SleepTracker Pro Elite Sleep Monitor

I started out with a ZEO which I highly recommend so maybe I was expecting more. But at $175+ this thing doesn't tell you much. I thought it gave some output as to the duration of sleep levels kind of implied by the graphic on their website, instead it gives a single value called Data A, which means the average time between 'awakenings'. It does tell you when the awakenings occurred in a table format. btw, the first night it gave me a 20, then after ~ 40, which their literature says is all in the normal range ~20-40. Well, I don't sleep that well and to see numbers like that assured me this device was not going to give me any useful information. Could be I awaken but am still enough so as not to trigger the accelerometer algorithms. The software is crude at best and lost some of my data. If you change any setting on the watch it erases the data. It only holds one night's data, so you have to download it every day. The usb connection to the watch is a large 3 pronged clamp that covers the mode button! which you have to use to put it in data mode so you have to remember to do that before clipping the connector on.

I'm sure they did the connections this way to make the watch water resistant, but I wouldn't wear it as a day watch, and I sleep very little underwater. Upshot, if you want a more real look at the time you spend in different sleep state, time awake, times awakened, etc. I suggest you check out the Zeo. I'm not affiliated with them in any way. I sent my Zeo back because of the $400 price tag. Now I'm rethinking that. But like any of these things they can't make you sleep better, they can only tell you something about the structure of your sleep which may help you identify problems and fix 'em. It's up to you. Also customer service took 2+ days to call back to answer a question.

Bottom line: When I let the watch figure out when to wake me up I waking up a lot easier, more quickly, and feel more rested.

Background: As you sleep you constantly go back and forth from being "almost awake" to being "deeply asleep". If your awakened when you're deeply asleep you wake up groggy and if you're awakened when you're already almost awake then you wind up feeling much more refreshed.

Details:

With this watch you set the time you want to get up and a time window before then during which it should look for an "almost awake" point when it sounds the alarm. (Actually, you get a choice of an audible alarm, a vibrating alarm, or both). Also important is the watch is light and comfortable. I don't feel it on my wrist and it doesn't bother me while I'm sleeping.

With just that, the Sleeptracker is a great step forward in alarm clock technology but it doesn't address the "tracker" part. In addition to providing an effective way to wake up it also measures how well you've slept. That's done by recording the time between each "almost awake" point and also averaging them for the entire night. More time spent in "deeper sleep" usually means better sleep. You can review this information in the morning using the watch display.

But, it doesn't stop there. There's also a program you can load on your PC and a cable for transferring the daily sleep data into a database. (The software installs and runs without any problems on my 64-bit Win 7 system.) With the program you can review sleep data over time and even attach notes to each night's sleep regarding your pre-sleep activities to investigate correlations between them and sleep quality. For example, you can see if having those three drinks and/or the Monte Cristo sandwich right before bed in any way affected your sleeping patterns. It's kind of like getting one of those expensive sleep studies without the inconvenience or expense. If you like, you can even export the data to Excel for additional analysis.

Or, you can leave that technical stuff to the rocket surgeons and just let the watch wake you up.

BTW, I feel that honest, effective reviews, accompanied by detailed videos, can take the place of first-hand experiences that are often lacking in online shopping. I've always appreciated the help I've received from other reviewers and try to return the favor as best as I can. I hope you found this review helpful and the video at least entertaining. If there was anything you thought was lacking or unclear leave a comment and I'll do what I can to fix it.

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I bought this watch so that I could sleep within my sleep cycles, which on average is 90 minutes. 90 minutes contains all of the stages of sleep and at the end of a cycle you are sleeping at your lightest. If you can wake up at that time you will feel more rested. If you wake up at other points of the sleep cycle you will feel tired and sleepy all day long, even if you sleep for an extended period. What this means is that it is best to sleep in cycles that are multiples of 90 minutes 1 1/2, 3, 4 1/2, 6, 7 1/2 hours. Using this watch I have been able to successfully sleep for less time and still feel rested. I always thought I needed 7 8 hours of sleep. Now I am rested with 6 hours nightly. I have even tried to sleep 4 1/2 hours with a power nap in the afternoon. That seems to work, but it is difficult to do.

Setting the watch is easy. You set the alarm and the time when you are going to bed. A window of time can be set in which the watch will wake you if it detects movement before the alarm goes off. The default is 20 minutes. It keeps track of movement throughout the night to monitor the sleep cycle. The alarm can be set to vibrate, buzz or both. To keep track of your sleep you can download software from the manufacturer's website. The watch comes with a USB connector through which data is downloaded to your PC. The software allows you to input the quality of sleep and has a place for notes so that you can keep track of details.

On a customer service note The watch I bought through Amazon seemed to be defective. The alarm did not always sound. At first I thought I was just sleeping through the alarm, but several times I woke up just before the alarm. I deliberately did not move, and the alarm did not sound. I contacted Sleeptracker. They told me to send back the watch (just the watch) and they would ship out a new one, usually within 48 hours. They did just that and the replacement works perfectly. The manufacturer will only make such an exchange if the watch was purchased from an approved vendor, like Amazon.com. I highly recommend this product.

Added December 17th 2010:

About a month ago the Sleeptracker stopped working. The I assumed it was the battery and contacted the manufacturer because I thought I had read somewhere that the battery should last about a year. I sent an email asking about this and received a reply from the CEO and inventor himself, Lee Loree. He asked how I used the watch and to told him that I use the alarm and vibrator to wake up. He explained that because I use the vibrator mode the battery is used up more quickly. He offered to send me some new batteries, for free, which he did. I have to say, I really like the product and I really like the customer service.

