Sound recognition#

Sleep as Android isn’t just about tracking your sleep movement, it can also analyze the sounds you make during the night, automatically categorize them, and tag them on your sleep graph.

Whether you want to monitor snoring, catch sleep-talking, or see how often a crying baby wakes you up, this guide will help you get the most out of Sound Recognition.

What Is Sound Recognition?#

During sleep tracking, Sleep as Android analyzes background audio and automatically identifies specific types of sounds. When a sound is recognized, the app:

  • Adds a hashtag (like #snore or #talk) to your sleep recording.
  • Creates an event marker on your sleep chart so you can pinpoint exactly when it happened.

Recognized Sound Categories #

Category Tag What It Detects & Why It Matters
Snoring #snore Tracks snoring events. Regular snoring can reduce sleep quality for you and your partner, and may sometimes indicate Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA).
Sleep Talk #talk Records sleep talking so you can listen back in the morning to hear what you were saying!
Sickness #sick Detects coughing and sneezing, giving you early insight into potential health changes or illness.
Baby Crying #baby Helps you track how often your sleep was disrupted by a crying baby.
Laughter #laugh A fun bonus feature that catches unexpected chuckles or laughter while dreaming.

How to Adjust Sound & Sensitivity Settings#

Every room is different, and every phone microphone handles sound uniquely. If the app is missing sounds or being too sensitive, you can easily fine-tune it:

  1. Open Settings in Sleep as Android.
  2. Tap Sleep noise analysis → Sound recognition.
  3. Use the sliders to adjust sensitivity for each individual sound category.
  4. To turn off recognition for a specific sound entirely, slide it all the way to Disabled.

💡 Quick Tip: If snoring detection flags normal room noises as snoring (or misses snoring altogether), simply adjust the Snoring slider up or down until it matches your room setup.

How It Works Behind the Scenes#

Sleep as Android uses Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), a form of artificial intelligence trained on thousands of real-world sound samples.

  • The algorithms are taught by listening to thousands of labeled audio clips (e.g., “this is a cough”, “this is a snore”, “this is a fan”).
  • Over time, it learns the unique acoustic patterns of each sound so it can recognize new, unheard sounds on your phone.
  • We continuously train and improve the neural network model to increase accuracy across different environments and device hardware.

Help Us Make Sound Recognition Better!#

You can help make our algorithms smarter directly from the app! If the app misclassifies a recording:

  1. Open the audio player in the app to listen to your sound recording.
  2. Fix the tags: Tap the correct icon to add missing tags or remove incorrect ones.
  3. Share the sample: If a change is made to the sound class, the app may ask if you’d like to share the misclassified clip with us.
  4. Tapping Yes prepares an email with the audio attachment sent directly to our team at support@urbandroid.org.

We manually review these real-world samples to re-train the algorithm and improve accuracy for everyone.

❓ FAQs & Troubleshooting#

No sound recordings and flat noise graph (no data recorded)

If your noise graph shows a flat line with no fluctuations and no audio clips were saved, the app was blocked from accessing the microphone:

  • Missing Microphone Permission: Ensure Sleep as Android has microphone permissions enabled in your phone’s System Settings → Apps → Sleep → Permissions.
  • Microphone Conflict (Lost Access): On Android, only one app can access the microphone at a time. If another background app (voice assistant, white noise generator, or call recorder) is actively using the mic, Sleep as Android will lose mic access. Close other audio-recording or voice-activated apps before tracking.
  • Background Launch Restrictions (Android 11+): If tracking starts automatically, Android prevents background mic access. Grant the Display over other apps (Draw over other apps) permission so the app can initialize the microphone from the background.
Noise graph shows sound data, but no audio clips recorded

If the noise graph displays sound fluctuations or icons, but no audio clips were recorded or saved:

  • Volume Threshold Too High: The app only records audio when sound levels exceed your threshold. Go to Settings → Sleep noise analysis → Recording volume threshold and lower it (e.g., to 15% or 20%).
  • Storage Path Issue: The app could not write audio files to storage. Go to Settings → Sleep noise analysis → Storage path and tap Reset.
What should I do if a sound was tagged incorrectly?

You can easily fix tags by editing the recording’s comment section or tapping the sound category icons directly inside the audio player screen. You can also email misclassified clips with details on what changed to support@urbandroid.org.

Need further help? Contact us via Left ☰ Menu → Support → Report a bug.

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