Hi there, it's Matt here and welcome back to an episode I've had so, so many requests for,

basically a user's guide to sleep trackers. Today we're diving deep into how sleep trackers actually work,

what the science tells us about their accuracy, and which

devices seem to perform best, at least according to peer-reviewed research by independent

scientific groups. Something to say right up front. There are over a hundred different sleep trackers out there

based on a research search that I did. I wish I could cover all of them, but of course I'm

unable to do that. Instead, I've decided to focus on perhaps the top five or six sleep

trackers based on publicly available sales figures.

That said, this episode is as much about discussing different sleep trackers as it is for you

the consumer to really better understand in general how do they actually work, what you should

focus on when making your buying

choice, and what are they and what are they not good for?

Also, we're going to be examining, as I said, peer-reviewed studies.

These are studies that have been submitted to journals and other academics have reviewed.

The scientists work.

This is how we work in science.

And it's going to focus on those peer-reviewed independent scientific studies that compare

these devices, these sleep tracker devices, to gold standard sleep measurements, which is

polysumography sleep laboratory recordings. In other words, like my

center here at UC Berkeley, you have lots of electrodes all over your head, your face, your body,

you look like a spaghetti monster. That is the gold standard, and that's what we're going to be

comparing these devices to. And we're going to be looking at these independent research studies rather than

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