Hello Guest, Welcome to Apnea Board !
As a guest, you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use.
To post a message, you must create a free account using a valid email address.

or Create an Account


New Posts   Today's Posts

My Sleep Record according to my (not so) Smart Samsung Watch
#1
My Sleep Record according to my (not so) Smart Samsung Watch
If you rely on your shiny new and very expensive smart watch to give you a run down of how you slept last night, you need to pay attention to detail, if it happens to be a $400 Samsung Galaxy that does everything else, from telling the time to displaying your emails and other notifications and of course answering or making calls to keeping a record of your Heart Rate and of course to telling you how well you slept last night. I can even leave my smartphone at home and just take the watch and never miss a call, text or email.....except that Samsung Galaxy does not do a great job of the latter, your manner of sleep. 

According to "Sleep Foundation", an American non-profit organization which produces health related articles around the science of sleep (an as well all other sleep science bodies), the pattern of sleep is constructed with defined stages that occur in sequential order of Wake, Light sleep, Deep sleep and REM (Rapid Eye Movement, which is when you get most of your technicolor dreams), and then  the loop is repeated from the beginning, so even though you might think that you slept through the night (even if you are very healthy and have no Apnea issues), you still go through several loops of this cycle through the night and this is of course how you would expect to see your smart watch software to report on it, in clear "sequential" order.

This is where (as far as I can tell), the software on this particular model of Samsung Galaxy Smartwatch (model # SM-R805Uxxxx series) gets it wrong, in that it graphs your sleep in the order of Wake, REM,Light and Deep. Of course you don't go from being awake to Rapid Eye Movement stage and then suddenly back to Light sleep and off you go hopping into deep:-)
   
I have sent Samsung 3 notices to fix this issue in the past year alone and I know if I noticed this issue, several others must have already done the same long before i did, yet the watch still shows sleep in this disorder, despite the fact that they have "updated" their OS several times in the past year already (Samsung used their own operating system called "TIZEN" on their smart watches and has only recently moved on to using Google on the 4 series).

I also have another Samsung smart watch, a Gear Fit-2 Pro that takes care of reporting on sleep among other health related matters , but the software shows sleep graph in somewhat of a proper order, however not as defined as Galaxy Smart watch, and the FIT 2 Pro uses the same Tizen OS so it is hard to understand why sleep reports are different between different models.
   
Do you relay on your smart watch sleep record data? If so, is it more accurate than Samsung? Perhaps you too have this model of Samsung and never paid attention, so tell us your story and don't be shy. As a consumer you are supposed to get what you pay for and when it comes to smart watches like Samsung, we are not talking cheap Chinese knock offs. These things must reflect the precision and quality that goes with the steep prices that you pay for them.
Post Reply Post Reply
#2
RE: My Sleep Record according to my (not so) Smart Samsung Watch
Devices like you describe use only a couple pieces of data to infer sleep stage -- pulse rate and movement.  That simply isn't enough, and never will be.

Now there are some pretty well-developed algorithms that can infer quite a bit about sleep stages based on pulse rate change over time and pulse rate variability.  But it's still looking at pulse rate, not EEG.  And without EEG, it's going to be an estimate (educated guess) only.  Even if they add a "don't skip a phase when depicting stages on the graph", that isn't going to fix the real problem -- because they simply don't have the data needed to accurately report sleep stage.

Bottom line, Samsung (and other manufactures of such devices) cannot "fix this issue" unless/until they add EEG detection -- which is unlikely to happen on a wrist device anytime in the foreseeable future.  What they should fix (but won't) is their advertising claims.
Post Reply Post Reply
#3
RE: My Sleep Record according to my (not so) Smart Samsung Watch
Yes, I understand even though my model takes data such as HR, Temperature, Movement via its built in gyroscope among other inputs. It is surprisingly accurate with the timing too and tends to understand the entire sleep cycle to within a 5 minute accuracy range.
We can't all be hooked up to an ECG or a more sophisticated device for recording a more accurate account of our sleep, so a watch fills that gap nicely as all I want to know is roughly how much deep and REM sleep I got (the important parts of sleep).

The point in my original post however is not how well these devices can record sleep data, but the fact that on at least this particular model the reported order itself is wrong.
It could be something as small as just a translation issue from Korean to English, but it needs to be fixed.
Post Reply Post Reply
#4
RE: My Sleep Record according to my (not so) Smart Samsung Watch
The order of sleep stages that you describe is highly idealized. In fact, the stages can occur in many different orders. The order can vary from one part of a given night to another, and from one night to another night. Relevant variables include age, alcohol or caffeine consumption, pain, noise, spontaneous arousals, ambient temperature and light, and many more.

That's not to say your device is accurate; maybe it is, maybe it isn't.
Post Reply Post Reply
#5
RE: My Sleep Record according to my (not so) Smart Samsung Watch
Not according to science of sleep that has gone through decades of studies.
In short you don't simply jump from being awake into REM sleep with no transitory stage in between, as this model of Samsung suggests.
Post Reply Post Reply
#6
RE: My Sleep Record according to my (not so) Smart Samsung Watch
I've seen many hypnograms from polysomnographic sleep studies, and I think not one of them shows the idealized progression. -- This reminds me that, of course, another relevant variable is sleep apnea!

