Introducing Pillow v.3.6

 

Sleep tracking should be as easy and effortless as possible. With Pillow v.3.6 we’re (finally) introducing automatic sleep tracking using the Apple Watch. This is a very big update that took a lot of time and effort to make sure it works as expected and at the same time feels like a natural addition to Pillow’s existing features.

Here’s a quick overview of what’s new in this version:

Automatic sleep tracking with the Apple Watch

Automatic sleep tracking means that Pillow no longer requires you to press any buttons to track your sleep. If you have an Apple Watch, simply enable Pillow’s “Automatic” mode once and just wear your Apple Watch during sleep. As long as Pillow’s Automatic mode is enabled Pillow will automatically detect and analyze your sleep every day. You can open Pillow anytime during the day to check your sleep analysis, set your mood or add notes to that sleep session.

One thing that’s worth noting is that Alarms and Audio recordings are currently not possible in Automatic mode due to the way Apple Watch and watchOS works. However, we’ll keep looking for ways to bring this functionality.

“Manual” mode is still there

If, for whatever reason, you don’t like Automatic mode or you want to use your iPhone or iPad to track your sleep, you can turn off Automatic mode and switch back to Manual mode. Every single feature available in manual mode is still there and it’s not going away. Manual mode is still a very popular way to track sleep with Pillow and we’ve got great new features coming up for those who want to use Pillow in that mode.

Introducing the Sleep Diary view

 

 

Since the very first version of Pillow, when you launch the app, you are taken directly to the Alarm Setup view where you see a picker that you can use to set up your wake-up time. That’s great if you want to use Pillow in manual mode. However, it doesn’t make sense when you when Automatic mode is on. We also felt that Pillow was always missing a view where you can easily get a quick and meaningful summary of your sleep every day. Those two problems led us to create what we call the “Sleep Diary“ view.

The Sleep Diary gives a quick and visual overview of what matters when you want to get an idea of how well you slept last night: Two concentric rings, one for the Time Asleep and the other for your Sleep Quality for that day, and a list of all the detected sleep sessions in a condensed and simplified form. Tapping on each one of the detected sessions takes you to the detail view where you can get in-depth information about that night.

The Sleep Diary is only accessible if you enable Automatic mode both from the iPhone and the Apple Watch. However, we’re working on a major redesign of Pillow that will provide access to that view in both Automatic and Manual modes.

The Sleep calendar

 

 

An important part of the Sleep Diary view is the Sleep Calendar. Tapping on the calendar icon on the top right corner displays a monthly calendar that lets you access previous days. If Pillow has detected one or more sessions for that day, you’ll see a little purple dot. Tapping on a day that doesn’t have any sleep sessions detected, will take you to that day and Pillow will automatically try to detect any sessions, provided that you did wear your Apple Watch during sleep. That’s a great way to detect sessions in the past, and you can go as far back in time as you want!

Sleep reports via Rich notifications

 

 

 

You can select to receive a notification when Pillow detects a sleep session or schedule that notification to appear after a specific time. Pillow uses rich notifications so that you can view your sleep report and sleep stage diagram without having to open the app.

Merging and expanding sessions

 

 

Last but not least, this update gives even more flexibility in the way you can handle detected sleep sessions. Pillow's edit session dialog now allows you to increase the duration of your sleep session by adding time at the beginning or end of the sleep session or merge two sleep sessions as long as they are less than six hours apart.

What’s next

Now that Automatic sleep tracking mode is done we’ll be working full speed in our next major version, Pillow v.4.0 that will bring many new features and a complete redesign that will make Pillow a lot easier and intuitive to use. Subscribe to our mailing list if you want to receive news and updates about any upcoming features and updates.

Pillow is available for free on the App Store and the new Automatic Sleep tracking features come as a free upgrade to all existing users. Enjoy!

It’s World Sleep Day today, and it goes without saying that this is a special date for Pillow. For us, it’s first and foremost an excellent opportunity to ask one simple question: How does sleep affect my life? Sadly, it’s not a question that gets asked often enough, although it’s surprisingly easy to answer with all the technology and resources that is available out there.

So we urge you to ask yourself this simple question and if by any change you’d like to use Pillow to help you find the answer we’re offering all our Premium Features at a 40% discount just for today.

