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The best sleep trackers you can buy: Expert tested
Experts recommend that adults get at least seven hours of sleep every night. Still, with seven hours of sleep, there's no guarantee that we wake up well-rested. To determine how you've actually slept throughout the night, sleep trackers and wearables come in handy. They can help you understand your sleep patterns and help you improve your sleep quality. While not perfect, these sleep trackers can measure heart rate, skin temperature, and time spent in sleep phases.
There are smartwatches, smart rings, and earbuds that track your sleep to provide a greater picture of your sleep health. Your sleep data will differ depending on which product you use, and some products perform their sleep-tracking duties better than others. The ZDNET team has carefully tested sleep trackers to find the best one based on features, affordability, and availability. Keep reading to find our top picks.
What's the best sleep tracker right now?
We found that the Apple Watch Series 9 provides the best sleep tracker for most people, but that's not all there is to consider. Here, we explore the most popular options, as well as some you may not have heard about, to help you choose the best sleep tracker.
Also: How to sleep better with the Apple Watch
The best sleep trackers of 2024
- Sleep cycle tracking
- All the features of a smartwatch
- No subscription to track sleep
- Must be paired with iPhone
- Shorter battery life than other wearables
There's no denying the Apple Watch's supremacy in the wearable space, and the Apple Watch Series 9 proves no different. When Apple upgraded its Apple Watch last year, it embedded a new and improved S9 chip to the device and improved its health sensors to make them as accurate and sensitive as possible, ZDNET editor-in-chief Jason Hiner writes in his review. "The more sensitive and accurate health tracking sensors make previous Apple Watches feel outdated by comparison," he says.
Apple extended the battery life of this watch as well, so you can easily wear this watch to bed without a worry of it dying on you in the middle of the night. Hiner recommends, however, to still plop it on its charger at the end of the day for half an hour before wearing it to bed, just in case. Many users on Reddit also were surprised by the strong battery the watch holds, and how it can last throughout the night and still offer an ample battery in the morning.
With the Sleep app on Apple Watch, you can create goals for how long you'd like to sleep each night and adjust them for weekdays and weekends, use the Sleep Focus mode, which limits distractions before bed, and track your sleep through the motion detectors on the watch. It estimates how long you spend in each sleep phase, REM, core, and deep, a night. Note that Sleep Focus needs to be on to begin tracking your bedtime activity.
While Hiner recommends the Apple Watch, he said that the best sleep tracking app on the Apple Watch is not the Sleep app itself, but rather the SleepWatch app. "It includes more data on 'why' you may have slept the way you did: HRV (stress), sleep regularity, sleep disruption, heart rate dip, blood oxygen so that you can potentially change habits or seek medical assistance if sleep patterns aren't going so well," Hiner tells me.
Apple Watch Series 9 specs: Up to 18-hour battery life | Sleep cycles | Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, and/or cellular options | 41mm and 45mm models | IP6X dust and water resistant | Blood oxygen, body temperature sensor, EKG, irregular heart rate alerts | iOS only
- Comfortable and light
- Fitbit integration
- Confirmed accurate heart rate and GPS tracking
- Limited exercise details
- Only one size
- Smaller battery life
Android owners looking for a sleep tracker on a smartwatch should look no further than the Google Pixel Watch 2. Google improved its heart rate sensors in its newest iteration of the Pixel Watch, which ZDNET contributing writer and resident smart watch expert Matt Miller confirmed when he tested out the watch himself.
On top of that, the Google Pixel Watch 2 further integrates Fitbit into the wearable with improved stress tracking, a daily readiness score, ECG, sleep scores, and six months of Fitbit Premium for free. Some of Fitbit's sleep tracking features include nightly trends and trends over time, a silent alarm that vibrates to wake you up during your most optimal sleep stage, bedtime reminders, sleep goals, and more. One Best Buy reviewer said that the watch's silent alarm makes it easy to wake up without waking her husband, and a handful of reviewers pointed out the watch's accurate sleep tracking.
