Best Sleep Trackers and Monitors
The advancements in technology over the last decade have made it easier than ever to monitor your sleep for inconsistencies that may create disruptions to your rest. Sleep is an important part of your mental and physical healing and growth, and if you struggle with getting a good night’s sleep, you might want to consider the use of some sort of device that can help you discover the root of your problem.
| Rank | Product | Highlights |
| #1 | 
Fitbit Versa 2 |
|
| #2 |
 Garmin Vívosmart 4 |
|
| #3 | 
Viatom Health Ring Tracker |
|
| #4 | 
Withings Sleep – Sleep Tracking Pad |
|
| #5 | 
Beautyrest Sleeptracker Monitor |
|
Sleep trackers and monitors are excellent for just about anyone to help map your sleep health, but if you suffer from:
- Insomnia
- Sleep apnea
- Anxiety
- Or a general lack of sleep or wakefulness
Then you may want to consider keeping track of your sleep habits to help make sense of why you are struggling. Once you have a good idea of when and why you wake, you can better address your problem with a doctor or even change your own habits to influence a deeper rest.
Table Of Contents
- What is a Sleep Tracker?
- Why Would You Want a Sleep Tracker or Monitor?
- Types of Sleep Trackers and Monitors
- — Wearables
- — Apps
- — Pillows, Mattresses, or Mattress Pads
- What to Consider for Your Needs
- — Sleep Stage Feedback
- — Movement verse Heart Rate Sensors
- — Blood Oxygen Monitors
- — Sleep Score Data
- Best Sleep Trackers and Monitors
- 1. Fitbit Versa 2
- 2. Garmin Vívosmart 4
- 3. Viatom Health Ring Tracker
- 4. Withings Sleep – Sleep Tracking Pad
- 5. Beautyrest Sleeptracker Monitor
- Conclusion
What is a Sleep Tracker?
Sleep trackers come in a variety of styles and can either be worn or placed near or on your bed to help monitor things such as movement, respirations, and heart rate. The data it collects determines your sleep health via the information provided by these various options.
Why Would You Want a Sleep Tracker or Monitor?
Having a snapshot of your sleep health at your fingertips is helpful information for anyone. However, if you are struggling with sleep, it can be incredibly important to help find underlying issues. A lack of sleep doesn’t just make you feel physically slow and mentally incapable, over time it can create some serious issues and exasperate, or increase your risk of, things like diabetes, heart disease, hormone imbalances, cancer, and even mental struggles and depression.
Even though you need a doctor to determine serious sleep issues, a tracker can help pinpoint and define how and why they might be occurring. Often, sleep trackers are used to make note of a recurring problem when patterns are seen in an individual’s sleep. This is information that can prompt you to seek further help.
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Types of Sleep Trackers and Monitors
There are many different types of trackers and monitors. As mentioned, they can be worn, or placed on your bed. They also can be an app that works with your cell phone. This article will cover some of the most popular types based on their usefulness and ease of use.
— Wearables
Wearable trackers fit on your wrist as a watch, ring, or even as a pin-like clip that you put on a necklace or clip to your clothing. Data is generally collected via bluetooth and sent to a phone or computer app. These have a tendency to be the most accurate, and are very useful for other means as well, such as for tracking exercise, or even hold remote pay access.
— Apps
Phone apps that work as a stand alone are sensitive to sound and/or movement and work to track your nocturnal distractions. They can pick up snoring, heavy breathing, and how often you turn. These are the simplest of options and provide a fairly shallow insight to your sleep habits, but can be helpful in discovering patterns.
— Pillows, Mattresses, or Mattress Pads
There are sleep products, such as pillows, mattresses, and mattress pads that are equipped to monitor your movements, heart rates, and even respirations. They download to phones via wireless apps to help gather data. These are a fairly accurate option, but may not be as good as a wearable device. They do provide a good enough view of your sleep to determine overall health, and are a budget friendly option that still provides plenty of accurate data.
What to Consider for Your Needs
There are so many things to consider in reference to the use of sleep trackers. Depending on what uses you have for tracking your sleep and the goals you have, you may want to take into account the various features of the products you may want to purchase.
— Sleep Stage Feedback
When you sleep you cycle through various sleep stages. You do this multiple times a night and it is important you are not interrupted during the deeper stages of sleep. Look for heart rate features that more accurately track these stages.
— Movement verse Heart Rate Sensors
Different monitors use movement to help track the quality of sleep you are getting. This is useful to determine how often you are disrupted. However, heart rate is more accurate to determine how well you are sleeping.
— Blood Oxygen Monitors
More advanced wearable monitors can read your blood oxygen levels. Dips in this may indicate possible sleep apnea problems.
