The 7 Best Sleep Trackers To Optimize Your Health

Simple, affordable, and unobtrusive, the Sleep Tracking Pad is hands down the best way for most people to evaluate their sleep quality. Instead of altering your bedroom or forcing itself onto your body, this sleep analyzer is a pressure pad that sits below your mattress so you don’t even realize it’s there. You get detailed insights like your average resting heart rate, sleep stages with REM depth, and breathing disturbances from a mat that you simply set and forget. Getting started is so simple that the hardest part of my setup process was finding an open outlet to plug the cord into.

An ultra-thin body paired with advanced health sensors makes for the perfect sleep companion. Fitbit’s Charge 5 is a low-profile activity band with onboard GPS, advanced health sensors, and smart notifications. Since it’s a band and not a watch, the face isn’t large and doesn’t press against your wrist bone whether you're working out or rolling around in your sleep. The thinner body and cool backing make the Charge 5 the most comfortable wearable sleep tracker I tested because it doesn't create any pressure or trap sweat. Without setting the display to always-on mode, I got six nights of battery life. If you want to use the always-on color display, you can keep the bright screen going for about two full days.

Oura is a smart ring that tracks your sleep and daily activity to give you a bird's eye view of your overall health, like the Fitbit above. However, the use of infrared light and NTC skin sensors on the bottom of the ring produce more accurate biometric data than wrist-based alternatives. Google Fit and Apple Health both integrate with Oura's information so you can easily assess your sleep health over time.

With a wider band than the Fitbit Charge 5 and a larger display to match, the Apple Watch is an enticing wrist-based alternative with more smart features and app options. You won't need to grab your phone in the morning when you wake up to all of your sleep data, notifications, and social media posts directly on your wrist. As far as wearables go, the Apple Watch 8 has more capabilities and the smoothest performance at the cost of comfort and exclusivity to iPhone users. You can even download third-party sleep trackers for more detailed sleep data.

Google’s second-generation Nest Hub is a smart speaker, display, and sleep tracker all combined into one device. The sleep-tracking feature, called Sleep Sense, uses the display's position an arm's length away from you to monitor your sleep and environmental conditions, as well as time in bed, via radar and sound. Pointed at your torso, the Nest is able to break down your sleep quality by measuring your sleep periods, in addition to giving you a unique respiratory rate summary, snore detection, and coughing using microphones.

While the Withings Sleep Pad was our favorite sleep tracker overall, the company's Steel HR smartwatch is a premium option for those who like the look of a classic analog timepiece. Blending contemporary with modern, the clock's physical hands are wound directly from the app. Unlike a Fitbit or Apple Watch, there's not much digital screen space, just a tiny circle that can cycle through information like notifications and daily physical activity stats. This concession allows for a 25-day battery life, which I found was accurate during testing.

At under $40, Amazfit's Band 5 is one of the best-performing budget sleep-tracker options, with capability that rivals those quadruple the price. Its colorful and bright AMOLED display is easy to see and use throughout the day, even in the sun. At night, the band relays information like your current blood oxygen and stress levels, recording sleep cycle, heart rate, and breathing automatically. Amazon's Alexa assistant is built-in for controlling your smart home, setting reminders, and getting quick answers to your burning questions. The Amazfit offers the most bang for your buck, at the cost of measurement accuracy, often coming a percentage or two off per statistic.