The first big update for Pillow in 2017 has arrived packed with many improvements, fixes, and much-requested features. Here’s a quick look at what’s in this version:

Heart rate analysis during sleep

Pillow’s advanced sleep tracking and analysis algorithm takes another leading step forward by introducing heart rate analysis during sleep time. Being the first of its kind to provide this kind of depth and accuracy, Pillow now displays a detailed graph of the heart rate during each sleep session. The heart rate graph is overlaid on top of the sleep analysis chart to provide unprecedented insight into the changes in the heart rate during each sleep stage. Tapping on the graph, it is possible to view individual heart rate values and review high, low and average values for the entire sleep session as well as the same values for each stage of sleep.

To do that, Pillow uses heart rate data from Apple Health as they are gathered by wearable devices such as the Apple Watch, provided that the user has given explicit permission to Pillow to use those data. Also, Pillow on the Apple Watch has been updated to include the heart rate chart during sleep along with the sleep analysis chart.

The integration of Heart Rate analysis from wearable devices marks the step towards the realization of a greater vision that we have for Pillow. To connect with a wide variety of services and smart appliances that share relevant data and functionality with Pillow so that it may become the heart of the sleep monitoring and improvement experience.

A radically updated Apple Watch app

The release of Pillow of the Apple Watch and the subsequent release of Apple Watch OS 3.0 combined with valuable feedback from our users lead to so many changes and improvements that we practically re-wrote the entire app. Firstly, Pillow for the Apple Watch is now a lot easier to use requiring fewer steps to start and stop a sleep session and the entire UI has been cleaned up to load faster and be more informative. We’ve also made significant improvements in the way sleep session data is synced at the end of the session and we’ve added a completely new heart rate analysis view in the statistics.

Of course we’re still at the beginning. We have so many more updates and ideas for Pillow on the Apple Watch, some of which also depend on the evolution of the watchOS itself. A lot of people ask us why Pillow on the Apple Watch doesn’t perform automatic sleep tracking. Pillow’s algorithm uses motion data recorded from the Apple Watch to perform sleep analysis and this data can only be obtained if the user explicitly starts a session from the Apple Watch as required by watchOS 3. Other apps that claim to automatically detect sleep start and stop times don’t use motion data which, based on our research and tests, leads to wildly inaccurate sleep analysis.

We are very optimistic about the future of the Apple Watch and watchOS as we closely monitor any enhancement and improvement that becomes available to third-party apps like Pillow. Automatic sleep tracking, use of haptic feedback for the alarm, audio recording using the Apple Watch are features that we definitely want to implement once those technical obstacles are overcome.

Time to sleep and better detailed sleep statistics

Knowing how much time it took to fall asleep each night is valuable information and may explain various decisions and choices that may have affected sleep quality. This is why now Pillow comes an updated sleep analysis view to accommodate precisely this kind of information. In addition, we’ve made a number of updates in the detailed statistics views so that it is now easier to compare Time asleep vs. Time in Bed on a weekly, monthly and yearly basis.

More options and customisations

Pillow v.3.1 comes with many more improvements and enhancements including the much requested ability to customise the level of the alarm volume and the duration of the sleep aid sounds. Last but not least we’ve updated Snooze lab with more insights, tips and improvements that we hope that you will enjoy.

Automatic sleep tracking on the Apple Watch and the future

Pillow on the Apple watch uses motion and heart rate data recorded from the Apple Watch to perform sleep analysis. However, motion data can only be obtained if the user explicitly starts a session from the Apple Watch as required by watchOS. Automatic sleep tracking on the Apple Watch is currently possible using heart rate data only, which based on our research, can lead to very inaccurate sleep analysis. That said, we are working on ways to use heart rate data in other interesting ways including automatic sleep start and stop time detection. Hopefully, the ongoing evolution of the Apple Watch will lift many of the currently imposed restrictions and we promise we'll do our best to make Pillow as frictionless to use as possible!

Pillow v.3.1 is available on the App Store as free download with an one-time in-app purchase to unlock all the Premium Features.

The importance of sleeping well is often overlooked. Despite the fact that sleep science and still in its infancy, we have a plethora of studies, surveys and discoveries demonstrating just how sleep can affect our everyday lives on a surprising level. Below is an infographic containing some of the most important facts and figures about sleep that we have gathered as part of our ongoing research for Pillow, our sleep tracking app.

It's that Cyber Monday of the year and we are offering Pillow at a great big discount. Enjoy and sleep well!

Click here to get it now