Refine Your Rest With the Best Sleep Trackers

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As more and more people are prioritizing their health and wellness, sleep is finally receiving the recognition it deserves and taking center stage. While many of us are now monitoring our activity and making conscious choices to eat healthier, there’s one variable that takes precedence over all others: Sleep quality. When it comes down to sleep, a lack thereof can impact a lot more than how alert you’re feeling. A sleep tracker can help you discover what it is that’s keeping those ever-elusive ZZZs from you and give you more insight into how to improve the quality of your rest.

According to the National Institute of Health, poor sleep quality and insufficient hours of rest can lead to a host of issues, including excess weight and obesity, irritability, poor motor skills and mood disorders including depression and anxiety, to name a few. Getting more sleep can improve more than just your restfulness, and investing in a sleep tracker is an easy way to do just that. Check out this list below of the best sleep trackers.

• Best Overall – Whoop Band 4.0
• Best Non-Wearable – Withings Sleep
• Best Value – SleepOn Go2Sleep
• Most In-Depth – Muse S
• Best Integrative – BeautyRest Sleep Tracker
• Best Oxygen Monitor – Wellue O2Ring
• Most Lightweight – EMAY SleepO2
• Best for Better Sleep Routine – Hatch Restore

What it Tracks:

• Duration
• Performance
• Efficiency
• Consistency
• Latency
• Sleep debt
• Sleep stages
• Disturbances

If you’re looking for a device to improve your training through recovery, the Whoop 4.0 is your best bet. Worn on the wrist, the Whoop 4.0 focuses on metrics such as performance and efficiency to give users a Recovery Score that indicates how rested their body is. This score helps users determine how ready they are to train again, with the intent of ensuring they aren’t overtraining and their body is rested enough. Not quite a fitness tracker, the Whoop band is a new revolution of personal health monitoring. Whoop determines users’ readiness by tracking their sleep metrics, including their sleep latency, sleep stages and consistency. Whoop then analyzes this data to give users insight into their sleep patterns, providing them with useful knowledge regarding different factors that might impact the quality of their rest. The Whoop band itself has no screen (though it does come in a variety of colors and patterns!), so users need to use the app to check all of their data. While the up-front cost is low, it requires a $30 monthly subscription fee to use.

What it Tracks:

• Heart rate
• Sleep depth
• Sleep duration
• Snoring
• Best & rise time regularity
• Interruptions

If a wearable device doesn’t appeal to you, the Withings Sleep Tracker is a set-it-and-forget-it sleep tracking solution that offers just as many insights into your sleep as the best wearables. The Withings Sleep is a narrow mat that you place under your mattress at night near where your chest lies. It’s best if you have a solid bed frame, though if you have a slatted frame you can get around this by placing something solid underneath the sleep tracker to keep it in place. It requires an electrical outlet for power which can pose an issue if you don’t have one near your bed. From its position underneath the mattress, the Withings mat measures your heart rate, sleep depth, snoring, interruptions and other metrics to give you an in-depth look at your sleep. You can access your sleep data via the Withings Health Mate app, to which the mat sends all the information collected through the night via Bluetooth. This information is presented as a sleep score, which is further broken down into categories such as depth, duration, time to sleep and wake, interruptions and regularity. These scores all have graphs to accompany them for an even more detailed view.

What it Tracks:

• Resting heart rate
• Heart rate variability
• Sleep stage
• Sleep time
• Blood oxygen saturation
• Apnea Hypopnea Index (AHI)

Sleep tracking doesn’t need to be expensive to be effective, as proven by the SleepOn Go2Sleep wearable ring. Similar to the Oura Ring, this small-but-mighty device tracks your sleep from your finger, and needs only to be worn during the nighttime hours to glean all the information it needs. The primary focus of the Go2Sleep ring is on sleep apnea, which it monitors by tracking your heart rate and blood oxygen saturation plus the number of times your breathing changes. The ring has a stretchy silicone band available in three sizes, users report it’s quite comfortable to wear and not very noticeable while you’re sleeping. Despite being nearly half the cost of many other popular sleep trackers, the Go2Sleep band tracks tons of information and provides users with their metrics and analyses in the app, which the ring connects to via Bluetooth.

What it Tracks:

• Movement
• Brain activity
• Heart rate
• Blood oxygen saturation

Relaxing and falling asleep can be incredibly difficult, especially when so many of us have a lot going on in our lives (and in our brains). Finding a bit of zen before bed can work wonders for improving your sleep quality, and that’s exactly what the Muse S is helping customers do. This two-part device is half sleep tracker, half meditation guide, providing users with guided meditations and soothing background noise to help them fall asleep, then using its technology to track the quality of sleep. Worn as a headband, the tracking part of the design rests on your forehead and monitors brain activity and correspondingly alters the volume of the program you’re listening to in an effort to keep users focused on their meditations. The device itself doesn’t have speakers, so users are encouraged to use a pair of wireless headphones to listen to the meditations and sleep soundscapes for the best experience. Users report that it helped tremendously with pre-bed relaxation and was incredibly useful for winding down before going to sleep.

What it Tracks:

• Heart rate
• Body movement
• Sleep cycles
• Breathing

If you want the analysis of how your activity and sleep correlate but dislike the idea of wearing a fitness tracker, the BeautyRest Sleep Tracker is the best of both worlds. This under-mattress tracker monitors your sleep and integrates with Apple Health to provide analysis on how your activity levels and sleep quality are related. The option to track two sleepers simultaneously makes this an appealing option for couples who are looking for better rest at night. Measuring metrics such as sleep cycles, movement and breathing, BeautyRest assigns users a sleep score (viewed in the companion app) as well as insights and recommendations for improved sleep quality. This handy device also comes with the bio-alarm capability, helping you to rise when it’s easiest on your body.

