My SleepTracker Watch Review - more than you wanted to know!

My Sleeptracker Watch Review http://www.sleeptracker.com/

Well, since my diagnosis in May I have become somewhat sleep obsessed and determined to get better quality sleep no matter what the price... well, maybe not but I have been working hard at it. I have a lot of years of damage to repair, I am sure.

So when I saw someone mention the SleepTracker watch on here I was intrigued. If it did what it claimed, i.e. wake you up during the "best time" for you wake up during your self-designated window of opportunity, well, that would be really great, right?

Uh, but the $150 price tag was a little much... but I was really wanting one. I watched a few on eBay, where you can fairly regularly find them new for about $85, and finally found one "lightly used" for $50 and grabbed it. I have used it every night now for about 2.5 weeks and the following is my review.

Comfort
The watch itself is not uncomfortable. It was a little difficult to get used to wearing a watch to bed, but not much. It is a fairly large watch, like a men's sport watch maybe, but fairly light. It has a stainless steel panel on the bottom of the face which is where it gets its data. I did email the SleepTracker people through their website about whether the stainless steel was nickel-free, as I have a nickel sensitivity and have trouble with jewelry with nickel in it. They wrote me back (very quickly I might add) stating that it might have nickel in it, but that the metal did not have to come in direct contact with your skin for it to work. So, I planned to put some ribbon or something over the metal plate when I got it if I got irritated. As it is, I did not get any irritation so I suspect it does not have nickel in it. The watch band has plenty of holes to adjust the strap... I have very tiny wrists and there were several holes past where it fit me, so I am sure it could fit very slender people easily.

Ease of Use
The instructions were very clear. There are several settings on the watch that you need to update. First of course is the current time. Then you need to set the alarm time, and turn the alarm ON (something I was forgetting! it won't track anything unless the alarm is on!). You have to set your window, or how long before your alarm time you want it to start searching for an appropriate waking time. For example, I set my alarm for 6:00 a.m. with a 20 minute window. Any time I was near waking in the time frame of 5:40 a.m. to 6:00 a.m., the alarm would go off. Finally, you have to set your "to bed" time. This was the most confusing part for me because you are supposed to set it for thirty minutes after you think you will fall asleep. So, if I go to bed at 10, and I think I will be asleep by 10:15, then I need to set it for 10:45. But, then if I read a while and don't actually shut off the light until 10:20, then I would be asleep by 10:35 and need to set the To Bed time for 11:05... This generally required more math and planning than I am used to at bedtime, but, hey, it was for science, right?

Alarm
The alarm is far too quiet to do what it is labelled to do. In the past 17 days, the alarm has woken me up ONLY TWICE. I do usually sleep with my arm under pillows or blankets. Each night I got more than 7.5 hours of sleep. The sound was very, very soft. Even wide awake, I had trouble identifying it as the alarm... hmmm, what's that faint beeping? On the two days it woke me up, one day I felt really great! I thought, hey, this woke me up at the perfect time, I feel refreshed, this is super. The second time I thought, ugh, I can sleep 15 more minutes until my alarm goes off, shut this thing up. So I have nothing very good to say about the alarm or using the watch for its intended purpose. It didn't work for me, and I don't think it will work for people who have a xPAP blowing in their face and drowning out the faint beeping of something in the distance.

Data Tracking
However, I absolutely LOVE the data tracking it does! It records each "almost awake" moment throughout the night, and then gives you an average of the time between these moments. It allows you eight minutes between recording in case you have to get up for the rest room or something, it just records that as one arousal. After tracking these, I can see some definite patterns in my sleep (I don't have a data card reader or software, so those who do might not find this as interesting). I have sleep cycles which (on nights when I have mask troubles) I am near-awake with startling accuracy every 12 minutes for hours on end, for example. On bad nights my average between arousals has been as low as 24 minutes. On good nights, however, I can see my sleep cycles lengthen and my average goes to about 48 minutes. I can see a correlation between high leak rates and high events with low average sleep cycle times, and vice versa. I have found it very interesting and helpful to be able to track this information, look at one night compared to another, and look at averages on one mask or another. I am a bit of a data junkie, but I found this information to be well worth the $50 to me.

