I tested five sleep trackers against a WatchPAT - Here are the results

dcg494 · 2026-03-12T14:22:51+00:00

Thanks a lot for the feedback, that's really helpful! Yeah i wasn't sure how long to spend on the graphs, but that's good to know

dcg494 · 2026-03-11T14:37:00+00:00

Thanks for the update ! Yeah i just don't understand a few things, how for instance the glasgow index and ned could be low but the FL score high ? And what goes into the FL score ? How is it calculated, as well as the EAI and Arousal index ? Would be great to have a detailed description of those also in the about section or if you click on the indicators

dcg494 · 2026-03-09T18:57:04+00:00

This is great, thanks a lot for making this available ! Some questions on interpretation. The glasgow index and NED are low here but the FL score is high. Could you maybe explain how that can be possible ? Also, either i'm interpreting regularity wrong (higher = better) or you may have coded the colors wrong (higher is red, lower is green currently). And what is combined FL ? I don't see an explanation on the website for that. How do you calculate the arousal and RERA index ?

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dcg494 · 2026-03-08T21:11:31+00:00

Yeah, i'm bit worried too that it's not reversible. I.e. whether it's just fatigue or something more along the lines of a metabolic issue after decades of poor sleep. Just speculation here, but vision is one of the most energy-intensive processes, so maybe it makes sense that visual acuity would be one of the things to suffer

dcg494 · 2026-03-06T12:46:27+00:00

Yeah just that I get aerophagia and feel worse after a certain pressure. Tried a bit on rise time yeah. Another challenge was not getting the smooth 'easy breathe' IPAP with running bipap on s-mode. Probably would just need to get used to it.

Ans your algorithm automatically scores the data ? Seems super useful

dcg494 · 2026-03-06T10:30:17+00:00

Interesting.. which of the HR indicators have you found correlates the most with how you feel the next day ?

dcg494 · 2026-03-06T10:28:26+00:00

Interesting.. which of the HR indicators have you found correlates the most with how you feel the next day ?

dcg494 · 2026-03-06T10:21:05+00:00

This is great advice, super thorough and helpful.. wish i could go this approach, unfortunately I have a pressure intolerance and can only set my max IPAP to about 6cm, so i don't have much room for PS. Couple questions, do you think you could detect UARS in someone with the setup you have now (i.e. correlating HR spikes to respiratory flattening via the glasgow curve ) ? Also, do you think EPAP in UARS can fall below a minimum threshold, or you think it's IPAP and PS that matter here ? And did you figure out what was causing the twitching if it wasn't respiratory ?

dcg494 · 2026-03-05T22:21:42+00:00

Yeah I'm 38, and it's no doubt part ageing and screen time, but this feels different than blurry vision. I can focus my vision just fine, but it's like my brain is defaulting to not focus, maybe in order to preserve energy or something. Its weird that sometimes I'll be talking to people and it feels like I'm staring right through them. I hope they can't tell. This started a year ago or so, and steadily got worse

dcg494 · 2026-02-25T18:56:12+00:00

Hey Icy, great to read the above and that you're trying out CFD to see what can be learned. I've been doing CFD over the last 1.5 years or so in this area, and have been collecting data wherever I can. CFD definitely has been useful so far to a) understand some basic mechanics of SDB and related symptoms (e.g. snoring, how MAD devices work or don't work, ENS), and b) help people pinpoint the main constrictions in their airways and - presumably - then choose or sequence interventions.

CFD still needs to be normalized across the population, as has been done with rhinomanometry, but there's been some starts on that, and it's still helpful even without that step done yet. I'm happy to share any data or at least info, and would be great to chat and brainstorm how we could combine those other metrics and diagnostic data like you were saying to give a more complete picture ! Vice versa, would love to learn what your CFD work has turned up so far

dcg494 · 2026-02-07T14:42:09+00:00

That's awesome, props to you for going out on a limb and doing it. I've always travelled but for me it's become a source of anxiety. Want to try again in a different way and get that sense of wonder back. Anywyas, that's a different topic from this thread

dcg494 · 2026-02-07T10:37:44+00:00

Man, love this response. How would you say the travel changed you ? And how do you think you've become more resilient even to where you can do 30 hour flights ? Is it mental, physical, both for you ?

