Pillow: Sleep Tracker Reviews

When I first got Pillow it was great. I was so happy to find a sleep tracking app that worked with Apple Watch and didn’t force you to pay just to track your sleep. The automatic sleep detection was absolutely awesome. I loved the interface. It was annoying how you had to buy the premium version to see your past sleep data, but not a deal breaker. But then one day the automatic sleep detection stopped working. I would wake up and eagerly check the this app app only to see that it didn’t collect any data. I thought it might be a problem with my Apple Watch so I went through all of the steps to make sure it was detecting my heart rate, had permission to collect data, etc. none of that worked. I turned off automatic sleep detection mode and put it to manual. And it worked! But as I was checking my sleep data in the morning I got a low battery alert on my phone. My phone that had been at 100% 7 hours before was now at 14% without me using it. I also quit all of my apps before going to bed. This also happened the next few nights I used manual mode. I can’t help but to think that that is the cause of the power drain. I don’t have a place to plug my phone in overnight where my phone can still be in range of my watch, so this is a problem for me. I’m going to try turning automatic sleep detection back on tonight to see if it detects anything/if it was just a glitch. Aside from that, Pillow is really great and I would really like to keep using it.

I’ve only been using this with my Apple Watch for a couple weeks now so I’m still learning. I can’t remember what I didn’t have before I upgraded but I feel like the free version was quite basic. I’ve never paid for an app upfront and it was pricey but well worth it.
My only issue (although I thing this is my body and terrible sleep patterns rather than Pillow itself) is that for a few days, the alarm would go off early, while I was in a light sleep mode, and I’d wake up feeling so refreshed. Since then though, it doesn’t go off until the exact alarm time and the analysis shows I’d been in rem sleep for an hour prior to my alarm. So I’m not as refreshed and then just keep hitting snooze. (The snooze times are a whole different issue that I don’t understand but I shouldn’t snooze anyways so that’s on me!)
If I’m in rem cycle during that 30 minute window, obviously my watch vibration won’t go off until the actual alarm time but I would love an option to set a specific time range that it can wake me earlier instead of just 30 minutes. If I could wake up better at 5:15 than I would at 7, I’d be great with waking up much earlier.
This may be an option I just haven’t found yet but if it isn’t, that would be an awesome addition to a future update.
Love Pillow!

This is the first review I have ever written on the Apple store, because I generally don’t care enough about apps to say anything, but I have to this time.
The this app app was the best thing I ever discovered over a year ago. It helped me figure out the proper amount of sleep I needed, which was always a question as I am an insomniac. I would tell anyone to download Pillow if complained about sleep in any regard.
However, the newest update is the worst! Everything is totally changed, so if you’ve gotten used to the layout for the last YEAR, your muscle memory means nothing. It’s harder to access past night’s data. The new alarm set up of having ore-sets is a good idea, but if you want to add a new one you have to swipe through every single one of them to get to the add button. And worst of all, if you accidentally swipe Pillow closed, it doesn’t automatically save your data like it used to. I have now lost about 5 days worth of data since updating last week, and before then, for the last year, I had had less than 3 days missing from my own human error, not Pillow .
I would just delete Pillow and try a new one but unfortunately I had bought a year subscription to their premium access and it was recently renewed. So thanks for ruining Pillow and stealing my money ✌️

I gave Pillow a try one last time (out of multiple attempts), and after tonight’s sleep of 5 hours and 41 minutes, it says I was awake for TWO HOURS AND FIVE MINUTES of that time….

I was NEVER awake for that long during the night; instead, I might have been fully awake for no more than about 15 minutes…. The microphone sensitivity was set to Low, and it still gave me a bad reading, even after attempting to change the microphone sensitivity to Medium and High on other nights (which gave me even worse readings at those settings….). Still, even after this claimed update from a week ago of this writing, Pillow itself (in terms of its algorithm for tracking sleep) is fundamentally flawed, as the truth actually is that over the past week, I’m actually getting better sleep than before due to better exercise and eating habits….

