The pillow app is my new favorite health app that I have started using. Like the old saying goes there is no substitute for a good nights sleep. Think about it when you have a bad nights sleep you suffer the entire next day. Just because you get a good nights sleep does not always mean its a good night sleep.
There are 4 stages of sleep
- Awake
- Light Sleep
- Deep Sleep
- Rem Sleep
Each one of these stages is important in its own way and can be monitored by the Pillow App. The pillow app works as follows you open the app right before you are about to fall asleep and hit start. Then when you wake up you hit the end button and that lets the app know when you woke up. The interesting thing is the data the app collects while you are sleeping.
The Pillow app collects a lot of data while you are sleeping using the speaker of your phone. I would like to point out that their Apple watch app is great but since I charge my watch at night I don’t use it on the watch. I have tried it and it works great.
The Pillow app records your Time In Bed and your Time Asleep. The breaks that time down by the stages of sleep then uses the time sleeping and the stages of sleep to determine the quality of your sleep that night. The pillow app then later in the day will ask you about your mood to help determine if this was enough sleep for you.
If you are wearing you Apple Watch the Pillow app with record your heart rate while you sleep and for a one time fee of $4.99 will let you listen to some of the recordings it makes of you sleeping. You can use these recordings to determine if you snore or and/or what sounds might be causing you to have an issue sleeping. I found from the recordings that I would wake up when my daughter was crying and not even remember I woke up. This like this can be very handy when trying to troubleshoot a sleeping issue or disorder.
The pillow app gives you a graphic of your entire night’s sleep and what stage of sleep you were in during what time of the night. I started using this app after I ditched my Fitbit which I used to wear to bed to monitor my sleep I personally think the app does a more accurate job then the Fitbit.
I would recommend the Pillow app to anyone who either has a hard time sleeping or does not feel refreshed when they wake up in the morning. I have heard of people using the Pillow app to find out they had a sleeping issue or had sleep apnea and were able to contact a doctor to get the issue resolved by going for a full on a sleep study.