I have become obsessed with how much sleep that I’m getting. That sounds a bit extreme, but I do see a correlation between how much sleep I’m getting and overall how I’m feeling. This isn’t just a physical feeling, but how happy I am and even how prepared I am for difficult or stressful situations. Which is why I rely on my Apple Watch for this kind of information. And not just information on how much I’m sleeping, but what kind of quality of sleep I’m getting.
Last year, Sleep Cycle for iPhone introduced snore detection to help sleep trackers discover whether or not snoring is affecting their sleep quality. This in itself is amazing, in my opinion. As a former snorer, this information can be incredibly helpful. The hard part is twofold – when you are snoring, how do you know, other than by feeling your partners elbow straight into your rib cage? The other hard part is how can you stop yourself from snoring in the first place? To help with the first question, Sleep Cycle has added a new Apple Watch app that will silently nudge you when there is snoring detected.
The goal is simple (and amazing). Using the Apple Watch’s Taptic Engine, Sleep Cycle can give your wrist a gentle nudge when the app detects that you’re snoring. The nudge is very subtle and silent, so it’s not going to wake you up from a dead sleep and leave you gasping for air. (Maybe that’s just how I wake up?) Regardless, this nudge will likely prompt you to change positions, and that will hopefully help you stop snoring.
Sleep Cycle for Apple Watch also features a silent alarm clock that relies on the Taptic Engine to quietly and gently wake you up. Apple’s built-in Alarm app offers a similar feature on Apple Watch, but Sleep Cycle also doubles as a sleep tracker that logs duration and quality in Apple’s Health app.
Is this a feature that you think you might use? I kind of think that I might. Like I said earlier, I have been known to snore, so I want to make sure that I’m controlling this or getting help if I need to. It is a health issue, especially if left unchecked. Rather, your snoring could be as a result of a health issue. But it can also lead to you not sleeping and maybe not even breathing. These are both things that you should want to get checked out. While I’m not saying that this app should act in place of a doctor’s advice, I am saying that if you aren’t sure if you have a problem – try this app. If it ends up being bad, then head to the doctor.
I think the sleep tracking apps are extremely helpful. I mean, you wake up in the morning, and you feel like you were hit by a car, but you don’t really know why – because you’ve been in your bed for 7 or 8 hours. Then you check your app, and you see that you only actually slept for 3 of those 7 hours. Again, I’m not saying that this should be used in place of sound medical advice, but at least you’ll know where to start. Rather than going to the doctor five times only to have to keep going back and trying different things.