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This product is more like a novelty item than anything else. Set the timer, go to sleep, wake up, and check out your results on the computer in the morning. Sure, all the graphs and data look impressive at first, but once you really start to analyze the information presented to you, you'll soon see that it's all just a bunch of random nonsense.

The first morning (Saturday) after I tried the SleepTracker, I felt that I had a pretty good night's sleep with no real problems. However, once I uploaded the data from the watch to my computer, it had a very different opinion on my quality of sleep. It claimed that I had 16 interrupted moments over the course of the night (one lasting almost a full hour), and gave me a sleep score of 62 (which is considered quite poor by their "standards"). I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure that if I was interrupted and awake for a full hour I would remember it...but hey, the SleepTracker said it happened, so I guess it happened, eh?...I doubt it. Since it was only my first time trying it though, I thought I would give it another chance before jumping to conclusions.

On Sunday morning, after using the SleepTracker for the second time, I again woke up feeling pretty good about my sleep. However, once again, the SleepTracker did not agree with my feelings in the slightest. Allegedly, I had 15 interrupted moments (again, one of which lasted close to a full hour), and was given a sleep score of only 64. At this point I'm pretty fed up with the results of this over-glorified watch; but alas, I felt that I must at least give it the good ol' 3-strikes before dismissing it entirely.

On Monday morning, after my 3rd attempt with the SleepTracker, I woke up feeling very groggy, knowing that my sleep last night was not very good at all. At this point I was rather excited to see what results the watch would feed to me this time. Sure enough, the watch was completely wrong. The SleepTracker claimed that I had only 3 interrupted moments, had 89% deep sleep, and got a sleep score of 67. Farewell SleepTracker!

So of the 3 nights using the SleepTracker, all 3 were completely off the mark. I am completely convinced that all of the "data" this watch provides is simply made-up. If you, like me, are trying to find an accurate means of tracking your sleep patterns, then you need to look elsewhere. I had high hopes for this watch, especially after reading all the positive feedback. I suppose it's possible that I received a bad watch...but I put more faith into the placebo effect on this matter.

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For far too long, I've had poor sleep hygiene. I used to be able to (somewhat) get away with this in my 20's. Now that I'm 31, it's a different story. I purchased the Sleeptracker Elite from their website as part of an all out assault on poor sleep habits. (Also purchased a sleep mask, 5mg melatonin pills, a buckwheat hull pillow, breathe right advanced nasal strips, and a neti pot to use right before bed. As you can see, I'm very serious about improving the duration and quality of my sleep!)

I have now used the Sleeptracker for just shy of 1 week. Here is my verdict:

First I find that it really does do a great job of waking me up more easily and more pleasantly. I set the alarm "window" to 20 minutes, and each day the vibrating and audible alarms have gone off before my scheduled alarm. Instead of waking up to a loud, obnoxious alarm, I now wake up to a mild beeping and some noticeable vibration on my wrist. This, of course, is more pleasant to wake to than your typical obnoxious alarm. What makes this watch FANTASTIC, however, is the intelligence it has to wake me at JUST the right time.

Using the alarm on my phone was sort of like waking up to a sledgehammer in the face, in the midst of a deep sleep. You know the feeling---groggy, grumpy, wanting to smash the snooze button repeatedly. In contrast, waking up with the Sleeptracker is more like waking from a small power nap. I don't feel groggy, sluggish, grumpy, etc.; I feel like I'm ready to get up and go. It's an almost seamless transition from sleep to wake. Given that I'm notoriously difficult to get out of bed, I have been extremely impressed with the watch in this regard. I really thought I wouldn't like getting up earlier than necessary (due to the "alarm window"), but I was misguided. For this reason alone, the watch was worth the money, and I would recommend it to anyone looking for some help in the morning.

Second Sleeptracker has recently updated the included software package (which automatically uploads/stores your data on the Sleeptracker website). In my opinion, it's great. It records and stores data which allows you to get a more complete understanding of your sleep habits. You can also tag each day with "notes" relevant to that night. For example, it will ask you if you had caffeine or alcohol near bed time, if your day was stressful, etc. Over time, you can see how these things impact your sleep; this may inspire you to take action to improve it. This data can be presented in numerical form, graphical form, or report form. There is also a visual, minute-by-minute, color-coded bar graph which represents each night's sleep. This graph shows you how often (and when) your sleep was interrupted, as well as your periods of "deep" and "light" sleep. I found this data extremely interesting to observe from day-to-day.

Overall, I give this watch 4 of 5 stars. Why not 5? Well, first offit's kind of an antiquated interface you use when setting the watch. I would relate it to a basic digital watch. You press a few buttons, you get some 80's sounding beeps, press a few more buttons, and the watch is set. It's not bad, it's just not slick, and doesn't do the watch justice. My next concern lies with importing the data to the sleeptracker website; this is done through a USB cord instead of bluetooth. This is a minor hassle, but it would be a nice touch. My final gripe lies with the vibrating/audible alarm. In my opinion, it would be wise to allow the user to adjust the volume/intensity of each. Again, a minor gripe, but something I would have liked. I'm also pretty sure these last two features were left out due to their impact on battery life, and form factor. At any rate, I have found the vibration and alarm to be sufficient to wake me (I am a deep sleeper), and using the USB interface to upload data isn't all that bad.

At the end of the day, this watch wakes me peacefully and makes my mornings much less stressful. I do feel more rested and ready to go when I wake up. Further, it inspires me to get more sleep and provides me with relevant useful data; data which I can use to tweak my habits even further. Highly recommended.

P.S.This watch can't work miracles. It won't wake you into a rested state after 4 hours of sleep. If you can get a fairly decent/halfway reasonable amount of sleep, you'll wake nicely. Keep your expectations reasonable and you will be pleased!

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