One of The most notable development in sleep technology is the transition from passive tracking to active guidance. Increasingly, consumer sleep trackers offer AI-powered coaching and personalized recommendations that help users translate data into healthier habits. When implemented thoughtfully, this development has significant potential to improve outcomes.
But at the same time, there is a legitimate concern that as sleep technology becomes more advanced, it could also become more prescriptive. The key is to ensure that these tools remain supportive rather than directive, encouraging better sleep quality without promoting pressure, perfectionism, or unnecessary anxiety.
To find the best trackers for most people, I spoke with experts and tested a ton of wearable devices, from smart rings and smartwatches to headbands and non-wearable devices. After years of snooze monitoring, these are favorites.
For more health and wellness tracking, check out our guides on Best smart ringsTHE Best smartwatchesand the Best fitness trackers.
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How to test sleep trackers
Sleep trackers cannot diagnose a sleep disorder or replace a clinical sleep study, but the best ones offer reliable data and actionable insights, and are comfortable enough to use overnight. Here’s how I test them:
- I wear each device continuously for at least a month to reveal meaningful trends. Long-term testing also helps assess consistency, comfort, and whether the companion app remains useful after the novelty wears off.
- I test the trackers during normal life rather than under controlled conditions. This includes irregular bedtimes, travel days, and occasional insomnia spirals.
- I compare sleep data across multiple devices that I test simultaneously, paying particular attention to parameters such as: total sleep duration, sleep efficiency, sleep stages (light, deep, REM), resting heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), respiratory rate and blood oxygen levels (SpO2).
- I rate comfort for night wear. I test the devices in different sleeping positions to judge whether they feel bulky, restrictive, or irritating while sleeping.
- I test battery life and charging speed against the manufacturer’s claims.
- The software experience is just as important as the hardware. I evaluate how clearly each companion app presents information, whether the information appears personalized, and whether a subscription is required to unlock key features.
- Depending on what’s available on each device, I also evaluate smart alarms, sleep coaching recommendations, and integrations with broader health ecosystems like Apple Health and Google Health.
- I monitor long-term reliability and performance by checking for sync issues, app crashes, and inaccurate sleep records.
- Some sleep trackers lock advanced sleep analytics behind monthly subscriptions. I wonder if the premium features justify the ongoing costs.
Best sleep tracking smart ring
Of all the fitness trackers I’ve tested, the The Oura Ring Sleep Assessment was one of the most accurate. The ring has a multi-sensor suite: an 18-path multi-wavelength photoplethysmography (PPG) to monitor blood oxygen levels (SpO2), heart rate, HRVAnd respiratory rate; a negative temperature coefficient (NTC) thermistor to monitor body temperature; and a 3D accelerometer which captures movements, including your sleep stages and nighttime restlessness. It tracks factors such as total sleep, time in bed, and sleep efficiency each night via a time graph, and displays trends on a weekly or monthly basis. Auto-detected naps also count toward your sleep score, which is a huge bonus. The Oura is the most comfortable to wear to bed, and the app is user-friendly. You can view your sleep score, as well as personalized tips to optimize your bedtime.
Note: You need a $6 per month subscription to Oura to unlock the most advanced health metrics. Without it, you can only view your sleep, readiness, and activity scores and access saved meditations. But the subscription is worth it and relatively affordable compared to its competitors.
Best sleep tracking bracelet
If you prefer a bracelet, the Whoop is a screenless tracker that is more comfortable to sleep with than an Apple Watch. In addition to your Sleep Performance Score, it tracks metrics like sleep sufficiency, consistency, and efficiency, which are how much time you actually spend sleeping. In the app you can view the number of hours you slept and see how restorative it was. It also takes into account your daily activities – what Whoop calls “effort” – to indicate how much sleep you should ideally get. It tracks factors like your wakefulness and breathing rate, offering resources for creating a better nighttime routine and a journal to record the last time you had a cup of coffee or cocktail that kept you up.
In testing, Whoop’s sleep coach proved to be quite comprehensive, offering personalized bedtime and wake-up recommendations based on your tension level. You can activate a haptic motor that will wake you with a little buzz on your wrist, although, since the Whoop is screenless, you’ll have to double-tap the center of your device or reach for your phone to turn off the app’s alarm. Former critic Adrienne So also finds Whoop a bit frustrating as it would recommend more sleep than she was capable of getting.
It’s worth noting that Whoop membership has three tiers, and to benefit from the new health, EKG, and blood pressure capabilities, you need to pay for the highest tier. Oops life level at $359/year. However, it’s about the same price as the original Whoop subscription (which was $30 per month), and Whoop offers the updated version of Whoop MG for free.