After seeing constant results of poor sleep for weeks, while AutoSleep is showing consistently better results that reflect my ACTUAL sleep habits, it’s not worth it to pay for a subscription to Pillow until they have fixed their algorithm when it comes to tracking sleep. Honestly, nobody should have to constantly go back after a sleep session to reanalyze their sleep due to poor analytics from a sleep tracking app…. Instead, it should just work, and at least give users a general idea of their sleep habits. This one, sadly, just doesn’t cut it….

Okay, I’m going to start off by saying that I love Pillow . It works wonderfully, and the technology seems to be greatly engineered to check when I really am sleeping and when I wake up. The audio recordings are great, they’ve caught me saying some hilarious things in my sleep.
I do have some suggestions. I understand that the feature where you can either shake the phone or hold the button for three seconds are meant to make sure people are really awake and getting up. Well, I happen to be a pretty light sleeper, and I get up very well, and I own the full version of Pillow but I’ve noticed that there is no option to just tap to disable the alarm. I’d like this feature to be implemented if it’s not too much to ask.
Also, I think it may be cool to have a dream journal added. Like when you wake up, there may be a notepad there for you to begin typing out what you dreamt, and it keeps track of the night you dreamt it and stores it somewhere. There should also be an option to click a button that says, “I don’t remember what I dreamt.” And to go back and begin a journal entry if you didn’t remember it at first but now do/didn’t have the time to type it then.
Thank you for your time!

UPDATE** I have disabled Pillow. After following the developer’s suggestions, Pillow became inconsistent. It stopped showing night wake times and gave me the exact same reading for multiple consecutive days. Loved Pillow when I first used it. Now…not so much. I can get the same information excluding night wake up information from my Sleep app included with my Apple watch.
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Original post- After spending 2 hours with Apple support only to have them recommend talking to the developers (I have and none of my messages have been seen or answered.) The problem is my 10 XR running IOS 15.1 phone battery usage. When I use my Apple Watch 6 running IOS 8.1, it shows battery usage between 63-74% in the morning with 6+ hours of onscreen usage. When I use my Apple Watch 3 running IOS 7.6.1, it uses 3%. Both are in manual mode. The this app app is set to turn off the screen after 10 seconds. Apple support ran diagnostics and battery health and phone are fine. The only thing he thought could be causing the problem was that this app was not truly turning the screen off or putting it into lock screen. I have tried every fix to be found in the Apple Support and online communities with no success. I don’t want to have to use my older watch just to save my phone battery. Very frustrating!

I see that the developers are still making changes, I have seen new ones since the major update like they brought back some old sounds that are really good, but the new sounds need work still. Both fireplace sounds are bad, one sounds like it’s in a wind tunnel and the other just doesn’t sound right, and that urban rainfall sound just needs to go. Nobody wants to hear cars drive by, or sirens, or people talking. Also you need to fix the sleep sessions calendar, I can’t access previous sleep sessions to see how my sleep was on pervious days or even the day I finished my most recent sleep session once I close Pillow . I have to look at it then and there. The calendar just opens for a second and then closes, can’t click on a different day on the calendar to see that day. I paid for the premium version on the old version of Pillow and I really liked it, but not being able to see previous days sleep sessions is kinda a deal breaker, the trends section doesn’t give the whole story on sleep quality or how well you slept. Please fix the sleep sessions calendar and the sounds. Also I don’t know of anybody that likes any kind of talking stories or guided meditation sleep talks either. Everyone kinda just wants simple noise with no talking to sleep, the talking keeps a brain to active and awake.