Summary
This watch was worth the $50 to me, as I am sleep obsessed and searching for knowledge about my own sleep and how to make it better. It is a tool for me that I found very useful. Would I have paid $150 for this... probably not, because it did NOT do what it was supposed to do, i.e. wake me up at a good time, or at all. If some improvements were made and it DID work as intended... well, it might be worth it. I would have to retest it. If you can get one cheaper and you are interested in the data, I would recommend it.

Some recommendations to the SleepTracker People if you are out there :
1. Change the "To Bed" time to be set to when you think you will go to sleep, rather than 30 minutes later, and have the watch do the math. This would be less complicated for those of us sleep deprived.
2. Turn up the alarm! At least make it as loud as normal alarm watches.
3. If the metal plate is in fact nickel free, advertise it as such. If it is not, make it so. At the absolute least, put on the website that you can wear something under it if the metal irritates your skin.
4. If you make any improvements and need some testers I am sure you can find some on this website!

Hope that helps you guys! I think that was an excessively long review, but if there is anything else you want to know, please ask.

Dawn

Wow, Dawn, that was a great review! I was curious about this watch because during my titration study I still had plenty of arousals. I'd like to find out if I still have them in my "normal" sleep environment. That is, if you can call cpap "normal." I'd like to be able to see if any given mask causes fewer arousals.

My theory is this: if the mask is too noisy, leaks too easily, is uncomfortable, it may cause arousals for "light sleepers" like me. For instance, in trying to hang my mask over the edge of the pillow, am I causeing arousals.

One question: If you have arousals more frequently than every 8 minutes (as I did during my study), it doesn't show them, right? It just lumps them together, IOW.

Sorry to hear about the alarm. I've bought several alarm watches to remind me to take medications. However, I can't hear them even when awake, so returned them and kind of gave up on the idea. I have an old Timex DataLink watch that had a decent alarm, but it won't work anymore because you have to have a CRT computer screen to program it. No one has those anymore that I know of so the watch is obsolete and Timex doesn't sell the laptop hookup anymore. Too bad, since this was a decent watch and the new ones aren't as good and are too big for my wrist.

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CPAPopedia Keywords Contained In This Post (Click For Definition): Titration, CPAP

Thanks for the review. I've been thinking about the watch for quite a while now, but hadn't seen anything about it in forever!

Kajun

RosemaryB wrote:If you have arousals more frequently than every 8 minutes (as I did during my study), it doesn't show them, right? It just lumps them together, IOW.

That's right. I had more frequent arousals in my study too, but apparently not now on CPAP. I have had very few that were 8 minutes apart, and all of those I can attribute to being wide awake and trying to fix something on my mask for more than 8 minutes.

Hope that helps!

Dawn

Just wanted to say that since I wrote this review Friday I woke up both yesterday and today by the watch alarm. Maybe it will get easier to hear over time?

Dawn

I use a SunRizer Alarm clock. It's a clock that simulates dawn, with the light turning on gradually. I suspect it allows me to wake up when I'm closer to wakefulness and I sure liked it better than a jarring alarm suddenly waking me. The sunrizer does have an auditory alarm function, too, just in case.

If I didn't have undiagnosed sleep apnea, I probably wouldn't have tried it. I was always trying to find things to make my sleep better back then. I still am (different masks, different cpap settings, etc) but it sure is great to find the real problem for my former tiredness.

I still like the clock, though. I may decide to get one of these watches once I get all the cpap stuff in line and recover from those costs.

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CPAPopedia Keywords Contained In This Post (Click For Definition): CPAP

I just wanted to chime in on this (not sure whether that is a pun or not)..

I too bought the Sleeptracker and have used it for a few weeks now. I seem to do better with it. The alarm is plenty loud for me to wake up since it is when I am moving around from being at the lowest level of sleep. Even when I hit the "snooze" function and it then sounds at the regular alarm time it is enough to wake me up.

I noticed that it does seem to be easier to get up when using the watch. It is comfortable and the band is big enough for husky gentlemen.