If you're wearing a piece of tech to bed, it needs to be lightweight and compact. The Pixel Watch 2 is much lighter than its predecessor, ideal for comfortable sleep. "Google's continued focus on sleep and stress tracking means having a lighter, smaller watch makes more sense," Miller writes in his review.
More: Google Pixel Watch 2 Review
While the 24-hour battery life isn't nearly as competitive as other smart watches, the faster charging rate takes your 0% battery to 50% in less than 30 minutes. Miller says it's still one of the most accurate Fitbit-powered wearables for heart rate and GPS tracking, so what you lack in battery life you gain in sublime accuracy.
Google Pixel Watch 2 specs: 24 hours battery life | Sleep stages | 41mm | Up to 164 feet of water resistance | Accelerometer, Altimeter, Compass, Multi-path Optical Heart Rate, Blood Oxygen Sensor, Skin Temperature, Barometer, cEDA, Gyroscope, Light Sensor | Android compatible
- Sleek, easy to blend in with regular jewelry
- Long battery life
- To-the-tee sleep tracking
- Paid membership required to unlock all features
- No half sizes
Maybe you're not so keen on wearing a smartwatch with a screen on it to bed. What if you wore a smart ring to bed instead? This Horizon ring from Oura is a competitive sleep tracker, with insights into everything from sleep efficiency, restfulness, readiness, latency, and more. I've been using the Oura Ring for the past month now, and it's not only given me deeper insight into my sleep, but supplements those data points with explanations behind the numbers. Oura claims to accurately track sleep cycles, total sleep time, resting heart rate, heart rate variability, and movement. The technology combines and converts this information into a sleep score.
Every morning I get a sleep score for last night's sleep, can view my heart rate, my sleep efficiency, and my suggested bedtime range for the day. The lightweight build of the ring makes it a perfect bedtime companion -- I barely notice it on my finger as I fall asleep, and I eagerly wake up every morning to check my sleep data and get my score. But it's not just deep sleep it can track and point out; the Oura Ring can detect the shortest of naps as well, and factors those into your sleep score for the day.
Also: The best smart rings
The battery life is masterful. It charges quickly and stays charged for days on end. The one downside to the ring is the extra $72 you spend on the Oura subscription a year, on top of the $350 you just spent on the ring itself.
Best Buy reviewers say the ring has helped them improve and further understand their sleep, and they appreciate the lighter build of the ring compared to smart watches like the Apple Watch. Redditors also agree that the Oura Ring, as a sleep tracker, is worth it. "If you struggle with sleep quality, overtraining, or anything else that affects recovery, I'd say it's worth it," one user wrote in a thread on the topic. One Best Buy reviewer noted, however, that the ring doesn't offer half sizes, which could be an issue if your fingers swell, because the ring won't accurately measure your biometric data, so keep that in mind as you shop for a sleep tracker.
Review: Oura Ring 3 review: Unobtrusive 24/7 health tracking with more to come in 2022
Oura Ring Gen 3 Horizon specs: Up to 7 days battery life | Sleep cycles | Bluetooth | 7.9mm wide, 2.55mm thick | Up to 100m water resistant | Blood oxygen, skin temperature sensor, heart rate monitoring | iOS and Android compatible
- Sleep coach
- Strong battery life
- Great for athletes and fitness junkies
- Sleep tracker significantly drains battery, users report
If you're an athlete or fitness junkie shopping around for a new smart watch, you've probably heard about Garmin's smart watches and their suite of health tracking features, like the body battery, workout benefit and recovery time, and perceived exertion data. Most runners I know use one of Garmin's watches for their half marathon and marathon training, and our resident smart watch expert, Matt Miller, loves them for their rugged build. So if you're all-in on your workout regimen, a Garmin watch that's already giving you accurate sport insights that pairs with special sleep capabilities might be your sleep tracker of choice.
