Competitor - August 2017

20 GEAR

WEARABLE TECH

SLEEP TRACKING

BY SAM WINEBAUM

Sleep is critical for our everyday

well-being, but also our running per-

formance and recovery. Busy lives,

training and even habits such as eye-

balling screens late at night can aff ect

the sleep quantity and quality. By

using a dedicated tracking device, or

the ever-improving sleep modules of

many newer GPS watches and activity

bands, you can track overall sleep

time, see how your performance adds

up for diff erent sleep stages and get

coaching on how to improve those

z’s. We have found that tracking

our shut-eye with these devices and

refl ecting on what pre-bed factors

aff ect our sleep performance has over

time seen us getting better, more

consistent sleep (even when we can’t

get more sleep).

Change Your

Sheets

Beddit, recently

acquired by Apple,

was one of the earliest and is still

among the most complete sleep-

monitoring and coaching systems.

Unlike the others here, Beddit 3 is 100

percent focused on sleep. It com-

bines a thin under-sheet sensor strip

CAN I JUST USE MY GPS WATCH? New GPS watches and activity

bands from Garmin and Polar now include motion-based sleep tracking.

They are not quite as sophisticated in terms of analyzing stages and cycles,

since they don’t use heart rate, and may feel bulky in bed. We fi nd they can

overestimate actual sleep—sometimes confusing it with time still in bed. Polar’s

Sleep Plus gives you a sleep-continuity score as well as graphs of sleep time

versus average and preferred. Garmin’s sleep module goes further showing

you deep, light and awake time as well as graphs for night movement.

($150, beddit.com) that pairs to your

smartphone and its microphone, so

there is nothing to wear. It evaluates

not only one person’s movement,

respiration rate and resting heart rate

but also other factors that impact your

sleep quality, such as the temperature

and humidity of your bedroom and

snoring. The app provides a daily sleep

score that takes into account your

snooze success.

Watching You Sleep

Fitbit’s latest heart-rate-sensing

bands and watches (Alta HR, Blaze,

and Charge 2, $150-plus, fi tbit.com)

have recently been upgraded to

include a sophisticated sleep-quality

monitoring and coaching system.

Using a combination of motion and

heart rate, these wrist devices identify

and quantify sleep stages (awake, light

sleep, deep sleep, REM sleep), as we

cycle through them multiple times per

night. Each cycle and stages within

are critical to recharging our nervous,

immune and musculoskeletal systems

as well as our mental faculties. “Sleep

Insights” include age and gender

benchmarks, 30-day averages and tips

to help improve sleep.

Inside Your Head

and Heart

Similar in technical

approach to Fitbit and

Beddit, Whoop Strap 2.0

($500, whoop.com) uses a com-

bination of motion and heart-rate

variability (HRV) to identify sleep

stages. It is very light, comfortable,

screen-less and designed to be worn

24/7 with all data displayed in the

app and website. In addition to sleep

stages, you can see your night’s HRV,

the number of sleep cycles, distur-

bances and delays in falling asleep.

That information is compared to your

recent trends for analysis. In the early

evening, Whoop tells you how much

sleep is needed to “get by, perform

or peak” based on that day’s training

and overall heart stress. When you

wake up, Whoop not only scores your

sleep performance versus the night’s

target, but also scores a combination

of your HRV and sleep to give you

recovery guidance. A questionnaire

asks you to refl ect on pre-bed screen

time, alcohol, caff eine, etc., to infl u-

ence future behavior.

While you’re counting sheep,

Fitbit will count your sleep stages.

Click

here for the

lowdown on 3

different heart

rate training

methods.

CM0817_G_TECH.indd 20 7/27/17 12:33 PM