Best Mattress Cover with Sleep Tracking
The Eight Sleep Pod 5 is, by far, the best alternative to a wearable that I have discovered. It is a mattress cover that not only tracks your sleep but also regulates your temperature. It cools up to 55 degrees Fahrenheit and warms up to 110 degrees Fahrenheit, with real-time adjustments based on your sleep measurements. If you sleep with your partner, you can set different temperatures on each side of the bed and it will independently track each of your sleeping habits. The Pod 5 also introduces physical temperature buttons, so you can manually adjust it to suit your personal preferences.
When it comes to sleep tracking, the Pod 5 provides many of the same metrics you’d get from a wearable, including sleep scores, total sleep time, sleep stages, HRV, and respiratory rate. Eight Sleep also sends a daily text message in the morning that distills your data into a quick summary, so you don’t even need to open the app to see how you slept. There were some discrepancies in the data, particularly in the sleep score, compared to the Oura Ring 4, which I consider my gold standard for accuracy, but it’s reliable enough if you want to avoid wearables. Plus, if I forget to wear my Oura to bed, my Eight Sleep automatically tracks my sleep in the background.
Eight Sleep requires a 12-month commitment on its Autopilot plan. The subscription includes automatic temperature adjustments, sleep reports, software updates, and a vibration and thermal alarm. After 12 months, you can still use the Eight Sleep without a subscription via its manual controls, but you won’t have access to sleep reports, which defeats the purpose.
Compare the 3 best sleep trackers
Honorable mentions
Photography: Julian Chokkattu
Google Pixel Watch 4 for $350: I have tested almost all Wear an OS smartwatch for Android, and the Pixel Watch 4 is my favorite thanks to its sleek design, excellent accuracy, and compact size. You have to pay for a Google Health Premium Subscription ($10 per month) to get deeper insights into your sleep and daily readiness score. It does a good job of tracking naps, but not always, and with any sleep type you’ll be able to see your sleep stages (awake, REM, light, deep) and even your blood oxygen saturation. All of this data is easily digestible in the Fitbit app, and if you have Fitbit Premium, you can see long-term sleep trends, changes in your sleep patterns, sleep heart rate, and how often you’re restless. It’s a lightweight watch, so I never found it uncomfortable to wear to bed. —Julien Chokkattu
Apple Watch Series 11 for $399: If you already have an Apple Watch Series 4 or later, you can use it to track your sleep. Between the heart rate sensor and the accelerometer, your Apple Watch can divide your sleep into four stages. Newer models can also measure blood oxygen and temperature. This seems like a general overview compared to some of the other sleep trackers I’ve tried, and there’s no sleep score, although that’s obviously intentional (it’s debatable whether you need more data).
Garmin Epix Pro (Gen 2) for $1,000: All of Garmin fitness trackers track sleep to some extent, but the Epix Pro has what Garmin calls advanced sleep monitoring, or the ability to track sleep stages, your blood oxygen saturation, breathing rate, and restlessness. Donor Adrienne So found that the Epix Pro regularly allowed her to sleep a half hour to an hour more than she actually slept most nights, as double-verified by Whoop and Oura. It also doesn’t add naps to your sleep score.
Photography: Simon Hill
Google Nest Hub Max for $229: The Nest Hub Max uses radar to track your sleep, which means you don’t need to wear a tracker; it also has a microphone to track snoring, sleepy talking, and other nighttime sounds. I love the Nest Hub on my nightstand for smart home controls, family photos, and listening to sleep sounds or podcasts in bed, but the sleep tracker consistently overestimated my REM phases and missed the awake periods recorded by other trackers. When I was using multiple trackers simultaneously, the Nest Hub was the outlier. THE Second-generation Nest Hub ($100) offers a similar sleep tracking experience if you’re looking for something less expensive. —Simon Hill
Muse S Athena Headband for $475: This headband has sensors that can track your brain activity, similar to an electroencephalogram (EEG), as well as an accelerometer and gyroscope, as well as a PPG sensor to measure heart rate and blood flow. It’s primarily a meditation aid designed to help you relax, but it can also track your sleep by recording your heart rate, breathing, time to fall asleep, and movements for an overall sleep score. Unfortunately, I found it uncomfortable to wear and often woke up to find that the sleep tracking had failed, usually because I had taken it off during the night. —Simon Hill
Withings ScanWatch 2 for $370: Wear the Withings ScanWatch 2 to bed and you’ll get a sleep score out of 100 in the morning. It covers the same four stages as other trackers (awake, REM, light and deep) but has a PPG sensor to measure your breathing rate. It can also track your heart rate, temperature and blood oxygen levels. The ScanWatch 2 provides a wealth of data and advice in the Withings app. However, some people may find it bulky and uncomfortable to sleep in, and it had difficulty distinguishing between light sleep and when I was awake in bed. —Simon Hill
Photography: Simon Hill
Withings Sleep Tracking Mat for $200: Another alternative to portable devices, this mat equipped with Withings sensors slips under your mattress, where your chest rests. You have to calibrate it during initial setup, but it’s quick and easy. It tracks your movement, breathing, and heart rate throughout the night, detects snoring or other sounds, and alerts you to potential breathing problems that could indicate sleep apnea. I have doubts about the accuracy, because it assumes you’re trying to sleep if you’re still lying in bed watching TV or reading, which can skew your score (although it’s best to only use your bed for sleeping if you suffer from insomnia). I found that this often marked periods of wakefulness as light sleep. It requires a power outlet, but that means you never have to worry about recharging). —Simon Hill
Sleep routine: tracking and alarm for $60/year (iOS/Android): Sleep Routine is a sleep tracking app that provides a report for each night, dividing your sleep into stages. Critical Simon Hill said that the results were quite accurate and largely matched those Ultrahuman Air Ringbut the application can be a little wonky. Frequently he would receive an error message the next morning, with no report or brief sleep recorded. There was also no indication as to the reason for this failure. You can test Sleep Routine for a week before you need to subscribe.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are wearables more reliable than contactless trackers?
