Researcher Hacks Nine Sleep-Tracking Devices To Test Their Accuracy (brown.edu) 44
A determined researcher at Brown University extracted "the previously irretrievable sleep tracking data from the Hello Sense, from the Microsoft Band, and nine other popular devices," according to an anonymous reader, "by decompiling the apps and using man-in-the-middle attacks." Then they compared each device's data to that from a research-standard actigraph. Their results?
The Fitbit Alta seems to be the most accurate among the other nine in terms of sleep versus awake data... Our findings tell that these consumer-level sleep reports should be taken with a grain of salt, but regardless we're happy to see more and more people investing in improving their sleep.
I swear officer! (Score:2)
I was asleep [wikipedia.org]!
Does the obvious exist? (Score:2)
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It's only very large movements that matter so I cannot see how that would in any way be the case.
I see the wristbands as being less useful due to them tracking the arms and so not being able to distinguish between an arm movement and a rollover, so a source of false positives.
Re:Does the obvious exist? (Score:4, Informative)
You'll do better by buying and wearing a recording pulse oximeter to bed. If you have obstructive sleep apnea (which is pretty common, especially in older people) you typically stop breathing as your throat closes when you relax in real sleep. This drops your O2 saturation, which triggers a reflex that wakes you up. So your O2 sat oscillates up and down all night long, and you live tired all of the time because the only real sleep you get happens when your head and throat are in a "just right" position. Sleep apnea is dangerous both acutely and chronically -- inadequate sleep is associated with weight gain, heart disease, and more. The "pulse" part is also useful, as one can often identify periods of REM vs deep sleep as one's pulse varies somewhat, smoothing out during deep sleep cycles, bouncing around a bit with the arousal of REM.
There are other causes of bad sleep, of course -- restless legs syndrome, anxiety, etc. and these may be characterized more by movements and tossing and turning and not so much by oxygen, but a pulse oximeter might be almost as useful as a fitbit or whatever for detecting that via the pulse variations.
rgb
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It probably wouldn't take long to find somewhere in the CFAA to shove this, if an arbiter so wished. It's omnicompatible by design.
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Not every piece of research has to be a peer reviewed, triple blind, statistician confirmed, extremely expensive study. As long as the methodologies are noted and it isn't portrayed as having an accuracy that it is undeserving of it can still be of use, especially as a first step towards further research.
WTF is the point of these things? (Score:3)
If you have trouble sleeping, change your habits
DON'T STAY UP LATE. i'm usually in bed a little after 10 and no later than 10:30pm
go get some exercise. being exhausted from running will do wonders to help you sleep
Don't watch TV before bed. No TV in bedroom
Stay away from electronics before bed including gaming
don't drink alcohol before bed
don't eat too close to sleep
keep your bedroom cool around 50 degrees or less
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keep your bedroom cool around 50 degrees or less
Even I would find under 50 F to be chilly at night.
Did you mean 50 C? Yes, I agree the bedroom should be less than 50C
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get some extra blankets
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If you have trouble sleeping, change your habits
Define "trouble"
THAT is the point of these devices.
Re:WTF is the point of these things? (Score:5, Funny)
I try to avoid devices with displays while sleeping. But the boss insists on showing PowerPoint presentations during staff meetings.
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If you have trouble sleeping, change your habits
DON'T STAY UP LATE. i'm usually in bed a little after 10 and no later than 10:30pm
That's gonna totally suck for those working graveyard shifts and 2nd jobs.
go get some exercise. being exhausted from running will do wonders to help you sleep
some exercise many people do. it doesn't lead to exhaustion. I can do 1 hour of running 2 hours before bed and not be "exhausted". I can also do 15 minutes of sprinting and feel like vomiting soon afterwards.
Don't watch TV before bed. No TV in bedroom
Stay away from electronics before bed including gaming
I really do how people have managed to convince themselves that watching TV or "facebooking" before bed doesn't negatively impact them. I've run into so many people that swear to me that it helps them sleep.
don't drink alcohol before bed
I'm pretty sure that "d
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You know, there are already people who have been diagnosed with a disorder and would like to monitor their own health more closely to make sure the treatments they're receiving are actually working for example, monitoring O2 levels over night when you have apnea to make sure the machine you have is actually doing something.
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50F degrees? That's too COLD!!!!!
I like the fine print... (Score:1)
At the bottom he disclaims a few points that mean this was a pointless exercise with too many variables and not enough controls.
Is he/she in jail? (Score:2)
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Reverse engineering,
Is explicitly protected in the DMCA when done for purposes of interoperability, and is generally considered legal for any purposes other than circumvention of a protection device when there is no NDA or other effectively similar contract in play.
Darkness at Noon (Score:2)
Way to go, Chicken Little. I always figured you for a feathery, thoughtcrime propaganda stooge.
Data extraction methods [github.io]
Most of these techniques are more akin to screen scraping than decompiling or reverse engineering.
Is it too much to ask? (Score:3)
Article Title: Researcher hacks nine sleep-tracking devices to test their accuracy"
First sentence of summary, right under the title: A determined researcher at Brown University extracted "the previously irretrievable sleep tracking data from the Hello Sense, from the Microsoft Band, and nine other popular devices.
Note that the first says "9 devices", the second says "1+1+9 devices".
I know it's asking a lot for TFS to match TFA, but is it at least possible to match Title and TFS?
Paid for by Fitbit? (Score:2)
the Fitbit Alta seems to be the most accurate among the other 9 in terms of sleep versus awake data.
The Fitbit Alta seemed to detect asleep vs awake almost identically to the other devices. Most of the other devices could do far more and a few differed in their results.
It's like using a fitness tracker and saying well the Fitbit was the best at identifying I'm not yet dead. Whoop de do.
Anyway. $139 for the Fitbit Alta, or $3.99 for the Sleep app on the phone. Both seem to give the same Asleep vs awake results but at least the latter can tell you how asleep you are.
Flawed testing scenario? (Score:1)
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Yeah, I was quite disappointed. I'm familiar with the other test by Dr. Christopher Winter, which he references. In that test, Dr. Winter wore the devices while hooked up to a polysomnograph, which can accurately measure sleep cycles -- something these devices purport to do. The actigraph in this test only measures sleep/wake state, which is less detailed than the devices that were tested.
Even the 'professional' tests can be crap (Score:2)
I've had two sleep studies.
One when I was first diagnosed was on their premises, properly wired up to all kinds of gear and when it was over I received a multi-page report with charts and graphs that clearly showed the data.
The second was done by 'Snap diagnostics' at home. The gear came loose, fell off repeatedly and I spent most of the night without it attached. They then took four months to tell my doctor to increase my pressure.
No data, no report, no evidence that the test even worked.
I still don'
Mi band 2 (Score:2)
Since most of these devices seem to use similar hardware I don't think there can be huge differences on them