If you often find yourself waking up feeling tired and unrested, investing in a sleep tracker or monitor can provide valuable insight into your nighttime habits, with the goal of ultimately getting you better rest. Many fitness trackers and smartwatches have sleep tracking capabilities, making them a versatile option for most; however, they aren't your only option. From basic sleep analysis to advanced, here are the best sleep trackers and monitors money can buy.
Best smartwatch with sleep tracking
Our review of the Apple Watch Series 7 noted that this is the best Apple Watch to date. It features the largest most advanced display ever, an optimized UI with a new keyboard and watch faces, the best durability, fast charging, new colors, and all the great features of Watch OS 7 including sleep monitoring. You can track your sleep every night, set multiple sleep schedules, and even get ready for bed with Wind Down.
Smart sleep
We've reviewed Fitbit Sense and found that its sleep tracking monitors and displays time spent in light, deep, and REM sleep stages. You'll receive a daily Sleep Score based on your nightly stats that's designed to give you a better understanding of your sleep quality. The Sense comes with a free six-month trial of both Fitbit Premium and the Calm app for new members. Premium gives insight into how lifestyle choices affect your sleep, and Calm helps you relax, recover, and rest.
Stress less, sleep better
We loved reviewing the wearable headpiece Cove for its ability to help us improve focus, stress less, and sleep better. It uses a gentle vibration behind the ears to activate the part of your brain that regulates anxiety. Using Cove for 20 minutes twice daily while you work, play, or relax helps you feel calm and emotionally balanced. After two weeks of consistent use, you'll begin to experience less stress and anxiety, better sleep, and increased focus.
Digital sleeping pill
We're big fans of this sleep and meditation guide and it's easy to understand why after reading our Muse S (Gen 2) review. This brain-sensing headband uses real-time biofeedback to help you refocus during the day as a meditation guide, and recover at night with multiple sleep experiences focused on catching you better ZZZs. Overnight sleep tracking provides deep sleep insights, position tracking, and a personalized sleep score. Digital sleeping pills (DSPs) are responsive sleep experiences designed to put you to sleep and help you get back to sleep if you've woken during the night.
Sleep charged
We've tried, tested, and reviewed the Fitbit Charge 5. It can automatically detect when you fall asleep, meaning you don't have to worry about switching modes before you turn out the lights. As you sleep, the Charge 5 monitors your heartbeat and sleep patterns throughout the night, displaying the data in the graphical form on the Fitbit app for your phone. It's an excellent all-encompassing fitness tracker that monitors your sleep with the goal of giving you a better understanding of your sleep quality. It provides a daily sleep score and graphs of your time spent in light, deep, and REM sleep.
Advanced sleep training
URGOnight is a wearable Electroencephalogram (EEG) headband and app that utilizes neurofeedback therapy to help the user increase the brainwaves that impact sleep. In our review of URGOnight, we found that daily 20 minutes sessions, three times a week, got us more restful slumber. It helped us fall asleep 40% faster and cut our nighttime interruptions in half.
Tons of sleep data
Although Withings Sleep is only a pad you put under the mattress, it can give you a ton of data about your sleep. This handy pad measures a plethora of data, which can help determine why you feel so unrested. The pad can measure your heartbeat, bed temperature, air conditions, how many times you roll over, what stage of sleep you're in, and more. All this data is collected and then synced to your phone with a free app, giving you a chance to review it every morning.
Personalized sleep coaching
The Beautyrest is a high-tech sleep tracker that features two pads and a processor. The pads go under your mattress on each side to get a better picture of your motion while you sleep. The processor compiles all the data and transmits your sleep details each night to the app. The sensors are so sensitive and accurate that they can monitor respiration and heart rate. Plus, the sleep cycle alarm determines the best time to wake you up so that you feel refreshed. The processor learns your sleep patterns over time so that it can help to provide you with the best sleep coaching possible via the app.
Bedside table tacker
If you don't like the idea of having a pad on your mattress, the SleepScore Max will help you get all the data you need from resting on your bedside table. While it can't measure your heart rate, it can still track how deep or light you sleep, based on your movement and breathing throughout the night. Plus, SleepScore will give you a score each night on how well you slept and coach you through ways to improve that score over time.
Sports + sleep
In our review of Coros Pace 2, we note that it's the lightest sports watch currently on the market. We love this feather-light wearable for its ability to track all 24 hours of your day. Sleep tracking keeps tabs on your sleep cycles and how much time you spend in deep and light sleep. It also logs how much time you spend awake, how many hours you slept in total, your heart rate range, and your average heart rate throughout the night.
Great for runners
While you may think of the Polar M430 as a great running wearable (because it is), its Polar Sleep Plus system is pretty handy to track your shut-eye. It uses the watch's accelerometer to deliver feedback, and it's quite accurate since it gives you actual sleep time, so your results won't be skewed just by lying in bed. Plus, it will track any interruptions and provide data on continuous sleep periods. Be aware though, right now stock for this watch is limited so you may be paying a higher price than usual.
Basic data vs. advanced data
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Sleep is vital for everybody, but tracking your sleep data at home can be simple or advanced, depending on your needs. Basic sleep data like general sleep quality, time spent in light and deep sleep, and your sleeping heart rate can be tracked via one of the best fitness trackers like Fitbit Charge 5 and Coros Pace 2.
If you're looking for more in-depth analysis, you'll likely need a device that is dedicated specifically to getting you better rest such as Cove, Muse S (Gen 2), and URGOnight. All of these dedicated wearables are designed to help you relax during the day and sleep better at night.
If you don't need super-advanced insight into your sleep and are just looking for a baseline of how much you toss and turn, Fitbit Charge 5 fits the bill nicely. It's comfortable to wear, and its battery life is long enough that wearing it to bed won't mean you have to charge it first thing in the morning.
If you crave more in-depth data on your sleeping habits and are looking to improve your sleep, URGOnight is about as advanced as it gets. It provides personalized sleep training to help you get the best rest.
If you're looking for a smartwatch with excellent sleep tracking, our favorite is Apple Watch Series 7. As the best Apple Watch yet, it's everything you need to track those ZZZs and so much more!
You deserve to wake up feeling well rested and refreshed, and one of the best sleep trackers or monitors can get you there.
