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Heart rate detection

1. What it does

Enhances your sleep tracking data and awake detection.

If you have a compatible heart rate sensor, you can use it to:

  1. Gather your heart rate during the night and show it on your sleep graph

  2. Have much more precise awake detection

  3. If your wearable supports heart rate variability data collection, you will see HRV on your sleep graph too (read more about heart rate variability here)

See and example of a heart-rate enabled track in Figure 1, “Graph with heart rate tracking” and heart rate variability graph in Figure 2, “Graph with heart rate and heart rate variability”.

graph hr
Figure 1. Graph with heart rate tracking
graph hrv2
Figure 2. Graph with heart rate and heart rate variability

2. Where to find it

Enable HR monitoring for fully integrated devices

Settings → Wearables → Heart rate monitoring
This regards all devices that we explicitly integrated, such as Pebble, Mi Band, Amazefit, Fitbit, Garmin, Wear OS, Samsung Gear/Galaxy. See Smartwatch and Wearables for supported devices.
Enable HR monitoring for devices that support direct HR over BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy)

Settings → Wearables → Bluetooth Smart
This regards all other devices that have a HR sensor (such as Polar H7) and may or may not work with your device.
NOTE: Do not use this option for HR monitoring with compatible smartwatches such as Pebble, Mi Band, Amazefit, Fitbit, Garmin, Wear OS, Samsung Gear/Galaxy, etc.
Enable HR monitoring for a supported oximeter

If you have an oximeter connected in Sleep → Settings → Wearables → Pulse Oximeter, heart rate will be detected by default.
Enable HRV monitoring

If your wearable supports HRV data collection, it will be enabled automatically with HR monitoring.
Enable awake detection using heart rate data

Settings → Sleep tracking → Awake detection → Heart rate monitoring

3. Guide

3.1. How to tell if the wearable will collect HR

Only wearables, that use GATT Heart Rate Profile interface can be connected via BT smart for collecting HR data.
If you are not sure, if the HR monitoring is possible with your wearable, you can check, if it is compatible directly in the Sleep app.

  1. Try to pair with your device (this may not be required for all devices and OS versions).

  2. Make sure no other app is using your device while sleep tracking.

  3. Go to Settings → Wearables → Bluetooth Smart and tick this option.

  4. The app will start a Bluetooth scanning and lists all nearby devices.

  5. If your wearable is listed in BT scanning with a tag love icon, it uses the requi red HR profile

bt scan
Figure 3. Difference between compatible and non-compatible HR protocol
Note If your wearable is not listed with a heart tag love icon, you need to go around – save HR to S Health or Google Fit, from where Sleep as Android will download it.

3.2. Mi Bands

Check your HR settings in the Mi Fit app.
When the Mi Band is in Sleep Assistant HR mode in Mi Fit, it doesn’t feed the HR data to Mi Band Tools / Sleep as Android. When it is in regular HR tracking mode (24-hour), it works.

3.2.1. Tools&MiBand

  1. Enable Heart Rate Monitor in T&MB Left ☰ menu → Heart Rate → ic cog → Heart Rate monitor

tmb hr
Figure 4. Enabled HR monitoring in Tools&MiBand app

3.2.2. Notify&Fitness

  1. Enable heart rate monitoring in N&F ic action graph → Heart section ic cog → Heart monitor

  2. Enable collecting HR data by the Sleep app in N&F ic action graph → Sleep section ic cog → Sleep as Android → Settings → Heart monitor

nf hr2
Figure 5. Notify&Fitness HR monitoring enabled
nf hr1
Figure 6. Notify&Fintess HR data enabled for Sleep

FAQ

Cannot install app on Wear OS device

Sleep tracking with Wear OS device requires a companion app installed from the Play Store on the watch.

How to get there:

  1. Make sure the watch is connected to the phone.

  2. Go to app list on your watch, select Play Store.

  3. Find Sleep as Android and select Install.

  4. After the companion app is installed, you can enable the connection in Settings → Wearables → Use wearable → Wear OS.

  5. Test the connection in Settings → Wearables → Test sensor - you should see a graph reacting to your movement (a short delay is normal, data are sent in batches).

Note Sleep tracking collects data the night and they are analyzed in real-time. This means the watch must stay connected with BT during sleep tracking.
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Do you support / integrate my device?

For all currently supported devices, check out list of compatible devices.

If you’d like us to integrate another device, please add it as a suggestion to our suggestion forum. Also please check whether the device has an API so we can integrate it.

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How do I get BT smart heart rate device work with Sleep as Android?

  1. Enable the tracking in Settings → Wearables →Bluetooth Smart (might be hidden under Advanced section).

  2. Try to pair with your device (this may not be required for all devices and OS versions).

  3. Make sure no other app is using your device while sleep tracking.

If nothing helps please send us a debug report using Left ☰ menu → ic bug Report a bug.

Note BT Smart heart rate tracking only works from Android 4.3 onward
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Samsung Galaxy Gear - Watch app stuck on "Start tracking"

This can be a result of multiple things, so please make sure to do the following troubleshooting:

  1. Make sure you have Sleep as Android Gear Addon installed on your phone

  2. It can happen that the addon cannot be started by us if it was force stopped previously. In that case please go to Play Store app on your phone, open addon page tap on “OPEN”.

  3. Opt out of any battery savers that you might have on your phone, for all involved apps (Sleep as Android, Sleep as Android Gear Addon, Samsung Accessory Services) – to find out how to do that, please consult dontkillmyapp.com

  4. Samsung Accessory services sometimes misbehaves and prevents connection to the watch for 3rd party apps. Please uninstall and reinstall it.

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Tracking starts on its own

  1. Please make sure that you are not accidentally starting the Sleep as Android app from your watch. This would start sleep tracking immediately.

  2. Make sure you are not using automatic start of sleep tracking in Settings → Sleep tracking → Start sleep tracking.
    You can find more information about automatic sleep tracking start here.

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