Sleep Cycle app review

Sleep Cycle

Price: $0.99

Sleep Cycle by Maciek Drejak Labs is an intelligent alarm clock app for your iOS device. This app is the #1 Top Paid app in many countries and has been featured in several famous publications.

The app actually analyzes your sleep and then proceeds to wake you up while you are in your lightest sleep phase. This results in you waking up feeling refreshed, relaxed, and well-rested rather than tired, groggy, and grumpy.

Basically, you go through several different sleep phases every night. You move differently depending on the phase of sleep you are in. Sleep Cycle uses your iOS device’s accelerometer to monitor your movements while you sleep. The app then chooses to wake you during a 30-minute window where the latest time it will wake you is your set alarm time. This way, you will wake up during the most optimum time.

The app was developed after years of sleep research and uses proven sleep science.

You’ll get detailed stats for your sleeps and sleep graphs for every night you use the app. You get 15 different alarm melodies, each of which have been carefully chosen to be most effective. You can also use your iPod music as a wake up sound if you prefer.

You can set the alarm to Snooze by either shaking or tapping the phone.

Other features of the app include the ability to export your sleep data to Excel, sleep notes that show you how different events and actions during your day affect the quality of your sleep; and the ability to run the app in background mode.

Make sure you follow the instructions for proper placement of your iOS device for the app to work.

Sleep Cycle was updated to Version 4.1 on December 12, 2012. The update added support for the iPhone 5. The current version has 10,405 customer ratings with an average of five out of five stars.

I’ve only used this app for one night and it seems to work well. I like the idea of how it works, and if it does what it says, I can see how it will allow me to track my sleep quality and help me to wake up feeling more rested every day.

For: iPhone, iPod touch, iPad with iOS 4.3 or later. Sleep Cycle alarm clock is optimized for iPhone 5.