From now on, sleep surveillance is accessible to everyone thanks to home automation.For daily tracking, just install an application on your smartphone, wear a smart bracelet or a connected watch.But researchers believe that these devices are still too reliable.Worse, some would worsen the risks of insomnia.

Home automation: the well-being market placed on our nights

Are the connected objects intended to help us sleep better and more numerous, but are they really effective?The democratization of home automation by being in its infancy, it is sometimes difficult to make the difference between gadgets and useful equipment.Examples of recent or future outings are numerous.

Companies like Withings, specialized in e-health, offer for example a connected sleep sensor to place under the mattress, while Philips prepares the release of its smart belt Smartsleep in order to improve the quality of the sleep ofthe user.At the same time, the Moona company has marketed a connected pillow for sleep disorders and research is working on pajamas connected with the same ambitions.

But to date, the most popular intelligent objects dedicated to our nights are sleep trackers, namely smartphones applications, but also connected watches and bracelets that we use on a daily basis for general health follow -up.These products often have specific sleep features and, when they are placed next to us or worn on the wrist, identify and analyze the sleep cycles automatically.The problem is that today the procedures for verifying the real benefits of these objects for therapeutic purposes are still almost non -existent.

Recently, researchers have declared that these wearables - the connected objects that we wear -, but also all the standard trackers apps on smartphone would be potentially bad for our sleep.Paradoxically, some of them would promote insomnia.The study was relayed by the New York Times in June 2019.

As Dr. Kelly Baron explains, who participated in carrying out the study on the subject, in the New York Times, the trackers can also be a good way to identify sleep disorders in a person.And sleeping well is important, since we know that good sleep avoids falling ill and that insomnia has been linked to risks of premature death, stroke, diabetes, depression andanxiety, recalls the newspaper.

Sleeping trackers: what consequences on our health?

Bracelets and connected watches are now largely popular.There are very varied price ranges, and even for children, like the Fitbit Ace 2.Some people make a positive use of these equipment first, with the desire to improve their quality of life, and in fact, that of their nights and moments of rest.

However, the applications that allow daily coaching give the user of the goals to be achieved, which can for some turn in obsession.Sleep then becomes a daily challenge transforming anyone into orthosomniac potentials, that is to say people who are obsessed with the quality of their sleep to the point that they seek all possible methods to go in this direction.And with connected objects, this can have consequences in contrast to the desired goal, and cause insomnia because of anxiety and stress caused by these monitoring processes.Concretely, a person who becomes obsessed with his sleep score will live very badly the fact of having 7:59 indicated on his application on the 8h aims.

This pathology, orthosomnia, was identified two years ago by American doctors.In 2017, a study was thus published by the Rush Medical College and the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine on the subject.

Estimates of applications, bracelets and connected watches often rely on the several types of data: movements, heart rate, breathing, etc..It all depends on the brand and the monitoring solution.And these data are far from being completely reliable, even in some cases are downright wrong.In adults, an ideal sleep night must be seven to nine o'clock.This varies depending on the person.While waiting for a more precise technology, the best may still remain to look at your alarm clock and listen to your body.If you really feel rested in the morning, then the goal seems to be achieved.