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On average, people sleep around 7 hours a night. But according to our research, it differs a lot with the location. For example, people around the equator tend to sleep less – up to 30 minutes less than the average American!
Summary
- Using smart alarm has a positive effect on the morning mood
- About 30% of alarms get snoozed for longer than 30 minutes
- Setting up smart alarm prevents oversleeping
We have also found that the longer people sleep, the happier morning they have.
However, you probably don’t want to sleep your life away. Most of us need to work, want to spend some time with children, with their hobbies and with all the nice things in life. How can you make your sleep better without waking up in the afternoon? Use smart alarm. We have hard evidence that it works, Watson.
First argument for the smart alarm: people woken up by smart alarm are rating their sleep better. For smart period = 30 minutes, there is a small tendency to rate the sleep better if the smart alarm did wake you up in the light sleep. If it woke you up at the end of the period (so you were in deep sleep at the time), the rating tends to be lower. We can say that using a smart alarm has a positive effect on the morning mood. See for yourself:
Looking at the chart, 0.03 difference in the rating might not seem like a lot. But the data behind it are very consistent, and with a standard error of the mean less than 0.01, we can say we have a very good idea of the underlying reality.
Most people are using the smart period of 30 minutes – it is the default in Sleep as Android, and it makes most sense. Half an hour almost guarantees that a part of the smart period will take place in light sleep, thus enabling the smart alarm to gently wake you up.
Second argument for the smart alarm: It turns out that a whole lot of people snooze their mornings away.
This chart is very revealing, since it shows that people are snoozing a lot. 2% of mornings are getting a solid hour surplus, and lot of mornings even more, up to almost 150 minutes. If we count all snoozes longer than 30 minutes, we get around 30% of mornings!
Let’s break that down a little bit in the following table.
| Average snooze duration | Total sleep duration | Average oversleep (Time from first alarm ringing to dismiss) | |
| No alarm | X | 7 hours 39 minutes | X |
| Fixed alarm time | 9 min 16 sec | 7 hours 43 minutes | 9 min 16 sec |
| Smart alarm | 24 min 34 seconds | 7 hours 15 minutes | 15 min 52 seconds |
It’s interesting that people do sleep longest on average when they have set up a fixed alarm.
With a fixed alarm time, there is a tendency to wake up earlier than the alarm would sound, indicating that many people are capable of waking up smart by themselves. But on the other hand, the average snooze time is about 10 minutes. So people who do not wake up by themselves will try to stay in the bed a little longer. This might have a lot of causes. One of the main causes will probably be that people just set their alarms for a little earlier than they really need to.
With smart alarm, people generally sleep less (no wonder!), they snooze much more, and rate their sleep slightly better than with fixed alarm time. If we may interpret a little bit, a possible cause for the snoozing rise is that they just have more time. Even then, on average they get 5 minutes before the designated alarm deadline. Which means that with respect to the fixed alarm time, they have on average 15 minutes out-of-bed time more.
4 thoughts on “A case for the smart alarm”
Hello this sleep data is very important to me I paid the premium version recently I’ve been using the app religiously firstly it was for its intended purpose but now last year I started using it to keep recordings showing proof of my partner for lines abuse toward me the beatings the violence the wordshe used that were terrible. He is very good at hacking phones and my computer recently he backed my outlook account and read all my WhatsApp chats and I know he had deleted sleep data because when I press and hold the box of my P9 I saw there one of the running apps way sleep cloud and it is easy for him to perform such high security sections because all he needs and knows is to take my middle finger whilst I’m sleeping be is an early riser and then put it on the back of the phone where the sensor is. I went home for a few days and my sleep tracking recordings have disappeared. Please help me find them I need to use them as evidence in court. I am a beta tester for your app I want to say thank you for your app and allowing me to use our top hemp me it had really helped me so much of they’re is anything I can do a donation for instance please let me know and I hope your read this and know how important it is dear sir or madam. Please cave your gotten my sleep tracking back on cause he’s done something it’s not recording anymore and I’m not too good with technology thank you so much for your app I give you ten or of ten you’re amazing you guys please help me if you would like to and are able to I would be eternally grateful I’m so appreciative of your sleep at Android app and I will give you all the recognition you deserve your even helped me to find out that be far a prostitute knocking on the window Asma him putting on his pj pants before checking my phone whole I was snoring then leaving he runs a brothel on his first house down in JBay he’s done this to his first wife of three years she divorced him To thirty I need my recordings and you to hemp me very my app recording again phonecalls ect. I cannot express my gratitude I’m a battered abused woman. I have been dumped on the streets with no alternative accommodation at is law in South Africa. Just a big thank you and please if you may be so kind to help me and should you need my help or anything I’m here. My name is iris Kathryn Pretorius I have been living in Jeffrey’s Bay Eastern Cape South Africa for seven teen years ten next door to Rodney Gordon Calvert the mam I’ve become a wide to under South African law. My phone number is +27633027202 my previous address was 13 Flame Crescent Wavecrest Jeffrey’s Bay 6330 and then he seduced me one day on the 25th of February 2016 on his house and I was sorry of forced to stay with him for money as my parents next door at no 13 couldn’t even count up right Rand to buy me a cheap box of cigarettes and I was living in the location with the coal poor people cause I had nothing I was forced to prostitute myself as my cat needed ninety and the guy who dumped me on the day of the six of November 2015 after my engagement and miscarriage in that order I had no money so my parents told me to not be doing and go be Rodney’s girlfriend my cat list his contract at Total SA because he was not black empowered and he didn’t have the ninety to have his safety come under scratch. That’s just a bit of my story I’ve got many witness accounts of abuse he’s filmed me naked drives drugged me ect. Have a blessed day God bless thank you this is my cry for help you can help. I owe your everything. My truthful thanks. Kind regards Miss Iris Calvert Pretorius his ID number is 6403095050084. My email is irispretorius@hotmail.co.za my ID is 8504080027082. You are wonderful amazing people God bless you all! Peace love and happiness. Iris.
Hello Iris,
the only thing that may help is to look in /sleep-data/rec folder on your phone using some file manager app like Total Commander and backup any files that you find there. Those are all records that can be saved.
Unfortunately, if anything was deleted from there, we are unable to get it back.
Can you make a snooze that respects sleep phases? Something like: let me sleep one more time for at least x minutes and a maximum of y minutes. Wake me up as soon as I move or the snooze time is over. (Or if the maximum snooze time is over)
I bought the premium version and use your app every night. Being able to get up really early if I am fit or sleeping for one more sleep phase if I am not would be nice.
Thanks for your interesting idea! Can I ask you — could you please add it to urbandroid.uservoice.com? We track all of our users’ suggestions there and we discuss fresh ideas with the team.