Why doesn’t Sleep Cycle show how long it took me to fall asleep?
Sleep Cycle estimates your time to fall asleep (sleep onset) by detecting changes in your breathing patterns when you transition from wakefulness to sleep.
In some cases, we are unable to reliably detect this transition. This means we can't show how long it took you to fall asleep in your sleep graph.
Why is it difficult to detect when I fall asleep?
There are a few reasons why detecting sleep onset can be challenging:
- Slow or shallow breathing while lying awake may resemble breathing patterns typically seen during sleep.
- Background sounds (like fans, pets, snoring, or outside noise) can interfere with detection.
- Playing sounds, like Sleep Aid audio through your phones speakers may mask your breathing sounds.
- The phone may be placed too far away or the microphone may be covered.
We are continuously improving our technology to better detect when users fall asleep — this is an area of focus for future updates.
What can I do to improve detection?
To help Sleep Cycle better detect your sleep onset time:
- Place your phone close to you, on the same level as your head (for example on your bedside table).
- Place the phone close to you and further away from anyone else sleeping in the room.
- Avoid covering the phone’s microphone.
- Keep the room as quiet as possible.
- If you use Sleep Aid sounds to help you fall asleep, we recommend using headphones.
Headphones prevent external sounds from masking your breathing, giving the app a better chance of detecting when you fall asleep.
Are you working on improving this?
Yes! We know that detecting sleep onset is an important part of understanding your sleep habits. We are actively working on improving this feature so that more users can get accurate results, even with low breathing rates or background sounds.