Update: 4 Oct 20....it appears Apple had a HUGE issue with iOS 14 and WatchOS 7 that made this app not track correctly. Once I wiped my watch and phone and restored from the cloud my this app App started working again. For those of you having an issue with health tracking after installing the last updates follow the Apple reset guidance and it should fix your this app App like it did mine. I apologize this app, not your fault with the issue I posted about.
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I had Pillow for 52 days tracking my sleep and the very day I updated my phone IOS Pillow quit working and hasn’t worked since. I’ve engaged the help desk portion of Pillow for 2 weeks now. While I can only reach help desk at 4am Central (most likely means help desk in a 12 hour different time zone) it doesn’t seem that developers are to eager to help me solve this issue. I keep getting “canned” troubleshooting steps, did them many time along with deleting and reloading app to no avail. I paid for the premium app and would expect premium service but this app has fell way short of that expectation. Would not recommend. Spend your money on another app that works.

Just to update, still the worst app. Doesn’t track sleep accurately. It’s Apple Watch app is difficult to use. Wish I didn’t jump straight into a year subscription like an idiot. Don’t waste your money.

So twice now I’ve used the alarm function on my Apple Watch and after turning the alarm off Pillow apparently continues to think I’m sleeping. In fact it thinks I’m sleeping ALL DAY LONG. Now it does have me as awake during the day but it drains my battery and just doesn’t track right. On top of that I can’t turn off the sound again and wake up only to the haptics. I regret getting Pillow and even more so regret paying for the subscription.

I’m just about 3 days into using Pillow. One thing that doesn’t make sense to me if why I can’t use the smart alarm on my Apple Watch during automatic sleep tracking mode. Then when I set it up for manual mode, when the alarm goes off my watch screen doesn’t turn on to turn it off. Neither did my phone screen turn on to give me an option to turn it off. The layout compared to other apps are much easier to read. I like the look of Pillow . I’m just having a hard time being willing to pay for a premium subscription because I want the automatic sleep tracking with a good smart alarm that wakes you gradually. And it would be nice to turn off the alarm easily.

Lacks basic functions that gives Americans and accurate time to go to sleep if your live the states that follow day light savings time. This also applies to people who travel internationally or even between time zones from state to state. How can you trust the recommended optimal sleep time features if it does adjust for these essential parameters. Not asking for app to help me fight jet lag but a simple button you can hit 2x a year to adjust for DST. The problem Pillow was designed for Europeans that don’t have day light savings time. If problems are not fixed soon plan on reaching out to Apple about pushing apps that do not work in the USA. Another button tied into your phones gps position to let you know your in a new title to ame zone so therefore adjust the algorithm accordingly. Sick of getting notes our team is looking and we will get back to you. Reviews seem that they have been telling people for months the same response. App also picks up naps maybe 50% of time. I you have serious sleep problems do not use Pillow . App has potential. I wish they would take a break from trying to add new features but rather perfect the basics of how a premium priced sleep tracker should work. Irene if she is not a bot seems very nice who’s hands are tied. I hope they can update their act together.

They took away most of the free features with an update this week. Now they want a monthly fee for stuff that was free before. *Their reply said “for the 1st time you can see your previous sleep sessions” but that was the feature I used the most that is no longer there when I swipe. There is also a calendar that I also used before, and when you press the sleep session on a different date, it pops up a thing about the cost of an upgrade instead of the previous sleep session! It also does not show the overlaid heart rate over the course of the night which was the other feature I used the most.* They took away most of the things I liked about it and I’m not paying a premium for what I’ve had for free for years because it’s not really that accurate anyway. It thinks I’m asleep when I’m just watching tv and it can’t detect that I woke up in the middle of the night if I lay still and don’t move around a lot. It’s just an algorithm that’s giving you the REM, light, and deep sleep cycles, these apps don’t have the data to detect that kind of stuff for real like in a sleep lab. *I took it down another star because of the developers reply that they added all these features in the free version. It doesn’t look that way to me. They ruined the free version.*

I very well understand that app developers need to make money some way or another, whether it be through ads, in app purchases, or premium memberships. In this case, this app has a premium membership that at first glance you may think to yourself, “eh I won’t need it, but maybe if I really like Pillow it might be nice to get eventually.” But upon using Pillow for more than 2 nights, you will come to realize that it’s practically useless without the membership. This is a sleep tracking app that doesn’t let you you see your past nights sleep data without buying premium. That literally defeats the whole purpose of this being a sleep TRACKING app. Oh and it’s got a sleep sound recorder, pretty cool huh? Nope, can’t use it without premium. In fact, you can see that it records something, but you can’t listen to it without the membership. I have no idea of knowing if it even recorded a sound from me or if it’s just the crickets outside my window or a creak in my wall.

