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Android Apps that measure breathing? - camper2 - 07-22-2019

I seek an Android phone app that does a good job of measuring breathing, comparable to the flow rate plots that OSCAR or Sleepyhead can capture from CPAP machines, preferably by using the phone's accelerometer.

I don't want an app that uses the smartphone as a sonar, because of possible hand motions and a fan. I want something simple and reliable. I found a good app for snoring, but not yet for breathing. I have a Samsung Galaxy S5 Android phone with a built in accelerometer and gyroscope, and a way to mount in front of my diaphram. (I do not sleep prone.)

I want this to establish a baseline test for my sleep apnea problems, but also to see whether pillows, sleep positions, neck collar, timing, fan, blanket, allergy pills, pre-sleep shower, etc., can suppress snoring, produce a normal range AHI, and reduce sleep time to be well rested, without CPAP. After almost two months, I still find CPAP uncomfortable and sometimes inconvenient. In addition, the required cleaning and maintenance time for the CPAP reduces the amount of sleep I can get. The CPAP machine is also problematic for extended back-country trips.

I am still using the CPAP machine, with OSCAR/Sleepyhead,  to monitor breathing. I could set my CPAP Machine CPAP pressure to stay at 4 CM of H2O. I haven't done that yet, but during some of my experiments, the pressure stays close to that, with no snoring, the AHI stays within normal range, and the sleep time needed to feel well rested is greatly reduced. But 4 CM of H2O may be enough to effect the results, so I need an alternate equivalent way to measure breathing, without the CPAP.

(I distrust my sleep study baseline and titrated AHIs because I had trouble falling asleep, and they over-estimated sleep time by an order of magnitude, creating substantial systematic biases. They did not create good enough records for me to estimate more accurate AHIs. Also, the sleep therapist from h--- insisted on using nasal detectors and nasal-mounted masks that were painful to wear, though I am a mouth breather, the sheets and pillowcases made me itch all night, and I was unaccustomed to sleeping in the position I was forced to use. In addition, I had not yet tried any sleep hygiene experiments. The insurance company required those sleep studies, but IMO, they were diagnostically useless.)

BTW, I've tried a pulse/oximeter and a ZEO EEG, but the results are difficult to interpret.


RE: Android Apps that measure breathing? - RNeil - 07-24-2019

Your CPAP machine monitors breathing. I don't think you can monitor breathing better than that.

For other parameters, there are watches that have accelerometers and heart rate monitors. The accelerometers are for monitoring tossing and turning, not breathing. The phone can't measure heart rate and you would need a standard way to attach it to your body to measure your movement.

Fitbit makes such watches. There are also a lot of them that use the Veryfitpro cell phone app. These total the total sleep time, deep sleep, light sleep and "awake sleep". I bought an ID107plus watch that uses the Veryfitpro app. I don't know if the information is any good. I also do not know how to synchronize the watch to my phone. The manual says that after initial setup, synchronization is automatic. For 10 out of 18 days, it shows zero sleep and zero steps. I think I will return it.


RE: Android Apps that measure breathing? - camper2 - 07-24-2019

(07-24-2019, 04:24 PM)RNeil Wrote: Your CPAP machine monitors breathing. I don't think you can monitor breathing better than that.

Sorry if I wasn't clear. I want to estimate my apnea rate when I'm NOT on the machine.

Smart watches can't do that.

Neither can a pulse/oximeter, though it does add interesting info - e.g., I apparently sometimes take a deep breath while asleep. My oxygen saturation level goes up, after a lag time, and for whatever reason, my breathing more or less stops for a bit - but sometimes my oxygen saturation level doesn't drop below normal as a result. Nonetheless, my CPAP machine sometimes incorrectly interprets that as a hypopnea, because it doesn't have access to the oximeter data.

However, a pulse/oximeter alone doesn't provide enough information to guess when I am asleep, and it is easily confused by hand motion. My crude Zeo EEG doesn't seem to be very reliable at that either - it thinks I was asleep some of the time I know I was awake. The companion for Zeo app does have a way to interact with the smartphone to tell it I'm still awake - but it involves a lot of effort to use that capability - which would keep me awake. Even the CPAP machine can't really tell - because I'm using Yoga breathing and relaxation exercises to help me get to sleep (which often confuse full in-lab analysis, as it did in my case) - but breathing is the best simple indicator I can think of.

I've done some more reading online. A lot of people propose measuring breathing with an smartphone accelerometer in published research, and they also propose using the gyroscope to measure body position. There have been some studies in which it was actually done, but I'm not sure I can get and use their apps.

I'm going to look at the apps in https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5698521 and maybe other sources, and I'm going to search Google Play for "sleep" and "accelerometer", and see if I can find something (preferably free Smile). I was hoping someone else here had already looked and tried one.


RE: Android Apps that measure breathing? - RNeil - 07-25-2019

If you search Amazon for sleep monitor, they have a lot of stuff. This includes devices that have a belt that goes around your chest and measures breathing. You need to filter out the snake oil.

