner).

The most evidence I have that it's reliable is when I've taken generic ambien--which can help with sleep onset but can suppress the deeper sleep state--and my chart reflects exactly that even with my spouse sleeping normally beside me.

[alexw]

Which reminds me... I reviewed Sleep Cycle early in its release:

http://www.iphonealley.com/news/sleep-cycle-alarm-clock

What's funny (to me) is a big part of the review is explaining the benefits of bio-alarms, and one of the ways I did so was by calling it "the opposite of a snooze alarm" ...and they added a snooze alarm in the next release.

[tim32244]

I did the same thing with the ZEO sleep monitor (It uses a headband with sensors) and I was shocked at how close they were.  The Zeo read 6 hours:19 minutes total sleep and the Up was 6 hrs 21 minutes.  What was even more suspiring is they both give a sleep score and it was 80 on both.  I will post some pictures when I can on a new thread.

Thanks for your comparison as well.

[alexw]

Very cool. 

[woffles]

Doesn't the UP show in the chart what time you actually fell asleep? The first orange section is the time from when you went to bed to when you actually fell asleep.

[alexw]

I get that, but the graph isn't labeled, except for the wakeup time. I guess I could get a small, accurate ruler to place up against my phone's LCD every day and then do some division...

[woffles]

I thought something was odd. That's the wrong screen. Go to Me, turn it sideways and click on the bottom bar of the sleep portion you want to look at. It will have a time graph along the bottom.