So overall, Pillow is a glorified alarm clock unless you drop the $3 per month or $30 a year or whatever it costs. Don’t fall into their trap. Even if you’re curious and want to buy a month to try it out, PLEASE remind yourself to cancel after that month so they don’t keep sucking up your money after you’ve forgotten about it.

Every single night it says it either took my 0 minutes to sleep or 10 when I know neither was true. It does know when I get up to go to the bathroom at night and the way the snooze is timed seems to be very helpful because it lets me hit snooze but knows when to buzz again so I do t go back into a deep sleep.
I don’t believe the accuracy of my sleep quality at all. When I feel well rested I’ll have a low quality number which I consider in the 60’s and every other night it’s in the 70’s. Never higher. I tend to think that it’s because I use an iphone placed next to my this app and that if I wore a watch it would be more accurate but I don’t know how it works.

I wake up at the same time 7 days a week and it has been extremely helpful in discovering what my optimal bedtime is because it’s a bit later than what I thought and it’s right!
It is excellent at learning your sleep habits I just don’t think it measures things correctly. Take the sleep stats with a grain of salt but just for the optimal sleep time and the snooze timer, I highly recommend it. Oh and I love the color coded bar chart of my sleep cycle. That is extreme accurate!

I have been using Pillow for a few years now in conjunction with other sleep apps. I have tried the paid subscription for a short time. But, really didn’t find it helpful enough for the cost of the subscription. The inaccuracies in the sleep detection always had me using it with other sleep apps for data balance as well. Plus, their automatic detection had me in bed for an entire day, after which I stopped using the auto detect.

I have had multiple issues over the past year with Pillow since I obtained an Apple Watch and it’s ability to coordinate between the two devices. Or to even keep a session going while I slept.

This latest update is the worst yet. I hate the new interface with the stupid ring theme that really has little meaning, and yet dominates the screen. The stupid app now doesn’t even give the most basic of information - like how long I slept, or the amounts of time in each type of sleep like it did prior to this update because they have to milk every cent out of people. They have made my decision very easy. I will no longer be using this app as any of my sleep apps, simply because it has always been insufficient and is now a total garbage app unless you pay for it.

There are many good sleep tracking app for the Apple Watch. But I have never seen such a good one. Why? Well, before I get the this app app, I was using the auto sleep app for the Apple Watch, and at first I loved it! After a while though I started recognizing that it was a little in accurate. After using the this app app, I’ve seen how my sleep is in as good as I thought it was, and I feel like I can make it better If I continuously use Pillow . I had if I get below a 70% sleep quality score, that I will not have a good day or I will be tired, but if I get above a 70% sleep score, then I know I can’t have a great day.

Another reason why Pillow is better than Pillow I was using before is because it is so much more in depth. Before I even used the Apple Watch, I had a fit bit ionic, and I loved the sleep tracking feature, because it was so accurate and it was very in depth, but this is an Apple Watch and it’s not even made to be a complete fitness device, and the fact that it has more in-depth tracking and more accurate tracking than the Fitbit, just shows how great an app this is.

I’ve used Pillow for a long time. It was perfect. I would set an alarm and go to bed and when it detected that I needed to wake up near my set alarm it would vibrate my arm. If I needed to hit snooze that too worked perfectly as well. I was is heaven. I achieved the best sleep I’ve had in years! My wife was amazed at how I woke up rested. For the last four months Pillow has become useless!! I set an alarm (6am) and get up to use the bathroom (1am -ish) only to notice the alarm is set to go off at 3am. I set it and hit start for 6am but Pillow decided to change it at some point. Then the hepatic Apple Watch alarm stopped going off when the 6am alarm does stick and the phone stopped making its alarm sounds. I’ve been late to meetings due to this happening. It’s infuriating!!! Also, IF the alarm does go off and I tap snooze on the watch, yep, you guessed it, it turns the alarm off instead of snoozing. I’m not sure what has happened with this developer but reading the reviews they either don’t care that their product is going downhill fast or have no clue how to fix it. Before all of this started happening I would have left a 10 star rating if I could. It was that perfect. Now, I’m just sad to see it go this badly.