Your question is very interesting. If you learn anything new, please post it.


RE: Android Apps that measure breathing? - Stom - 07-25-2019

(07-24-2019, 05:31 PM)camper2 Wrote:
(07-24-2019, 04:24 PM)RNeil Wrote: Your CPAP machine monitors breathing. I don't think you can monitor breathing better than that.

Sorry if I wasn't clear. I want to estimate my apnea rate when I'm NOT on the machine.

Smart watches can't do that.

Neither can a pulse/oximeter, though it does add interesting info - e.g., I apparently sometimes take a deep breath while asleep. My oxygen saturation level goes up, after a lag time, and for whatever reason, my breathing more or less stops for a bit - but sometimes my oxygen saturation level doesn't drop below normal as a result. Nonetheless, my CPAP machine sometimes incorrectly interprets that as a hypopnea, because it doesn't have access to the oximeter data.

However, a pulse/oximeter alone doesn't provide enough information to guess when I am asleep, and it is easily confused by hand motion. My crude Zeo EEG doesn't seem to be very reliable at that either - it thinks I was asleep some of the time I know I was awake. The companion for Zeo app does have a way to interact with the smartphone to tell it I'm still awake - but it involves a lot of effort to use that capability - which would keep me awake. Even the CPAP machine can't really tell - because I'm using Yoga breathing and relaxation exercises to help me get to sleep (which often confuse full in-lab analysis, as it did in my case) - but breathing is the best simple indicator I can think of.

I've done some more reading online. A lot of people propose measuring breathing with an smartphone accelerometer in published research, and they also propose using the gyroscope to measure body position. There have been some studies in which it was actually done, but I'm not sure I can get and use their apps.

I'm going to look at the apps in https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5698521 and maybe other sources, and I'm going to search Google Play for "sleep" and "accelerometer", and see if I can find something (preferably free Smile). I was hoping someone else here had already looked and tried one.

There are methods of recording your respiration *rate* that you can buy - sensors you put under your mattress or point in your general direction from your bed stand - but they don't measure respiratory flow and can't distinguish between central and obstructive apneas. I think you need to specify what, exactly, you hope to measure. There are some studies looking at no-contact sleep apnea sleep studies, but I'm not aware of any that have been approved yet for reliable diagnosis of sleep apnea.


RE: Android Apps that measure breathing? - RNeil - 07-28-2019

"There are methods of recording your respiration *rate* that you can buy - sensors you put under your mattress or point in your general direction from your bed stand"

That is what I meant by "snake oil". I don't believe these sensors would be worth anything. But a cell phone might be able to detect snoring.


RE: Android Apps that measure breathing? - Sleepster - 07-28-2019

(07-24-2019, 05:31 PM)camper2 Wrote: Sorry if I wasn't clear. I want to estimate my apnea rate when I'm NOT on the machine.

The best estimate is what they recorded during your sleep study. No phone app can come anywhere near that in terms of accuracy.

Monitor your blood oxygen concentration with an oximeter if you want to know what's going on each night that you're not using a CPAP machine. Besides lowering your life expectancy, increasing your risk of cardiovascular disease and stroke, and leading a miserable sleep-deprived life, that is.


RE: Android Apps that measure breathing? - Stom - 07-29-2019

(07-28-2019, 08:41 PM)RNeil Wrote: "There are methods of recording your respiration *rate* that you can buy - sensors you put under your mattress or point in your general direction from your bed stand"

That is what I meant by "snake oil". I don't believe these sensors would be worth anything. But a cell phone might be able to detect snoring.

Those methods are real. Vibration sensors in the under-mattress Serta Sleeptracker really can detect respiration. And RF sensors used in devices like the ResMed S+and the SleepScore Max can detect respiration as well. But not flow rate. And such sensors are being investigated for use in diagnosing apnea since no contact sleep testing could help patients sleep more normally during a test.

One thing you may be referring to that seems like snake oil is the supposed "Sonar" offered by SleepScore as a stand alone app that didn't need their SleepScore Max RF sensor. They claimed that the app could send out sounds and receive a sonar return on the microphone on validated phones to measure sleep. I suspect they just measured the noise you make moving or snoring...but that's just a suspicion.


RE: Android Apps that measure breathing? - RNeil - 08-15-2019

I did not return the monitoring watch. I figured out how to download the data. I open Veryfitpro on my cell phone and leave it on the initial screen. If it still has zero steps after 5 minutes, I close the application and try again. It tracks the length of deep sleep, light sleep and total. It is reporting that my deep sleep is very variable. It is between 2 and 4 hours.


RE: Android Apps that measure breathing? - sheepless - 08-15-2019

Stom, IDK about sleepscore but "sleep as android" has many useful features including a sonar alternative to actigraphy to measure body movements which are interpreted by algorithms. they claim sonar and actigraphy are near equal in accuracy. my gut assessment (fwiw) is that the accuracy of any measurements like these would vary more by the caliber of the algorithms than between these two methods of measurement.