Smart Watches/devices

[Lucky7]

Yeah, he's an interesting dude.

Apple Watch had the best correlation with PSG is my recollection.

[Uphold9887]

The withings products look nice  but they are advertising withings+ as part of their app for "better insights" into your sleep and other features 

Sounding very much like a paid subscription service...have you tried it ?

[DaveL]

I'm so pleased to find this post.

I had a number of bands that provided sleep studies. I have an iWatch 6 now.
It would have needed a subscription; I bought an app instead.

It ain't perfect. It allows me to do simple sleep maintenance. Tells me when I went to bed; woke up.

I get comfort being able to measure blood oxygen levels and doing ecg. When I had my stents put in place I spent some time comparing my own measurements to the display on monitors that I was hooked up to. Pretty good! So it's good enough.

My Garmin watch was pretty good too. I had a fitbit watch burn my wrist, so no fitbit for me. Samsung sounds pretty good.

I'd buy an iWatch again if I had to.

edit: I was here before. Post #6.

[enigmatic]

I had tried withings mattress sleep analyzer. Not only was the wireless connection spotty and kept losing sync, but the data format (.csv) was horrible, multiple row repeats and bizzare sample rates. Took it back, and after watching quantified scientist, decided to get apple watch. Not only did the numbers match overnight polysomnography very well,
I am able to manipulate the data fairly well.

Events are from resmed 10. Sleep states apple watch 8.

The only problem with apple watch is sPo2 is sampled at a very low resolution (hourly?), I may use a pulse oximeter for that data.

[SleepyLakes]

Here because not for the first time my wearable has me anxious.  (First it was for resting heart rate because I'm 41, overweight and unfit, FAR from an athlete, and it tends to sit in the high 50s while awake and often dips into the 40s overnight, but my dad is the same so it must just be a genetic thing)

This time it was because first my Huawei band and now my Galaxy Watch (6) were showing up overnight sp02 dips below 90%.  When I compared my Huawei results to a Wellue/Viatom finger clip log (held on my finger overnight with a glove while the phone logs via bluetooth) it did seem to confirm it as *reasonably* accurate and the finger clip did show a couple of dips under 90% (albeit only totalling 4 seconds, but 25 minutes or 7% spent in the 90-94% zone which doesn't sound ideal)

Went to the doctor with this and also elevated blood pressure (borderline elevated and stage 1 hypertension most of the time), showing how I compared the wearable output to the finger clip and asking whether it could be related to the blood pressure, was immediately told "you should pay no attention to wearables for this" and sent away because I have no symptoms, with some generic advice about blood pressure.  Well I was asked if I feel refreshed on a morning the answer is NO but I'll readily admit I don't go to bed early enough during the week to which he said "well that's why then" and until I fix that no doctor is going to be interested in any sleep concerns.

Anyway he's probably right with the generic stuff - most things are worse at the weekend when I've had a few drinks, including some reflux issues that I fixed with a wedge pillow.

"Stop textwalling about your worries and get to the point man"

Sorry.  To the wearables point.  I've spent so far 6 nights wearing my Galaxy Watch 6, the past 2 nights while comparing to the finger clip log, and am coming to the conclusion that yes it's reasonably accurate but only when worn two finger widths up from the wrist bone  (a finding I also have when exercising and comparing heart rate logs to a chest strap - at normal watch position I can be doing a consistent 150-160bpm via the chest strap while the watch sits at 120-125... moved up the wrist it correctly reads 150-160 in the same conditions and mirrors the graph perfectly)

The type of band also makes a difference.  The fabric band it came with can be made snug so that the watch conforms to my wrist better and I get better results even worn lower down, the metal one I got for dressing the watch up looks nice but is poor for exercise and sleep tracking since it turns it more into a rigid bracelet.  

Time will tell as I want to compare one of the bad looking nights to the finger clip.  My instinct is maybe mild sleep apnea but alcohol induced and so my own problem.

Galaxy Watch 6 logs:

   

(Technically all are the day after because I'm terrible for going to bed long after midnight but I still think of "early hours of Friday" as "Thursday night" but anyway...)

