I use a Zeo sleep monitor to record the quality of my sleep every night. Recently I was talking to some fellow data nerds who also had the device, and they mentioned that it wasn’t exceptionally good at detecting short interruptions in sleep. To test the theory, I started recording videos of myself and found they were right; I was tossing and turning dozens of times in a night, but the device only registered 1 or 2 sleep interruptions.
One of the reasons I seem to be moving so much is that my temperature isn’t being well controlled. In the videos, I rip off my blankets and put them back on several times a night. While the blankets are off, I sleep without any covers, and I have woken up several times sweating under the covers.
I’ve read about Sheex linens and purported temperature controlled blankets, but nothing I’ve read suggests they control temperature scientifically.
So, what I would like to do is record my body temperature or air temperature under my blankets while I sleep to see if there is any correlation between temperature and my thrashings. I notice that the Zephyr Body harness records temperature (almost as an afterthought), which might work, but it seems like there ought to be a cheaper way to monitor temperature than a $400 device intended for use by performance athletes.
A blanket that could actually regulate my temperature around a preset value (say 85 degress for instance) would be best, but I figured a thermometer would be a cheaper first step to addressing the problem.
Does anyone know of a thermometer that is rugged enough to sleep with me and record temperatures for a 7-9 hour period on a daily basis?
Thanks a lot for your time, I’ve been searching around for a while and couldn’t find anything, so I figured I’d ask.
I wear a Bodymedia FIT armband 24/7 which does record body skin temp and ambient temp, as well as GSR. I have the research “sensewear” version, however, which does allow me to get this data out. They dont (yet?) allow users of their consumer armbands to see this data separately (it’s used in their activity algorithm).
Maybe more requests will get Bodymedia to include this data in their online sync and API?
Hi Quantdoctor, thanks for the input, I checked out the Bodymedia, that looks promising. I know that Zeo lets you get at the data in raw CSV form (which I made sure of before purchasing). So they don’t let you have the raw data in their consumer products? That’s a bummer since it looks great.
I guess I would also be concerned about recording the temp in the wrong area. When I’m in the covers my arms are frequently sprawling outside them, but my chest (over which the Zephyr is placed) is almost always covered … hrmmm.
Hi, i know this is very late (some years) but I came across this post as I am researching a similar thing. Have you found a solution to regulating your body temperature while you sleep? what is the optimal temperature for under the covers?
Reason i am looking into this is that my husband has sweat sleeps, wakes up often and basically doesnt get a good nights rest. We have the window open, the door open and a fan going… so there seems to be ventilation in the room. I sleep fine - I apparently get really hot when I sleep but it doesn’t bother me, it seems that my husband might be getting the sweats from that too? Although this is a recent thing of a few years… we’ve been married for almost 10 years so I don’t know that’s really the answer.
Have you found the device to monitor sleep and measure your temperature and under the blanket temperature?
Hi, I would assume that wearable sensors would include a second ambient temperature measurement to correct for things like sheets and wearing the device outside where it is hotter or colder than skin temperature. You could ask the manufacturer about this.
There is an IEEE paper that discusses measuring hand temperature “Accurate Temperature Measurements for Medical Research using Body Sensor Networks”.
They also list an interesting paper on measuring brain temperature “A Non Invasive Wearable Sensor for the Measurement of Brain Temperature” but I don’t know if it has been commercialized.
You may also want to look at Heart Rate / Heart Rate Variability measurement and PulseOX for additional information.
Good luck