Pillow App: Tracking Sleep, How Does It Work?

Pillow is a smart sleep-tracking app that can be used on Apple devices such as the iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. The app can be used to track sleep quality in great detail, including the tracking of sleep cycles, heart rate, and audio recording. The app provides a breakdown of sleep quality, including periods of waking, REM, light sleep, and deep sleep. It also offers a range of premium features, including detailed sleep history, advanced sleep analysis, and powernap modes. The app is designed to be easy to use, with a beautiful interface and fun animations.

Heart rate analysis

The Heart tab in the app provides access to heart-related metrics, including a heart rate diagram overlaid on the sleep stage graph. This diagram illustrates the relationship between heart rate and sleep stages, allowing users to see how their heart rate fluctuates throughout the night. The interactive values feature lets users swipe to view individual heart rate values at any point during their sleep.

Pillow also provides essential metrics such as average heart rate and heart rate variability, which are indicators of overall heart health and sleep recovery efficiency. The app highlights optimal versus irregular trends and displays the minimum and maximum heart rate values recorded during sleep. This information helps users identify any potential issues, such as elevated or irregular heart rates, which could indicate stress, sleep apnea, or other medical conditions requiring attention.

Pillow's heart rate analysis is part of its comprehensive sleep analysis features, which include sleep disruption trends, audio recordings, and comparisons to normal ranges based on age. The app also offers a breakdown of average heart rate during each sleep stage, helping users further understand the relationship between their heart rate and sleep quality.

The app's ability to track heart rate during sleep provides users with valuable insights into their overall health and well-being, going beyond generic heart rate trends offered by other apps.

Audio recording

The Pillow app is a smart sleep tracker and alarm clock that can be used with Apple devices like the Apple Watch, iPhone, and iPad. It can record audio during sleep and categorize sounds using machine learning. This feature is designed to help users understand their sleep environment and improve their sleep quality.

Pillow's audio recording feature allows users to record sounds during sleep, such as snoring, sleep talking, or any other environmental noises that could be affecting their sleep. The app can detect spikes in noise and automatically record these bursts of audio. These recordings are then ordered by time and can be played back within the app.

The Environmental Audio Levels feature in Pillow tracks and charts the environmental audio levels throughout the user's sleep. It displays these values in decibels and provides minimum, maximum, and average values, along with a rating of the average noise levels. This information helps users understand the auditory landscape of their sleep environment and make necessary changes for better sleep.

In addition to audio recordings, Pillow also offers other features such as sleep cycle analysis, heart rate analysis, nap modes, and a sleep aid library. The app provides quick glanceable summaries of important sleep metrics and allows users to delve deeper with weekly, monthly, and yearly views. It also integrates with Apple Health to compare sleep quality with other health metrics like steps, weight, and caffeine consumption.

Sleep statistics

The Pillow app provides sleep statistics in the form of quick, glanceable summaries that inform users about important sleep metrics. These summaries can be viewed without opening the app, via rich notifications. The metrics include sleep quality, steps, weight, and caffeine consumption, among others. The data can be viewed weekly, monthly, and yearly, allowing users to delve deeper and identify trends in their sleep patterns.

The app also offers a sleep diary, which displays a sleep ring for the time asleep and another for the total sleep quality for the day. It provides a breakdown of various sleep stages, including periods of waking, REM, light sleep, and deep sleep, using an easy-to-read colour graphic. The sleep diary can be accessed on both iPhone and Apple Watch, although automatic mode must be enabled on both devices.

Pillow's premium features include detailed sleep history, which allows users to access unlimited sleep analysis and compare sleep trends with Apple Health data. The app also provides user-specific "snooze lab" recommendations and powernap modes, guiding users through short naps.

The app is designed to be user-friendly, with a beautiful interface and fun animations. It is well-suited for those who want to understand their sleep patterns and make informed decisions to improve their sleep quality.

Sleep stages

Sleep is divided into four stages and two categories, according to universally accepted sleep studies: Rapid Eye Movement (REM) and Non-REM (NREM). The Pillow app uses these parameters to track your sleep.

The first stage of sleep is N1 (NREM), where a person is between wakefulness and sleep. Muscular and eye activity is present in this stage, and it is the easiest sleep stage to wake from. N2 (NREM) is the second stage, where the person asleep becomes harder to wake. Muscular activity slows down significantly, but the sleeper still reacts to environmental stimuli (noises, light, etc.). N1 and N2 can be considered light sleep.

The third stage is N3 (NREM), also known as Slow Wave Sleep (SWS) or deep sleep. There is practically no muscular or eye movement, and the person asleep does not react to most environmental stimuli. The fourth and final stage is REM sleep, also known as the dream stage.

During a sleep session, these different stages alternate in successions called sleep cycles. The order in a complete sleep cycle is normally N1, N2, N3, N2, REM. A sleep cycle lasts for about 90 to 110 minutes in adults, and the time spent in each sleep stage varies. Deep sleep occupies the first few hours after falling asleep, while REM sleep increases during the sleep cycles before natural awakening. An adult without sleep disorders is expected to spend about 20% of their sleep time in the REM stage.

Pillow offers a choice between its own sleep stage analysis and Apple's for sleep stage analysis for Apple Watch users. The app can automatically track your sleep each night when you wear your Apple Watch, or you can use a manual mode. With manual mode, you can set a smart alarm to wake you up at the lightest possible sleep stage, so you feel less groggy and more ready to take on the day.

Apple Watch integration

The Pillow app is a sleep-tracking app for the Apple Watch, iPhone and iPad. It uses motion sensors and audio data to monitor and understand your sleep patterns. The app can be used to record your sleep sessions, and it will also automatically detect and analyse your sleep.

The Apple Watch integration allows users to track their sleep using the Pillow app. The app uses the Apple Watch's motion sensors and heart rate monitor to track sleep. The Apple Watch integration also provides users with a more convenient way to track their sleep, as they can simply wear their Apple Watch to bed and let the app do the rest.

To use the Pillow app with the Apple Watch, users need to enable the "Automatic" mode in the app. This will allow the app to automatically detect and analyse their sleep every day. Users can also set up a sleep session manually by opening the Pillow app on their Apple Watch and tapping the "Start" button.

The Apple Watch integration also offers users a way to view their sleep analysis directly on their Apple Watch. After stopping a sleep session, the Pillow app will display a summary of the user's sleep analysis, including their sleep stages and heart rate data. Users can also access their detailed sleep analysis on their iPhone by opening the Pillow app and tapping on the graph below the rings.

In addition to sleep analysis, the Pillow app for Apple Watch also provides users with a haptic feedback (vibration) alarm to wake them up. This can be set up directly on the Apple Watch, and the user's iPhone does not need to be connected. However, it is important to note that the Apple Watch integration does not currently support audio recordings or alarms in Automatic mode.

Frequently asked questions