What are the best sleep apps for Android & iOS?
What are the best sleep apps for Android & iOS? We’ve found some of the best sleep apps for your iOS or Android device that can help you relax, switch off, and keep track of your personal sleep routine.
Finding time to get enough sleep has been a struggle ever since we invented artificial light. No longer tied to a simple day-night cycle, we’ve pushed harder and harder into the night, spending more and more time away from our beds. While burning the midnight oil may be necessary once in a while, it’s imperative to our health that we find the time to get our heads down for a good amount of sleep as often as possible.
But sometimes it’s not that easy. Modern life is stressful and shutting down can be easier said than done. If you’re having trouble sorting out your sleep patterns, there are things you can do to help ease you into sleep. If chamomile tea, brisk evening walks, and reading in bed aren’t helping you out, then we’ve found some of the best sleep apps for your iOS or Android device that can help you relax, switch off, and keep track of your personal sleep routine. So whether you’re looking for soothing sounds of nature, a smart alarm that wakes you up at the right time, or just a simple clock in-clock out system to track your sleep, here are the apps that you need.
Apple Health
If you’re using an iPhone with iOS 13, then you’ve already got a functional sleep tracker installed. Apple Health has built-in sleep tracking that records the time between when you go to bed at night and when you get up again in the morning. There’s little else here, unfortunately, and if you want more stats, you’ll need another app. But there are still reasons to come back after you install something else. Apple Health admirably serves as a repository for data, so it can import data from other sleep apps like Sleep Cycle. Having all your health data in one app makes it easier to see trends and see how a lack of sleep may affect your day. So it’s still worth keeping an eye on, even if you download another app.
Sleep Cycle
If you want to improve your sleep and not just track it, then check out Sleep Cycle. Sleep Cycle aims to wake you up at the right time in your sleep phases, using your phone’s sensors to keep track of your movement, noises, and position while you sleep. It will wake you up slowly at the optimal time in a specified window, ensuring you wake feeling refreshed and ready for the day. There’s plenty here for stat-lovers, including deep analysis of your sleep patterns, and daily sleep graphs. Unfortunately, you’ll have to pay for the Premium mode to get the best features, like the sleep aid feature that helps ease you into rest. The premium version costs $30 a year.
Rain Rain Sleep Sounds
Remember when you were a kid, and the sound of the rain in the car would gently lull you to sleep? If that’s a memory you share and you’re having trouble sleeping, then Rain Rain Sleep Sounds might help you relax. Rain Rain Sleep Sounds has a catalog of over 25 natural noises to help you get to sleep, including rain on a tent, distant thunderstorms, and crashing ocean waves. Fancy hearing a thunderstorm over the ocean from your tent? You can mix each track together to get the perfect sound that’ll help you. There’s no need to worry about it being on all night either — a custom timer will slowly fade the sounds out, giving you a peaceful night’s rest after you nod off.
Sleepa
On Android and want even more sound options? Sleepa comes with 32 carefully selected sounds, sorted into four different categories: Rain, city, nature, and meditation sounds. Like other apps, you can mix these different sounds together to create your own personal spin, or simply use each one with the built-in timer to fade away when you fall asleep. If you’re something of a sound purist, Sleepo also contains tracks for white, pink, and brown noise. Thanks to the wide range of noises available, you’re sure to find a selection that helps you to drift off.
Download for Android
Sleep Genius ($5)
Developed using information from NASA’s own research on helping astronauts sleep, Sleep Genius claims to offer the world’s first truly scientific app for aiding sleep. It does this through a specific relaxation program that slows your heart rate, stabilizes your brain, and helps you to release tension and stress from the day, easing you into a sleepy state. It also functions as a smart alarm, with a gradually rising alarm that aims to wake you slowly and naturally after your rest. Interestingly, it also comes with a power nap function that lets you take short, restful naps to boost your performance through the day. It’s the first app on this list you have to pay for upfront, but it’s worth a look if you haven’t found success with other apps.
Sleep As Android
What sort of sleep app list would this be without mention of Sleep as Android? One of Android’s most successful sleep apps, Urbandroid really took advantage of Android’s open platform, and Sleep as Android is one of the most interconnected sleep apps that you can get on an Android device. Capable of talking to a variety of smartwatches, Sleep as Android is also integrated with fitness apps like Google Fit and Samsung Health, so you can be sure you’re getting enough sleep to match your activity levels. It comes with sleep, movement, and snore tracking, can play sounds to help you sleep, and can even control Philips HUE smart bulbs. It’s one of the finest examples of a connected Android app, and well worth your time to set up.
Download for Android
Samsung Health
Samsung’s own health app comes installed on Samsung’s devices, but is also available for other Android phones. Samsung Health is primarily a fitness tracker, but it does have some sleep tracking capabilities. While we’d normally avoid fitness trackers that otherwise have sleep trackers built-in, Samsung Health has a few features that make it stand out from the crowd of sleep tracking apps. Samsung Health will attempt to automatically record your sleep times, based on your activity with your phone. So if you put down your phone just before bed, and pick it up again shortly after waking, Samsung Health can help to keep track of your sleep records with little interaction from yourself. In addition, the app will record your sleep and wake times and rate them accordingly so you can always chase a higher rating for better sleep.
Pillow
Pillow is a sleep tracker for iOS devices that works with your Apple Watch to supply more detailed information than a normal sleep tracker. Thanks to integration with the Apple Watch’s heart rate sensor, Pillow helps to keep an even closer eye on you while you sleep, keeping note of your resting heart rate and the movements you make during the night. Thanks to Pillow’s integration with iOS devices, you can also use the same account across all your iOS devices. Pillow also comes with a power nap mode, smart alarms, and iCloud support for free, and it supports a whole raft of premium features like personalized sleep reports, and integration with Apple’s health app for a one-time payment of $5.
Download for iOS
Calm: Meditation
Sometimes you just need to calm down a little before bed, and that’s where apps like Calm: Meditation come in. While not purely focused on aiding sleep, Calm does contain several guided meditation courses and sleep stories that help to promote stress relief before bed, and aim to put the user in a deeper and more relaxed sleep. For those who don’t enjoy hearing a voice, Calm also has soothing sounds of nature to help you drift off. The other courses help with stress relief, and could aid your sleep by helping you to live a calmer and more relaxed life. Some courses require a subscription fee for access.
Sleep Better
From popular fitness app developer Runtastic, Sleep Better aims to make tracking your sleep into less of a chore, and more of a daily diary. Sleep Better supports logging your sleep times, has a smart alarm that aims to wake you at the right time, and uses sensors to monitor your sleeping state. Sleep Better also allows you to go even deeper into various details of your sleep by including a dream diary, caffeine and alcohol tracker, and even the phases of the moon. This might seem a bit much, but it’s all to allow you to see what really helps you to sleep, and what’s keeping you awake. This app can ask a lot of you, but if you’re willing to go deep into the intensive logging spree, you’re sure to learn a lot about how you sleep.
Download for Android
Unfortunately, while this is still a great app, Runstastic has confirmed it is shutting down the Sleep Better app. While you’ll still be able to use the app if you already use it, there will be no more support offered, and the app will disappear from app stores. As of the date of this writing, it has disappeared from the Apple App Store, and we expect the Google Play Store to follow suit, eventually. We’ll remove the app when from this list when that happens, but for now we’ve moved it down the list.
Source: digitaltrends
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