Friday/Saturday/Sunday would have me worried and maybe they should, this is where I want to do more testing vs. the finger clip (even if it's on a boozy weekend) but note how massively noisy the graphs are compared to Monday/Tuesday when I wore the watch higher up and tightened it, which leads me to take those bad looking graphs with a pinch of salt.  Meanwhile Monday/Tuesday have no time below 90% at all, which the finger clip agreed with (but are also nights without so much alcohol prior...)

Thursday when I first got it is a less noisy looking chart, maybe I had the band a bit tighter.  It shows a few dips that I'm a little concerned about but not taking as gospel.

Now here's my finger clip log for Tuesday i.e. last night:
   

Note how the shape of the graph matches the Galaxy Watch chart for Tuesday pretty much perfectly so it's suggesting a decent degree of accuracy when worn correctly.  I need to do a comparison test when worn in the normal watch position with the metal band on which I suspect it'd disagree with but I think the noisiness of the charts speaks for itself.  (Monday's clip results also looked okay and agreed that I didn't dip below 90%, but I took it off early as it got uncomfortable)

Finally, the rest of the Tuesday stats from the finger clip:
   

So, minimum 91%, under 95% for a total of 15 minutes.  The dips correlate with higher heart rates so are maybe when I'm rolling over.


tldr Galaxy Watch 6 (Classic) seems to be decently accurate when worn further up the wrist and reasonably tight, as they always suggest for wrist wearables, but I'm suspecting it falls apart and gives scarily misleading results if you don't follow that advice.  Still have to do more testing to be a bit more conclusive about both its accuracy and my own possible mild issues.

[Pineyk]

If you are overweight, unfit, and you feel tired in the morning, you should also find out whether you have sleep apnoea as that is also a possibility.

[SleepyLakes]

Unfortunately my GP wasn't interested if I don't have symptoms that aren't already explainable by going to bed too late or drinking - so I'd have to either pay for a private sleep study (£££££!) or at least fix my sleep schedule first and use something medically certified - as well as probably implementing lifestyle stuff like cutting out alcohol and getting to the normal BMI range so he can't just pin it on those

I do get a very itchy back of throat that I end up soothing from a sort of compulsive grunting that ends up happening overnight and mentioned that, but antihistamines reduce this and I was told just continue taking those and that the grunting is a habit I need to fix for myself.

[Pineyk]

All of the lifestyle changes you mention can only do you good. of course. In addition, though, to continue with the topic of sleep apnoea, as you are a Samsung user, you might follow up on the following development: Samsung's new sleep apnea feature has taken a vital step towards a global launch | TechRadar

Personally, I have the Withings ScanWatch and their Sleep Analyzer that is certified  in Europe and (amazingly enough) simply relies on a pad that fits under the mattress so that you have nothing extra to wear.

[PaulaO2]

@sleepylakes - I have the Galaxy Watch 5 and find the O2 readings to be lower than reality. Not by much, but enough. For example, right now it says SpO2 is 93% but my Checkme O2 meter says it is 97%. It also says I dropped down to 71% last night but the Checkme says I only dropped down to 85% (if I remember correctly).

Smart watches are getting better at their readings, though. It is just there's a lot of variables. For example, my manual says to get an accurate SpO2 reading, I have to put the watch further up the wrist, elbow on table, and hand up near face. Which, really, I am NOT doing at night.

Omron makes a super expensive wearable that can do blood pressure readings. I would invest in it willingly if the price ever lowers enough. But at $500? Nope.

[Jan Flikweert]

Hi all,

I am very glad Smartwatches can be discussed at this forum.

I use the Samsung Galaxy Smartwatch 5.

Of course it is not perfect. It gives an indication. You can look at the changes. It does not give a diagnose.

Regarding quality of sleep it is wise also to look at other facts and compare the results of the smartwatch with other days.

How do you feel, how long you stay in bed, are you aware of being awake.

In my experience changes in the result of the smartwatch regarding sleep does confirm my feeling, the other facts.

A good night with not much AHI is visible in the saturation of the smartwatch, the graph is not volatile.

The reason I sent to my doctor was the fact my wife reports stops of breave at night and low volatile saturation at night.

For me a smartwatch learns me to accept the way of sleeping. I learned for my feeling I am long awake, but in fact I sleep more then ik thin, then I am aware. I learned short sleep can also give good mental and physical recovery.

So smartwatch perfect, build diagnose on it, can it compete with scientific tool? No.
Usefull? Yes!

Kind regards,

Jan Flikweert