Validating a mobile phone application for the everyday, unobtrusive, objective measurement of sleep

There is an identified need for objective, reliable, and scalable methods of measuring and recording sleep. Such methods must be designed for easy integration into people's lives in order to support both sleep therapy and everyday personal informatics. This paper describes the design and evaluation of a mobile phone application to record sleep, the design of which has substantive foundation in clinical sleep research. Two user studies were carried out which demonstrate that the application produces valid measurements of sleep quality and high levels of usability, whilst not seriously disturbing sleep or the sleep environment. These findings suggest that the app is suitable for both everyday sleep monitoring in a personal informatics context, and for integration into sleep interventions.