Smart Home Week
This article is part of Ny Breaking’s Smart Home Week 2024, where we give you the latest news, tips and tricks to help you create the smart home of your dreams.
The smart home dream is a concert of home appliances such as the best smart bulbssmart TVs and smart speakers with voice assistants that work seamlessly together to improve all aspects of your life, from convenience to well-being.
It is well-being that we are now going to focus on. While the best sleep trackers are often worn on your wrist, or even on your finger like the Oura Ring Generation 3, you can also track your sleep quality and duration with a smart home hub, provided it has the Google Nest Hub (2nd generation) your own. That’s because it has capabilities that few other smart home hubs have: Even Amazon’s best Alexa speakers and Apple HomePod speakers can’t track your sleep this way.
The Google Nest Hub (2nd generation) features Motion Sense, which uses low-power radar technology to detect motion in front of the hub. While this has a variety of uses, it has also allowed Google to implement a “Sleep Sense” tool. Once Motion Sense detects that you’re asleep, it can monitor your sleep information as well as your breathing, recording your movements in bed and the rise and fall of your breathing, and its microphones can pick up sounds like coughing or snoring.
Don’t panic: he won’t be watching you while you sleep with a camera. In a post about the feature, Google says “Your Nest Hub (2nd generation) uses Motion Sense’s low-power radar to detect motion and breathing. Distinctive images of your body or face are not generated or used for Sleep Sensing with Motion Sense.” The radar technology is a motion detection tool, not a camera to capture details in the room.
Google can use the information the radar collects to record details about your sleep Fitbit Premium. From there, Fitbit can offer personalized sleep tips depending on your sleep habits, produced “in partnership with the American Academy of Sleep Medicine” to provide advice on regulating your behavior. The sleep data it collects can also contribute to your Daily Readiness Score in the Fitbit app.
Enable Sleep Sense on your Nest Hub (2nd generation)
- Open the Google Home app, select Devices, and tap and hold the Nest Hub device you want to use.
- Crane Institutions, Go to Sleep perception > Set up Sleep Observation.
- Crane Set a bedtime schedule. This allows you to set your usual bedtime routine. Most smartwatches have this functionality, where they switch to a sleep focus mode or ask you to relax 30 minutes in advance.
- Crane Institutions and switch Sense of movement Unpleasant On, if it’s not already on.
- To complete the installation, calibrate your sleeping location. Tap on Sleep perception and hit Calibrate device.
While the feature is currently in preview and available to all Google Nest Hub (2nd Gen) owners, it will become part of Fitbit Premium in the near future, which requires a subscription of $9.99 / £7.99 / AU $15.49 per month is required. The downside to using the Sleep Sensing tool is that it only works when there is one person in the room. If you sleep next to a partner, you’re out of luck, as the Sleep Sensing tool also records their movements. Even pets will cause it.
You need one of the best fitness trackers or smartwatches to track your stats, and only your stats when you’re in the room with others. If you’re determined to stay within the Google ecosystem, look out for discounts on the Google Pixel Watch 2 or a Fitbit during the upcoming Amazon Prime Day sale.