What it Tracks:

• Blood oxygen levels
• Heart rate
• Body movements

Some sleep trackers can do more than simply track the hours of rest you got the night before. The Wellue O2Ring is a ring-like device worn on users’ thumbs that tracks blood oxygen levels, heart rate and movement that provides useful information about blood oxygen saturation and heart rates. Those with medical conditions that can affect blood oxygen level will find this device helpful at recording their data and alerting them to any abnormalities. Not only can users download the data and trends to their computers and phones, but they can also print out the information to give to medical professionals, helping identify any issues before they worsen. While the Wellue O2Ring doesn’t have any alarm features for waking users in the morning, it will vibrate if it detects abnormalities in heart rate or oxygen levels, alerting the user to any potential problems. If you need to monitor your blood oxygen levels for health purposes, this device offers an easy and comprehensive way to do so.

What it Tracks:

• Blood oxygen levels
• Heart rate

Dealing with sleep apnea can cause the loss of sleep night after night, resulting in poor health and regular exhaustion. The EMAY SleepO2 is a combination of a wrist wearable and finger clamp designed to be worn while you sleep. While it might seem like a lot to wear, the whole thing only weighs 20 grams, which is about the same as four grapes or five packets of sugar. The lightweight design makes it easy to sleep with. The device measures blood oxygen saturation levels and heart rate to record trends and make note of irregularities and areas that might be of concern. Users can view their data on the device’s app and even export it into a CSV file to share with a medical professional. Those with medical conditions and using a CPAP machine can use the EMAY SleepO2 to measure the effectiveness of the CPAP machine and monitor their progress from their home. The EMAY SleepO2 only needs to be worn during sleep hours and charged during the day, it doesn’t have a display but will automatically sync your data with the app so you can view your blood oxygen information.

What it Tracks: N/A

If you want to improve your sleep starting with your routine, the Hatch Restore is an easy way to help your body fall asleep faster and rise more easily. This smart alarm clock uses natural light hues and soothing soundscapes (as well as guided meditations and other sleep noises) to help users gently drift off to sleep rather than lie awake for hours on end. In the mornings, users set the time they’d like to rise and the Hatch Restore gently lightens over time to imitate a sunrise effect and plays a relaxing tone to help users wake up naturally. Gone are the days of stressful phone alarms and abrupt wake-up calls, the Hatch Restore is intended to allow users to rise more gradually, making for easier, less hectic wake-ups. The Hatch app is free for users, but does have a premium subscription option that gives users access to more guided meditations and other soundscape options. Users can operate the Hatch through the app, selecting their sleep and rise times to work towards a more consistent sleep schedule and using the Hatch as a noise machine and reading light, too.

How to Find the Best Sleep Tracker

Deciding between sleep trackers might be difficult, but you’re on the path to improving your sleep and feeling more rested in the mornings. We’ve outlined some of the important factors to consider when figuring out which sleep tracker to add to your nightly routine.

Which Is the Best Sleep Tracker for You?

Choosing the right sleep tracker for your needs depends on what you’re looking to track (and fix) about your sleeping and how you want the tracker to monitor these factors. If you think your sleep environment is causing issues with your sleep quality, we recommend a bedside or under-mattress tracker that checks for things like humidity and temperature and provides suggestions on how to alter your environment. If you want to analyze the relationship between activity and sleep, a tracker that tracks both is the best fit.

Wearable vs Non-Wearable

If the thought of wearing something throughout the night (and potentially the day) isn’t appealing to you, then choosing a sleep tracker that sits under your mattress or next to your bed is the best option for you. Some may find the wearable devices to hinder their sleep and be too distracting. Others may enjoy the various insights that wearable trackers can provide. Wearable devices are especially useful for those who travel often or want to monitor their activity, too.

What You Want To Track

Different sleep trackers monitor different things: Some measure heart rate and breathing while others monitor the environment you’re sleeping in or recovery. Identifying what it is you think is most useful to track (and what makes the most sense considering your lifestyle) can help you narrow down the selection to pick a sleep tracker that monitors things that are important to you.

What Aspects of Your Sleep You’re Looking to Improve

Do you have a hard time waking up in the mornings, or is falling asleep the more difficult part of sleeping? Do you have sleep apnea? Before choosing a sleep tracker, think about what you’re looking to improve in your sleep. Those who have a hard time relaxing might benefit from the Muse S, while those who want to examine how their activity is related to their sleep may opt for the Whoop or BeautyRest.

Other Sleep Tracker Factors to Consider

Battery Life

If you don’t want to deal with charging yet another device regularly, pay attention to the battery life of these devices. Some have the option to plug into an outlet and thus require no charging, while others need to be charged weekly or daily to operate.

Cost

While many of these trackers may seem pricey, there are a few budget-friendly options in the list. And remember, there really isn’t a price on a good night’s sleep, especially when it could mean improved sleep for many nights to come.

Recommendations

Some of these sleep trackers offer the ability to deliver insights and recommendations to improve your sleep, such as recommended bedtimes or altering your room temperature. If you want more actionable ways to get some more ZZZs, try one of the devices that’s capable of giving suggestions.