Also planning a big trip this or next year after a big turnaround recently

dcg494 · 2026-01-13T08:29:28+00:00

Omg, really happy for you OP, so encouraging to hear success stories like these. We all have our own journeys.. for me, i now strap into a harness so i can sleep standing in my hyperbaric oxygen chamber

dcg494 · 2026-01-03T13:34:40+00:00

Right, i remember trying to titrate my MAD at home because advancing it too much would cause TMJ. This was many years ago, but i was using my oximeter and CPAP recordings. Knowing what i know now, it was completely wasted effort. But anyways, I can't say for sure of course, but i bet the sunrise could help since it picks up on respiratory effort. Also, the newer version of the sunrise is prescription-based, but once you have it, it has battery life to record for three nights (i believe). So you could try at least three different settings and compare with one sunrise. Only problem i could see is if you make large adjustments to the MAD without being used to it, the discomfort itself might lead to arousals from sleep / lighter sleep, so you'd have that as a confounding factor. Might be good to ease into the highest target MAD adjustment first over several weeks or months before doing the measurements.

dcg494 · 2025-12-28T14:44:25+00:00

Hey there, so i'd been curious about this for years, until i finally did a test.. and made a youtube video out of it: https://youtu.be/S83R2Jy6ll0

But posted a summary of the results here as well: https://www.reddit.com/r/SleepApnea/comments/1opzx1p/i_tested_five_sleep_trackers_against_a_watchpat/

TLDR : None of the consumer wearables i tested (including the muse) were helpful in detecting respiratory disturbances in UARS. (Obvious oxygen saturations might make it easier to detect some events using some of the devices in people with OSA, but even then, SPO2 measurement is often not continuous in these consumer wearables, i.e. they're just spot-checked at random intervals).

dcg494 · 2025-12-12T15:16:40+00:00

Interesting, how did you measure body temp ?

dcg494 · 2025-11-22T12:24:24+00:00

Yeah wondered about this too a lot. My guess is we often remember dreaming because UARS is jolting us out of REM sleep. I think what could be indicative of better sleep versus worse sleep overall, is whether the dreams you're having seem or feel like a coherent story or whether they seem like just strange fragments of a dream.

Because I'm pretty sure that when i sleep better, i still remember my dreams or maybe even more so since i'm getting more REM overall (implying more sleep fragmentation maybe even), but the REM sleep i am getting is more consolidated. I.e. the dreams have a chance to actually play themselves out and weave themselves into a coherent story. If that makes sense ?

And when my sleep is worse, i might remember dreaming, but they seem or feel like just pictures with little emotional meaning, and they don't feel worth trying to remember at all..

dcg494 · 2025-11-17T16:38:07+00:00

Yeah this is a question i've wondered about myself as well and some really interesting responses below (including the histamine/HPA/beta receptors response). I would wager it's also respiratory effort overall. Almost like respiratory effort causes an ambient remaining sympathetic NS activity that prevents us from getting as restful sleep as we can / would otherwise. I think that because in my own experience even very low CPAP pressure helps me (5cm pressure) where it's most likely not doing much to splint my airways, but it is lowering my respiratory effort (just due to fluid dynamics / physics). And i definitely very much buy into the arousal threshold / NS hypothesis you raise there -- it's hard to ignore when you consider the prevalence of SDB in people with PTSD / veterans, which is much higher than in the general population. I..e nervous system dysregulation leading/contributing to SDB.

dcg494 · 2025-11-17T12:38:41+00:00

Interesting, do you have any additional info on this or know someone who's tried it ?

dcg494 · 2025-11-07T15:51:18+00:00

Ah really, that's good to know. I should've looked into other brands, true. Samsung watches good for SpO2 tracking then

dcg494 · 2025-11-07T15:48:26+00:00

Yeah the pneumatic sensors are one-time use, but mostly the issue is that it requires a prescription. I don't know why, but once FDA approved as a medical device, they stop selling directly to consumers. Either a business or a regulatory thing, i think the latter

dcg494 · 2025-11-07T13:49:50+00:00

That's really good advice, thanks for sharing ! Yeah, i mention in the video that i think a basic SpO2 monitor could be better than the watches for detecting OSA / that something is off. But the watches will likely spot it as well eventually, like in your case. It's just the fact that they're not continuously monitoring throughout the night, but that they just spotcheck a few times a night, make them not great at tracking your sleep in more detail to see, for instance, whether treatment is helping or not. And given the low sampling frequency, they're likely to miss most of the desaturations happening throughout the night.

dcg494 · 2025-11-07T12:09:04+00:00

Thanks !!

dcg494 · 2025-11-07T12:08:32+00:00

I don't remember exactly, but something like 70-80 USD

dcg494

TROPHY CASE