— Sleep Score Data
Many apps now provide a sleep score number rather than make you look through movements, respirations, and heat rates to make sense of the data. A sleep score compiles all this together for you to consider.
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Best Sleep Trackers and Monitors
The following sleep trackers are some of the most popular with consumers. You don’t have to spend a small fortune to have a brand name tracker either, and these options showcase a good range of choices you can pick from.
1. Fitbit Versa 2
OVERVIEW:
- Type: Wearable
- Data transfer type: Bluetooth
- Includes: sleep, music, fitness, smart home controls, and more
Best Fitness and Sleep Tracker Combo
Fitbit holds a strong brand presence in the sleep tracking market. This wearable stays on your wrist and works as a watch, music player, fitness and sleep tracker. It is incredibly versatile and even works with Amazon Alexa to control a smart home system. It tracks your heart rate, time spent sleeping, and movements to provide a sleep score for east data discovery. It even applies estimated oxygen variation and applies to an app on your phone via bluetooth that reflects on the Fitbit website as well.
| Pros | Cons |
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Who This Is For
If you are interested in not only your sleep health, but also your fitness health, then this is an excellent option.
2. Garmin Vívosmart 4
OVERVIEW:
- Type: Wearable
- Data transfer type: Bluetooth
- Includes: Fitness, heart rate, oxygen levels, REM sleep
Best Detailed Wearable Sleep Tracker
This slim Garmin is a great way to track both your fitness and sleep health. It provides vibration alerts for texts, calls, and messages, tracks your movement and exercise, but more importantly, allows for detailed sleep data. It provides REM sleep tracking, gauges blood oxygen levels, movements, and your heart rate for you to better understand your nocturnal habits.
| Pros | Cons |
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Who This Is For
This is a great product to help not only track your fitness health, but also provides detailed sleep data.
3. Viatom Health Ring Tracker
OVERVIEW:
- Type: Wearable
- Data transfer type: Phone app or Pc
- Includes: Heart rate, oxygen level, sleep tracking with PDF or CSV files
Best Heart Rate and Oxygen Level Wearable Tracker
If you are looking for a wearable that is specific to sleep and provides excellent heart rate and oxygen levels, this rung style design is a great option. It fits over your thumb and runs continuously to provide any inaccuracies in your data. You can pre-set blood oxygen levels and heart rates to vibrate whenever they drop into concerning levels. You can download reports both to your phone and PC using free software.
| Pros | Cons |
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Who This Is For
This is specific for sleep tracking, and if you need warning of dangerous oxygen and heart rate drops this is a great option.
4. Withings Sleep – Sleep Tracking Pad
OVERVIEW:
- Type: Mattress Pad
- Data transfer type: Via WiFi
- Includes: Sleep cycle, heart rate, breathing anomalies, smart home control
Best Sleep Tracking Pad
This sleep tracking pad fits directly under your sheets to provide personalized feedback pertaining to your own sleep habits. It offers advanced sleep cycle analysis, heart rate feedback, and can detect both snoring and breathing anomalies. It downloads to an app and provides a sleep score for your own use. It also works with Amazon Alexia to help control certain home automation scenarios.
| Pros | Cons |
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Who This Is For
If you do not like the idea of a wearable, or simply need a dependable sleep monitor , this is a simple, useful product that is surprisingly useful for home monitoring.
5. Beautyrest Sleeptracker Monitor
OVERVIEW:
- Type: Mattress Pad Monitor
- Data transfer type: WiFi
- Includes: 2 monitors for 2 people, heart rate, respiration, and REM cycle information
Best Sleep Tracker Pad for Two People
The Beautyrest sleep tracker is a great way to avoid having to wear your tracking device, and can work for two people and provide personalized data for each. These actually fit beneath your mattress and provide precise movement, respirations, heart rate, and REM cycle information. It syncs easily via WiFi and can integrate into your Smart Home system via Amazon Alexa. The trend reports are easy to read and provide you the information you need to help you get a better sleep.
| Pros | Cons |
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Who This Is For
If you need accurate data, and also have a sleep partner, this is a great 2 in 1 option for both of you to get the information you need.
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Conclusion
Since many sleep trackers have multiple uses, they are popular products that can be useful for your overall health. The sleep data in particular is a great way to detail sleep patterns in order to see if you have any anomalies. These can be very helpful and can inspire further studies with a sleep specialist to determine when they need a physician’s attention.
The type you use, either wearable or part of your sleep surface is entirely up to your personal preferences. However, they have the capabilities of providing the information and data you need to keep track of you sleep health.