The data information is also helpful showing arousals throughout the night. I have been too lazy to chart these in Excel but I think doing that and mapping it against the data from my machine will help me gain insight into my sleep cycles.

I recommend this watch to anyone who has trouble getting up in the morning.

RH

DawnTCB,

Most excellent review. I went to order it a couple weeks ago and noticed they have a new model, SleepTracker Pro. Same price as old model.



Besides a new "sleek metallic design", it now supports three alarm options (audible, vibrate, or both). It also has a USB port and a companion software program. I don't know what kind of reports or graphs you get from the software. But it will be interesting to correlate the data with Encore Pro hash marks.

Anybody can download users manual and software from http://www.sleeptracker.com/support/.

They also seem to have addressed your complaint of setting the TO BED time:

You can also set the TO BED time using the “one touch” feature. While in TO BED screen, press and hold DOWN for 3 seconds. SLEEPTRACKER® will automatically assign the TO BED time at 30 minutes from the current time. If you decide to go to bed later, go to the TO BED screen, and press and hold down for another 3 seconds to automatically advance another 30 minutes.

Alas, the new model is backordered until Aug 20. So the above is based on just their website and manuals.

If you have a chance to review the new users manual, I'd be interested to know if they cleaned up any other issues you had.

That is excellent news! I so happy to learn that they have improved some of the things I thought were problems with the first model. I will look at the user's manual soon and see if I can see if they have fixed the other things.

Meanwhile, I am hoping they have a trade-in program so I can get a new model when it is available - I sure would like to try it!

Dawn

Thanks very much Dawn and SithLord - I may put this watch on my "want" list. It should help me step up my obsessing to an even higher level.

But seriously, it sounds like I could learn some things from the watch about my sleep habits which would suggest some changes for improvement.

Thanks also Rosemary. That SunRiser clock sounds like a pleasant way to awaken. I will have to think about getting one of those too.

I'll post a review after I road test some. Hopefully will receive watch by Aug 20 as scheduled.

For the next generation of watch and CPAP machine ... the watch could send data via Bluetooth and the "AAA-Flex" would dynamically alter it's auto algorithms based on sleep level. And auto ramp up after you fall asleep .

rooster wrote:It should help me step up my obsessing to an even higher level.

Nce one. But I have no idea what you are talking about. lol. Between Encore Pro, Pur-Sleep oil du Jour, and the watch software … I seem to spend a lot of mental energy trying to replenish my physical energy .

Any updates on your experiences?

Here is a hint to save a little bit of money on the purchase of a Sleeptracker watch. If you register for the newsletter on their website http://www.sleeptracker.com/, they immediately send you an email with "7 day offer for you for $5 off and FREE shipping". Since it expires in 7 days, you might want to wait to register when you are actually ready to purchase a watch.

There is nothing surprising in their newsletter, at least to people on this forum - just basic tips on sleep hygiene.

Thanks also Rosemary. That SunRiser clock sounds like a pleasant way to awaken. I will have to think about getting one of those too.

rooster
in the interest of finding a more pleasant way to wake up, i wanted to tell you about the alarm clock my hubby bought me for christmas last year:

the brand name is HoMedics (though i know i've seen other brands in catalogues and magazines) and it has a port for an ipod, plus different modes for the alarm: you can use the traditional beep, your ipod, the radio or one of these sounds: night (crickets), brook (as in babbling) rain (this one would actually make me go to sleep, as rain seems to have that effect on me), waterfall and sunrise (birds chirping)...each sound starts out fairly quiet and gets louder over a few minutes, so you tend to wake up kind of gradually...i use the sunrise one, and though i will sometimes sleep through it for a couple of minutes, it still beats an alarm that buzzes or beeps any day...i still wake up feeling like hell , but it's definitely a more pleasant alarm for me

Thanks Sharon,

Maybe you are talking about this one: http://www.homedics.com/prod/detail.aspx?ID=361. That looks like a nice machine and the price is reasonable.

I've heard people here complaining about the blue lights on the M Series xpap machines and from the web site it looks like HoMedics uses blue lights.