Update:still having a lot of trouble with it accurately tracking my sleep and awake. Last night, it showed I was awake most of the early AM and I wasn’t. I went to sleep about 11:10pm and woke up about 2am. It showed I was awake most of 12-2am. Very frustrating. My sleep quality percentage is TERRIBLE because it’s not accurate. I usually have to add at least an hour onto what the sleep amount is because it has me awake when I’m not, but when I can’t edit it’s errors, I can’t fix it. Should also have an option to add nights that I forget to turn it on. My old tracker would pick up on sleep hours without having to turn it on. Could set a normal sleep time and it would notice when you were sleeping so you didn’t have to remember to turn it on every night. It was a nice feature.

Original: I’ve given it a lot of try but in the past few months I feel it’s started to go downhill. It gets my sleep well but sometimes it says I’ve been up for an extended period of time overnight and I wasn’t. I also have A LOT of trouble syncing if I don’t use the alarm. It gets to 98% and fails almost every weekend when I don’t use the alarm mode. Otherwise it’s a good app, but those are major issues that need repaired.

Let me start by saying that I love Pillow! I tell everyone that they should be using it. I have a lot of trouble falling asleep and tried many other apps but yours does it all. I hated that the sounds would continue, well until I woke back up to shut it off. The feature that it senses when I’m asleep and turns the sounds off is a life saver. Now I’m sure you’re wondering what for the reason is for the 4 star. Well, the alarm time always changes on me. Luckily I’ve caught it but it’s very nerve racking. My son had to get up one morning for a very important function. I set it for 5 am and went to sleep. Luckily something woke me up in the middle of the night and made me check it. When I did it was then set for 6 am. It would have been horrible if he missed this event. That wasn’t the only time it’s happened. It’s even changed from am to pm many times. Luckily I’ve caught those too. When you don’t sleep well as it is it’s horrible to have to worry if your alarm is going to go off at the right time or not. I’ve resorted to setting a separate alarm to make sure I’m up on time.

Does not accurately read sleep cycles. Realized this when the “sleep aid” sounds kept shutting off thinking I was asleep when I was definitely wide awake. Also apparently it read me as in “light sleep cycle” when I was actually scrolling through instagram in bed.
80% of the alarm sounds are just terrible sudden blares of synthesizer. Nothing like waking up to a sudden jolt in the morning. A few are ok but I’d expect more for paying $5 to choose from 20 total alarms, of which maybe four or five don’t sound like 2000s cell phone ringtones. The “shake” to turn off alarm function still won’t work even though I switched it from “hold to shut off” several days ago. Most of the sleep aid sound affects (of which there are only 11 to choose from) are harsh and artificial and not soothing at all. The rare music that actually worked for me kept waking me up bc it didn’t do an actual loop; just cuts off suddenly and comes blaring back in again. I had finally settled on the rain sound effect until I realized part of its cycle is to randomly increase in volume just when I’m finally getting sleepy, and now I’m wide awake again. The “fireplace” sound effect sounds more like a burning building. The “waves” sound is less the ocean and more a bathtub. And seriously who wants to go to sleep to the sound of a hair dryer???

Been using this app for a couple years now and didn’t regret it when I bought it because it actually worked. Now after some time now it seems Pillow is just not being kept up to date with software or new iPhones. Had it working with the IPhone 7 Plus 256 Gb and it worked until about 8 months ago. Pillow started crashing unexpectedly and not loading properly. I uninstalled it and reinstalled it cleared caches and nothin was working. Now I upgraded to the iPhone 11 pro max 256 Gb and the problem still exists. Doesn’t load properly and crashes unexpectedly. Pillow freezes when you tap on any icon. I now regret paying for it. I have since switched to SleepWatch which is more expensive at $2.99 month but well worth it. this app was great when it worked but I do not and cannot recommend Pillow. Maybe if and ever it’s fixed I can switch back to it.