Out of all the Garmin watches, the Venu 3S might be the brand's best for sleep tracking due to its lighter and smaller build and its sleep coach feature, which provides you with a sleep score, tracks your sleep stages and naps, and monitors your heart rate variability and skin temperature during rest. All this sleep tracking data impacts your body battery, which Garmin delivers to you in a score out of 100.
The sleep coach combines your age, daily and longer-term activity levels, recent sleep history, naps taken, and heart rate variability (HRV) to offer you a recommended nightly sleep need.
The Venu 3S is of a smaller build than other Garmin watches, which works wonderfully for sleep. The smooth silicone band of the watch also resembles that of the Apple Sport band, according to Miller. Miller's daughter, an avid hiker and napper, tried it out and enjoyed the nap tracking feature on the watch.
The only downside of this sleep tracker is how it significantly drains the watch's battery, some Amazon reviewers have complained. But even if the battery is drained, its long battery life still out competes many sleep trackers on this list, and is great for anybody who wants to improve their fitness quality through sleep tracking.
More: This Garmin smartwatch convinced my daughter to switch over from Fitbit
Garmin Venu 3S specs: Up to 10 days battery life | Sleep score and insights | Bluetooth | 41mm or 45mm | 5 ATM water resistant | GPS, heart rate, pulse oximeter blood oxygen monitor, barometric altimeter, accelerometer | iOS and Android compatible
- Great customer service, users report
- Detailed sleep tracking for athletes
- Personalized sleep coach
- Annual membership subscription
If you want a lightweight, screen-less band that effortlessly tracks all your activity and sleep data, your best bet could be the Whoop 4.0. Countless professional athletes have used the smart band, given its focus on measuring strain and recovery. But where it really shines is in its sleep tracking.
Whoop measures your four sleep stages (slow wave, awake, REM, and light) and suggests optimal sleep times based on the sleep data it collects. You can also set alarms that go off at a specific time, once you hit your sleep goal, or once you've hit a recovery period. One of the best sleep features Matt Miller, who reviewed the Whoop 4.0 pointed out, was the sleep coach that not only informs you when to go to bed but tells you how much sleep you will reach if you go to bed past that time. Plus, the Whoop calculates how much sleep you'll need based on the energy you exert on physical or mental tasks.
You get all your health data through the Whoop smartphone app, given the fact that this band is screen-less. Launching the app displays data on strain, recovery, and sleep. To go deeper into your sleep data, you can get a by-the-minute plot of your heart rate and other sleep metrics during the night, along with some words that describe the data presented for added clarity.
You can analyze your daily, weekly, and monthly sleep patterns through the detailed sleep trends Whoop offers and calculate your true sleep need, the amount of time you should be sleeping a night. "At first, I thought the Whoop was just an advanced sleep-tracking device that offered more than my GPS sports watches, but it's more than that. It does track the details of your sleep but is also measuring other key metrics of your body throughout the day," Matt Miller writes in his review of the Whoop 4.0.
Customers agree and say the Whoop is worth the money. Many Amazon reviewers said they initially bought the Whoop 4.0 to track their sleep but found themselves improving other areas of their life thanks to the detailed data and health metrics that Whoop offers.
Review: Whoop 4.0
Whoop 4.0 specs: Up to 5 days battery life | Sleep cycles | Bluetooth | 1.5 x 1.5 x 0.45 inches | IP68 water resistant | Blood oxygen, skin temperature sensor, heart rate | iOS and Android compatible
What is the best sleep tracker?
