Samsung introduces SleepSense, a tracker for better, smarter sleep
The new sensor slips under your mattress, tracks your movements in the night, offers tailored sleep advice, and syncs directly with your phone or with the SmartThings connected home platform.
- 10 years product testing experience with the CNET Home team
Updated at 10:39 AM, EST on 9/3/2015 with additional pricing and availability info from Yoon C. Lee, the Samsung Vice President overseeing SleepSense.
BERLIN -- Samsung has revealed a new sensor for a smarter night's sleep during its keynote at the IFA tech conference here in Germany. Called SleepSense, you'll slip the device underneath your mattress to track your movements in the night. Samsung claims that it's 97 percent accurate at reading your sleep patterns, and it uses that info to generate sleep reports each morning, complete with tailored advice on how to get a better night's rest.
The sensor syncs directly with your phone using Bluetooth, granting you full access to its sleep data in the dedicated SleepSense app. You can also sync it up with Samsung smart appliances. Set the air conditioning to come on at key moments in your sleep cycle, or simply set the TV to turn off automatically when SleepSense detects that you've fallen asleep during a late night Netflix binge. Your appliances can also inform the sleep advice. If your smart fridge shows that you tend to eat dairy before a bad night's rest, then SleepSense might advise you to stick with fruit and nuts for your late-night snack.
For even greater integration with your smart home gear, you can pair SleepSense with SmartThings , a connected home control platform acquired by Samsung last year. That makes SleepSense the first device that Samsung has designed specifically for use with SmartThings. Coupled with the fact that SmartThings played prominently into Samsung's IFA keynote right alongside SleepSense, and that the second-gen SmartThings Hub begins shipping this month , it's clear that Samsung has big plans for the platform.
Pairing with SmartThings has some obvious benefits, the most obvious of which is the wide range of SmartThings-compatible smart home products you can choose to add to your setup. From big names to little startups, SmartThings acts as a central command station, helping products from different brands work together within a single app. That brings all sorts of new smart home potential into play for SleepSense -- connected locks that lock automatically when you fall asleep, for instance.
There's appeal for SmartThings users, too. A good smart home setup collects enough sensor-driven data to understand what's happening in your home and make good decisions, accordingly. A gadget that tells your smart home when you've gone to bed could potentially add a useful new layer of context to existing setups. At any rate, it seems like a smart move for Samsung to launch SleepSense right at the start of the second-gen SmartThings Hub's life cycle, given the cross appeal between the two.
That isn't to say that SleepSense has a clear road to smart-home relevance. In essence, it performs the same function as popular iOS and Android apps like Sleep Cycle and Sleep Time, which monitor your movement in the night using your phone's accelerometer. Crowdfunded sleep tracking gadgets like Hello Sense have also found success, not to mention the number of wearable fitness trackers that promise to help analyze your sleep patterns. All of that has helped generate sleep tracking demand, but it's also generated a good deal of competition in the category, much of which doesn't cost very much.
Samsung hasn't announced what the asking price for SleepSense will be yet, when exactly we'll see it in stores, or where it will be sold. That said, Yoon C. Lee, the Samsung Vice President who introduced SleepSense at IFA, told CNET to expect something comparable to other dedicated sleep trackers in the $200 - $250 range, including Withings Aura , which actually retails for $300 (just under £200 and AU$440).
As for availability, Lee tells us to expect a debut in Korea and the US at the end of this year, with a continued global roll-out planned for 2016 including Australia. We'll look forward to getting our hands on a test unit -- at that point, we'll sleep on it and get back to you.
For more from IFA 2015, check out CNET's complete coverage.