Update:
New update released and everything seems to be working fine. Connects to iCloud fine menus load fast and the services offered by the this app app are great as before as well.

I’ve only been using this with my Apple Watch for a couple weeks now so I’m still learning. I can’t remember what I didn’t have before I upgraded but I feel like the free version was quite basic. I’ve never paid for an app upfront and it was pricey but well worth it.
My only issue (although I thing this is my body and terrible sleep patterns rather than Pillow itself) is that for a few days, the alarm would go off early, while I was in a light sleep mode, and I’d wake up feeling so refreshed. Since then though, it doesn’t go off until the exact alarm time and the analysis shows I’d been in rem sleep for an hour prior to my alarm. So I’m not as refreshed and then just keep hitting snooze. (The snooze times are a whole different issue that I don’t understand but I shouldn’t snooze anyways so that’s on me!)
If I’m in rem cycle during that 30 minute window, obviously my watch vibration won’t go off until the actual alarm time but I would love an option to set a specific time range that it can wake me earlier instead of just 30 minutes. If I could wake up better at 5:15 than I would at 7, I’d be great with waking up much earlier.
This may be an option I just haven’t found yet but if it isn’t, that would be an awesome addition to a future update.
Love Pillow!

I am writing this negative review after almost 2 years of successfully using the paid this app app. During sleep it recorded REM, light and deep sleep, and I could see improvements after having made various changes in my sleep habits.
However with the update to version 3.7 I lost about half of my 700 recorded sessions. Tech-support told me how to restore them manually one at a time, which I did, but then with the update to 3.7.2 I lost all of my sleep sessions. I’m not willing to go through manually adding all 740 sleep sessions, and at this point I’m still waiting for a solution from this app. Pillow works just fine now, but only thinks I’ve had about 10 sleep sessions total.
In fairness to this app this could be a conflict with another app on my phone (iPhone XS) or watch (Series 4) or with some setting I have on the phone. But at this point, apparently, we just don’t know.

Update after a couple more weeks and an update or two. I still have the same problem with Pillow only showing sleep sessions from the last 20 nights. The previous 700+ nights are gone—and no word from their tech support on a solution. And this is for the paid version of Pillow using iPhone XS and Apple Watch 4. For shame, this app.

I’ve had Pillow for about a year now and twice it’s updated and lost all of my information. I don’t understand why you back it up to the cloud if you can’t restore your history when this happens. Isn’t that the purpose of backing it up to the cloud? It’s also eating up my watch battery which it never did before this most recent update. I have contacted your help desk and haven’t heard anything for 2 weeks. I understand sometimes problems require time, but I guess an email update telling me that you’re still working on it would be nice, I guess I’m just asking for too much. At this point it feels like you responded quickly but hope I’ll just forget about the problem as time progresses. If that’s the case I’d rather just get a refund and be on my way.

Update after placing this review 4 months ago. I received a message from the developer telling me how to fix the watch problem but have yet to hear how they fixed the problem where my history kept being erased every time they updated Pillow . I never received a response as to how to recover my history after the last time it was updated and erased (which occurred about every 3 months) even it’s “supposed” to be backed up on the cloud. I’m leaving it at 1 star since I can’t put anything less.

I like Pillow, it simple and easy to use. I’ve wanted to buy it for some time but have decided to wait or look for a better app because it drains the battery from my phone and watch because Pillow has to remain open on the screen in order to track sleep. It also does not track things accurately. I have also had times where Pillow has failed in the middle of the night and shut off. I wish Pillow would automatically track my sleep by being in my watch like the heartbeat app does, and how it automatically tracks my steps, workout, and standing. Pillow should automatically start up when I’m in bed and track my sleep. I forget to turn it on most nights, it should partner with the heartbeat app and when your heart rate lowers to a level that most people’s heart beats at while sleeping it should start. The Samsung watch does it, why can’t ours.

