Sleep Parameter Assessment Accuracy of a Consumer Home Sleep Monitoring Ballistocardiograph Beddit Sleep Tracker: A Validation Study

Study objectives: Growing interest in monitoring sleep and well-being has created a market for consumer home sleep monitoring devices. Additionally, sleep disorder diagnostics, and sleep and dream research would benefit from reliable and valid home sleep monitoring devices. Yet, majority of currently available home sleep monitoring devices lack validation. In this study, the sleep parameter assessment accuracy of Beddit Sleep Tracker (BST), an unobtrusive and non-wearable sleep monitoring device based on ballistocardiography, was evaluated by comparing it with polysomnography (PSG) measures. We measured total sleep time (TST), sleep onset latency (SOL), wake after sleep onset (WASO), and sleep efficiency (SE). Additionally, we examined whether BST can differentiate sleep stages.

Methods: We performed sleep studies simultaneously with PSG and BST in ten healthy young adults (5 female/5 male) during two non-consecutive nights in a sleep laboratory.

Results: BST was able to distinguish SOL with some accuracy. However, it underestimated WASO and thus overestimated TST and SE. Also, it failed to discriminate between non-rapid eye movement sleep stages and did not detect the rapid eye movement sleep stage.

Conclusions: These findings indicate that BST is not a valid device to monitor sleep. Consumers should be careful in interpreting the conclusions on sleep quality and efficiency provided by the device.