The best sleep tracker overall is the Apple Watch Series 9, because it's a sleep tracker that works for most people, with updated sensors that keep your sleep data as accurate as can be and additional insights that will help people understand their slumber more deeply, whether you're deep into your data and or only want the big picture.
| Best sleep tracker | Cost | Battery life | iOS/Android | Sleep cycles | Subscription needed? |
| Apple Watch Series 9 | $399 | 18 hours | iOS only | ✔ | No |
| Google Pixel Watch 2 | $350 | 24 hours | Android only | ✔ | No |
| Oura Ring Gen 3 Horizon | $350 | 7 days | iOS and Android | ✔ | Yes |
| Garmin Venu 3S | $450 | 10 days | iOS and Android | ✔ | No |
| Whoop 4.0 | $240 | 5 days | iOS and Android | ✔ | Yes |
Which is the right sleep tracker for you?
That depends on what you need. Do you want something with a screen or no screen? Are you an athlete looking to combine your sleep data with your training data or someone who's casually interested in their sleep score night by night? We've compiled a list of picks that will suit all sorts of needs and use cases.
| Choose this best sleep tracker... | If you want... |
| Apple Watch Series 9 | The best sleep tracker for most people, with easy Apple integration, sleep cycle information, and improved sensors for a more accurate picture of your sleep data. |
| Google Pixel Watch 2 | The best sleep tracker for Android users, with Fitbit integrated sleep tech, a daily readiness score, and a lightweight build that makes the Pixel Watch 2 easy to sleep with. |
| Oura Ring Gen 3 Horizon | The best sleep tracker that's a smart ring, with a battery life that lasts nearly a week, comprehensive sleep data, and a form factor you won't ever notice. |
| Garmin Venu 3S | The best sleep tracker for athletes or fitness junkies. It's a smart watch, so you can take calls on it, check your mileage as you run, and get in depth data on your sleep. The Venu 3S has the highest battery life on this list, and can even detect the shortest of naps. |
| Whoop 4.0 | The best sleep tracker for athletes who don't want a screen on their wrist. Get insights and recommendations through Whoop's personalized sleep coach, and learn how you can recover from your workouts with the right amount of sleep that Whoop calculates for you. |
Factors to consider when choosing a sleep tracker
Poor sleep quality can lead to an increased risk of dementia, obesity, cardiovascular disease, depression, and even certain types of cancer. Sleep has never been more important.
To find the best sleep trackers, ZDNET relied on hands-on testing and thorough research into product quality as well as sleep studies on these devices. Additionally, we considered the following factors:
Sleep Tracking: Sensors in your sleep tracker are capable of collecting a variety of data, such as your heart rate, heart rate variability, time asleep, sleep stages, and even how much you snore. All of this data is collected and analyzed, and the best sleep trackers present this information to you with clarity.
Comfort: If you're wearing a device to bed, it should be easy to sleep with. We've tried to consider smart watches, bands, and rings that are lightweight, compact, and unobtrusive.
Additional features: Not all sleep trackers stop at just sleep tracking. Others may also provide additional features, like a smart alarm or health and fitness tracking. These insights can help you live a better life during the day so you sleep better at night.
Subscription: In order to access some features, you may need to subscribe to a plan. Some subscriptions may require a one-time fee, while others may require that you pay an ongoing monthly fee for the service. Be sure to check out the terms of the subscription before you buy. Although they are generally pretty affordable, this is an additional cost that you will need to factor into the total price.
Price: Sleep trackers can be reasonably priced, but they start to get pretty pricey once you start to add extra features. I found that the cost of the best sleep trackers range in price from $80 to $400, depending on the model you choose.
User sentiment: We read the customer reviews on each product to see what other people were liking and disliking about each sleep tracker. You should too.
How did we choose these sleep trackers?
We know how much of an investment any type of personal tech can be. That's why when we pick products to include on a list like this, we give these products careful consideration. We do this by rigorously testing them for days and weeks on end, reading customer reviews, and evaluating whether they live up to their value and cost.
The ZDNET team is constantly testing and ranking products, swapping one old model on the list for a new model, and getting rid of products that are no longer competitive with the others on the list. We take this testing seriously because whether a product costs $30 or $300, we want you to get your money's worth.
What is a sleep cycle?