Update:
Another problem with this application is when left plugged in and on the bed where it can potentially be pushed under the this app, blankets, or your body, it causes the phone to heat up to high temperatures. I don’t understand why we are so far behind androids technology. We get everything after they have had it for years. Why? 😣😫

I have been an insomniac for many many years and was always curious about my sleep and wanted to do things to make it better. I've been using Pillow for about 3 months now with my watch and it automatically detects sleep even if I take a nap. It has allowed me to track how well my new medications have been working and because of Pillow I have found one that seems to be improving not only the nightmares, but my sleep quality percent has increased dramatically. If it wasn't for Pillow letting me physically see the results I wouldn't feel as successful with the medication.

The reason I rate only 4 stars is because it is supposed to also record sounds or talking. I have been told by everyone in my life that I am a sleep talker. I keep my phone within about 2-3 feet away from my head when I sleep and every single time I check there is no recordings. Just last night my daughter told me I freaked her out because I was having a full blown conversation and I was sleeping. The watch recorded my sleep but my phone which was about a foot from me hadn't recorded anything.

I’ve tried a couple of sleep apps to get some insight on why how and when I wake up tired. Some apps were good but fell short of giving me the full picture of my sleep patterns and what I maybe doing wrong. I don’t buy a lot of apps but this one helped improve my health and my overall mood everyday. If you have any problems with sleep Pillow. Will help from what type of sleep you are getting be it deep or rem or if snoring is your problem. When you hit the start button this app goes to work monitoring everything that goes on while you sleep or you can set Pillow . for automatic and it will detect when you have fallen asleep. It works best with a smart watch to give you heart rate and pulse and movements but still will work without one but you don’t get all of the benefits. There are a lot of options and features it’s almost like your own personal sleep lab without the white coats. So try it what do you have to loose except sleep. I don’t write many Reviews but this application helped me maybe it will do the same for you.

I used the full version of Pillow for 4 months. Overall, Pillow does what it claims to do, but I got to stop using it because of multiple ”features” that I found annoying:
- No automatic start/stop of the tracking. I used to have Fitbit before, and this feature worked perfectly fine for me. I did not have to worry to enable the tracking in the evening and disable it in the morning. With Pillow, I had cases when I forgot to disable monitoring after waking app, and it continued to record ”sleeping” time. Then I had to modify/delete such fake cycles manually from the phone.
- Communication between the phone app and the watches has a lot of room for improvement. Sometimes, I struggled with changing tracking options. When I turned them on the phone, they were overwritten by the watches settings. Honestly saying, I did not manage to find an algorithm that works 100% of the time. Each time I had to double check the settings, sometimes stopping the current cycle and starting a new one.

So, using Pillow requires some discipline, as managing your sleeping cycle does :) Otherwise, you might get an unexpected experience.

I have been using the premium version of this app for weeks, with my phone and Apple Watch using manual mode. It is terrible at knowing when I’m awake. It tells me I slept all night, every night, even when I wake up to use the restroom in the middle of the night. If I use the feature which allows me to re-analyze my sleep session to look for more awake time, it just adds more light sleep and still never picks up the fact that I was actually up walking around, wide awake in the middle of the night. It also has had hiccups twice this week in syncing my watches data with my phone so there are two nights for which my phone never got the data from my watch. My optimal sleep time jumps from 9:45 to midnight and back. (Again, I have only been using Pillow for a couple of weeks so this seems like a terrible algorithm.) And all of this is especially weird considering I have very regular sleep patterns. I go to sleep and wake up around the same time every day, sleep a solid 8 hours per night, (in bed about 8.5), and rarely get up or even wake up in the middle of the night - like maybe once per week. I’m going to switch to automatic mode for a while and see how we do but I wish I didn’t spend money on this.