Most consumer sleep trackers, whether wearable or contactless, typically analyze movement, heart rate, and breathing to infer how you sleep. In general, these devices do a decent job of measuring sleep duration and overall trends, but accuracy can vary greatly between trackers.
“Wearable devices often capture heart rate-based signals more consistently, while contactless devices avoid issues such as discomfort or forgetting to wear them,” writes Joseph Dzierzewski, a sleep scientist and clinician, in an email. “Neither category achieves the accuracy of clinical sleep studies, particularly for sleep staging.”
TL;DR: Both types of sleep trackers are useful for identifying patterns over time, but neither offers medical-grade accuracy.
What sleep metrics should you pay attention to?
According to sleep experts, total sleep time remains the most reliable measurement sleep trackers can provide to consumers. “It’s not perfect, but it’s generally the most stable and usable,” Dzierzewski wrote in an email.
Tracking sleep phases is much less precise. “They infer brain states from indirect signals, so misclassifications are common,” Dzierzewski writes. While this information can still be helpful in spotting long-term trends, experts caution against reading too much into nightly fluctuations.
Many sleep trackers also condense your data into a single sleep score. While these scores can offer a quick overview, the underlying algorithms are often proprietary and lack transparency. “For most people, focusing on a consistent sleep pattern, total sleep time, and how rested they are during the day is far more meaningful than chasing a score,” Dzierzewski writes.
Should You Use a Sleep Tracker?
It’s important to note that there are no universal rules for better sleep. You must listen to your own bodybut try not to obsess about it. That said, sleep tracking can be helpful. WIRED consulted sleep experts for some advice:
- Sleep trackers can increase sleep awareness and encourage healthy sleep behavior. Establishing a bedtime routine is crucial if you want to improve the quality of your sleep. I had Vermaspokesperson for American Academy of Sleep Medicinesays sleep trackers can help people get in and out of bed at optimal times. Dzierzewski says these devices can reveal how your sleep changes between weekdays and weekends, how alcohol or late-night eating affects recovery, and how important consistent routines are for your sleep. This type of visibility can be incredibly motivating, given that self-monitoring is one of the most effective ways to improve health behaviors.
- But sleep tracking can also become counterproductive. “If checking your sleep data is creating stress, or if your sleep has actually gotten worse since you started tracking it, that’s a strong sign to take a step back,” says Dzierzewski. “Putting the device away for a week or two can help reset your perspective. Sleep works best when guided by internal cues, not dictated by a number on a screen.”
- Sleep trackers can help you track trends, but they can also be inaccurate. Verma suggests using data to identify changing trends. For example, if your sleep time changed abruptly two weeks ago, you can look for changes in stress, environment, or daytime habits that might have triggered this change. You may discover disruptions that affect your sleep and you can mitigate them in the future if they recur. He also notes that some trackers may give the impression that they are able to diagnose a health problem when they don’t have the data (or FDA approval) to support those claims.
- Sleep trackers should fit into your life. Consider how a potential tracker might fit into your digital ecosystem, its ease of use, and its comfort to wear while sleeping.
- Sleep trackers can help you experiment. If you want to optimize your sleep, Verma suggests using your sleep tracker to find what works for you. For example, you could try a new nighttime routine for two weeks and see if the sleep data improves. If so, this can increase motivation to maintain the habit. (It’s helpful to think of sleep experiments in weeks rather than days to give changes a chance.)
- Joseph DzierzewskiPhD, is senior vice president of research and scientific affairs at the National Sleep Foundation based in Arlington, Virginia.
- I had VermaMD, MBA, is a spokesperson for the California-based American Academy of Sleep Medicine.
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