A sleep cycle is comprised of three different stages: light sleep, deep sleep, and rapid eye movement, or REM. On a typical night, when you first fall asleep, you'll enter either light or deep sleep, likely one after the other, and enter a REM phase.
This cycle will last about 1.5 hours, then repeat itself in intervals closer to two hours, maybe with a few awake minutes in between, but always ending with REM sleep. As the night progresses, you'll likely experience less time in deep sleep, while the REM stages will become longer.
A regular night of sleep should be about 50% light sleep, 20% REM sleep, 20% deep sleep, and 10% awake.
Also: A hidden feature on your iPhone may help you sleep better
How can I improve my sleep?
The National Sleep Foundation recommends improving your sleep by practicing certain habits throughout the day and before bed. Following a consistent bed routine, that is, waking up and retiring at around the same time, is one way to signal to your body to ease into sleep. Dimming the lights a few hours before bed, limiting screen time, and creating a cozy, dark, and cold bedroom environment are all ways to improve your sleep schedule. Regular exercise and limited alcohol, caffeine, and nicotine consumption can also help keep you asleep.
How much REM do I need?
Nearly a quarter of your sleep should be REM sleep, according to health experts. So if you're sleeping eight hours a night, the recommended average, two hours of REM each night should be ideal.
Are sleep trackers really accurate?
If you need your sleep analyzed, doctors will usually order a polysomnography, which analyzes a person's oxygen level, heart rate, breathing, eye movement, and leg movement while simultaneously running an electroencephalogram (EEG).
An EEG shows your brainwaves through different stages and cycles of sleep. A wearable smartwatch or fitness tracker on your wrist, however, is far from your brain.
The most popular wearables by Fitbit, Apple, Garmin, and Samsung collect a combination of the following measurements: heart rate and heart rate variability (HRV), movement, breaths per minute, and skin temperature. Devices that track sleep cycles use an algorithm to hypothesize your sleep cycles based on the data.
A 2017 study compared a polysomnography with the performance of a Fitbit Charge 2 in 35 adults. Researchers found the Fitbit device detected sleep onset with 96% accuracy but overshot time spent asleep by 9 minutes on average. In the study, the Fitbit detected light sleep with 81% accuracy, deep sleep with only 49% accuracy, and REM sleep with 74% accuracy.
A newer study published in April of 2022 compared the performance of Fitbit Alta HR to results of an EEG conducted simultaneously on 40 college athletes while sleeping. This study found FItBit data to satisfactorily track sleep onset, time spent asleep, and sleep cycles. Fitbit can be a useful tool for athletes' sleep management.
While not 100% accurate, the Fitbit data had a strong correlation with polysomnography data.
What types of sleep trackers are there?
There are several types of sleep trackers that you can choose from. Smartwatches, rings, and under mattress nearables are the three most popular options.
Smartwatches: These can be either smartwatches or wristbands, depending on the amount of technology that you need. Smartwatches often incorporate smart assistants like Alexa or Google Assistant while offering a wealth of features like GPS tracking and fitness tracking in addition to your regular sleep tracking.
Rings: This is another wearable sleep tracker but far more basic. It uses sensors along the inside of the ring to collect data and track your sleep.
Under mattress or nearables: There are some models, like the Withings Sleep Tracker Pad, that simply slide under your mattress for an unobtrusive solution to sleep trackers.
What are the best sleep trackers that don't require a subscription?
The Apple Watch Series 9, Google's Pixel Watch 2, and the Garmin Venu 3S are all impressive smart watches that offer great sleep tracking capabilities -- subscription free. If you're a casual sleep tracker, I'd recommend the Apple Watch for people within the Apple ecosystem and the Pixel Watch 2 for those in the Android ecosystem. If you're an athlete or someone who's training for a marathon I'd suggest the Garmin Venu 3S.
Other products we tested
With so many sleep trackers available, there are many alternatives worth considering. Here are our top picks for alternative sleep trackers that we have tested and can recommend if the picks above don't suit your fancy.