AIBU to buy a sleep tracker for sleep DEPRIVED DS17?

He presumably knows what time he goes to sleep and what time he wakes up. How are you expecting the sleep tracker to help?

What a pointless idea.

Is there really any reason to believe that monitoring sleep will improve it? And can you feel confident that it won't add stress to the whole business and therefore undermine sleep?

Both of those need an ongoing subscription if you’re not sure he is going to find it useful you could try something like a fitbit as the outlay is much less and gives good sleep monitoring. Is there any anxiety involved as well or is he just very driven

My Fitbit told me I was asleep at times I knew I was lying awake at night so I’m not sure these things are as good as you might imagine

Sleep trackers just make people more anxious about their sleep. Don't waste your money.

Same with my Apple Watch. If I’m laid still in bed it’s says I’m sleeping, even when I know I was definitely awake.

A lot of living for a long time is just luck. Obviously when asked people will try to give a reason. Our local lady famous in these parts for reaching 100 attributed it to drinking champagne and eating chocolate eclairs but that doesn't necessarily mean we should all be doing that on the regular

Sorry, but this is "evidence of one" and has no meaning.
Let's look at things objectively. Stages of sleep are determined by brain activity. I think it is abundantly clear that a wearable device cannot measure frequency of brain waves. What it does is an estimation of which stage of sleep one is in by monitoring nocturnal movement. Which is quite inaccurate.
But even if we assume it is accurate, what can we do with the data? Absolutely nothing. There is no direct way to ensure one has more deep sleep. None! So all you have now is a data point you worry about but can't change.
What cam we change? Time we go to bed and time we wake up. That's all. You don't need a wearable device to do that.

Plus, did your child express any desire at all to change their sleep? Because of they haven't, they were not going to pay any attention to what the devise tells them anyway.

@Bunnybigears

Our local lady famous in these parts for reaching 100 attributed it to drinking champagne and eating chocolate eclairs but that doesn't necessarily mean we should all be doing that on the regular

Sounds like she’d be an amazing person to have as a friend though! 🤭

Bryan Johnson is 49 and looks terrible on whatever he’s doing.

I use a garmin. It’s rather depressing for me as my sleep quality is shit. But it is good at it. DD2 loves hers for this too. We are a family of shit sleepers.

I don’t understand all the crappy replies you’re getting. So rude.

You can get Whoop on a free trial for one month. I did this but gave it back at the end of the month. Not that I didn’t like it but I just decided that for me the price was too high. But it is a great way to get to know the device and make an informed decision.

The ring is much less conspicuous. It is bulky on the hand but if you don’t look too hard it does blend in, and also better for men than women I would say, from a style perspective.

In your shoes I’d go with whoop purely because of the trial. I’ve heard great things about the ring as well so I think if the whoop trial goes well and he finds the actual tracking/ analysis helpful, then you could just hand that back and buy the ring if that’s the preferred look.

Having read a few more replies I just want to add - the whoop never made me feel anxious about my sleep in any way whatsoever. I do wonder whether the negative comments are from people who have made up theirs minds without ever having used one of the devices. I think there’s a world of difference between a Fitbit or smart watch that tells you “6 hours sleep, go to bed early this evening” and a whoop/ ring which monitors you throughout the day also, and looks are your exertion vs sleep to analyse how well you are recovering from physical activity and stress

If your DS is doing well academically, he will be bright enough to understand he can’t burn the candle at both ends. He just needs to go to sleep a little earlier.

How will a sleep tracker change his behaviour?

Try Matt Walker’s book on sleep. That’s what helped me make lasting changes.

As PPs have stated, if he’s this academically driven, he’ll want to optimise his revision. And revising late into the night and then not sleeping sufficiently will be negating a huge amount of his work.

Also, is Bryan Johnson only 49? I don’t think whatever he’s doing is working the way he thinks it should/is.

I have an Oura ring and I love it.

I didn’t buy it for the sleep tracker but I really like that function, but I especially like the fact that it looks at my daytime stress, activity, resilience, and recovery alongside my sleep patterns to give me an holistic view rather than just ‘your sleep is shit”.

But the reason he is tired is because he is staying awake revising! He needs to stop doing that and relax a little before sleep. A sleep tracker won't make any difference.