Yes, it would be quite unusual to go straight from waking to REM, though your device doesn't seem to be reporting that. (But maybe I missed it.) Even there, it's not impossible, e.g., for people with narcolepsy.
Post Reply Post Reply
#7
RE: My Sleep Record according to my (not so) Smart Samsung Watch
Oukayyyy:-)
Post Reply Post Reply
#8
RE: My Sleep Record according to my (not so) Smart Samsung Watch
Okay, I re-read your original post, and looked closely at the graphic....

I take it you are not complaining about the "accuracy" of the chart, but that the "labels" are not in the order you think they should be.

   

The reason this is so confusing...  The web is full of information.  Some charts depict cycles in order of "depth", while other depict them in order of "cycle progression".  Assuming normal progression, REM is the last phase in PROGRESSION, but it is not the deepest defined stage (that's stage 4).   

Stage 4 NREM is "deep" sleep.  Note the "NREM" term there, for non-REM.  Normal (or "typical") progression goes from Awake, through Stages1-4, then bounces to REM -- which has tons of brain activity, and therefore not considered "deep" sleep.  It's typically the "last" phase in normal progression, but far from the "deepest" phase in terms of brain activity.

Correspondingly, the depiction Samsung (and most trackers) use is based on "depth" (which corresponds to mental activity) and not "progression" (which refers to sequence).  They put REM at the top because it has more "mental activity" than deep (or even light) sleep.  REM is it's own category, separate from NREM stages 1-4.

Bottom line, there is nothing wrong with Samsung (or Fitbit, or others) using the order "AWAKE-REM-LIGHT-DEEP" on their charts.  They are simply trying to order the phases based on their "depth" (mental activity), rather than on their "normal first cycle sequence".

For further reading, do some Google searches and filter them to look at medical texts and university studies.  Pay close attention to the definitions of "REM" and "NREM", then also look closely at the difference between "depth" (in terms of mental activity) and "sequence" (in terms of normal first-cycle progression).
Post Reply Post Reply
#9
RE: My Sleep Record according to my (not so) Smart Samsung Watch
Not to pile on, but I would care way more about calling deep sleep deep, and REM sleep REM. how accurate it is at sorting between other sleep stages and those. I think the best current predictive software can do is something like 65% accuracy. And it assumes some of the readings will be deep sleep, because nearly all humans have some. But, we know not all do. Sadly.

Good discussion, all!

QAL
Post Reply Post Reply
#10
RE: My Sleep Record according to my (not so) Smart Samsung Watch
Hum, not sure about that explanation, since (as I mentioned with a screenshot) in my OP, my Samsung Fit-2 Pro presents the sleep order differently (and much closer to the scientific definition  of sleep staging. All Samsung devices use Samsung Health app to make their recording presentations in graphical forms, yet my Galaxy Smart Watch model is the only one that I know of which presents the sleep staging differently (out of order).
Here's my Fit-2 Pro:
   

Scientific description of sleep staging, as described by all sleep science bodies is as follows;
......."Each cycle moves through each stage of sleep, sequentially : Awake, light sleep, deep sleep, REM, and repeat.
Cycles earlier in the night tend to have more deep sleep while later cycles have a higher proportion of REM.
Body may skip "deep sleep" at times and transit from Light to REM.
Other stages do not get skipped or reordered in general"

You make a great explanation of how smart watches monitor sleep data though. Good job.
Post Reply Post Reply


Possibly Related Threads...
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  New APAP machine: Lowenstein Prisma Smart Max Robert Detz 10 373 03-21-2024, 07:58 AM
Last Post: WisNaeMe
  [CPAP] PRISMA SMART MAX PROBLEMS WITH SOFTPAP LEVEL 2 rretamalt 18 2,015 03-19-2024, 06:17 PM
Last Post: motivationalGust
  1 year on CPAP - No progress: Lowenstein Prisma Smart phoen1kx 30 1,481 03-15-2024, 04:47 PM
Last Post: phoen1kx
  [Treatment] Request for Sleep Data review compared to Sleep Study thesingingchef 2 165 03-14-2024, 05:14 PM
Last Post: thesingingchef
  Smart Watches/devices Fourkidletts 172 16,479 03-02-2024, 10:52 PM
Last Post: dataq1
  adding sleep report (Wondering whether changing sleep position can "cure" apnea) NewlyDiagnosed 1 208 02-26-2024, 10:19 PM
Last Post: BoxcarPete
  OSCAR says: "Resmed Airsense 10 does not record detailed data"! Really? PappaJoe 3 480 02-14-2024, 06:38 PM
Last Post: Crimson Nape


New Posts   Today's Posts


About Apnea Board

Apnea Board is an educational web site designed to empower Sleep Apnea patients.