BRI vs AHI: what your breathing reading means

BRI—Breathing Irregularity Index—summarizes candidate breathing patterns per estimated sleep hour in SomniSense, a sleep apnea detector app. It gives you a starting point for exploring your own night: the marks behind the number, their timing and the available sound. BRI is not clinical AHI, and AHI severity thresholds do not apply to it.

Start with the marks behind the number

Open your Night Report, then review the marked moments behind your BRI. SomniSense’s own audio analysis identifies two kinds of sound patterns for you to check:

• Pause-like pattern — an acoustic interval that resembles a sustained interruption in the recorded breathing pattern.
• Shallow-breathing-like pattern — a quieter or reduced acoustic pattern marked for review.

BRI is the number of candidate breathing-irregularity marks divided by estimated sleep hours. A higher BRI means more marks per estimated hour in that recording—not a clinical severity category.

How BRI differs from clinical AHI

AHI—the Apnea-Hypopnea Index—comes from medically defined events scored using appropriate sleep-testing signals. Clinical tests use the signals needed for their intended purpose; their equipment and setup can differ.

• Clinical tests use appropriate physiological signals and scoring criteria.
• Airflow sensors can help assess breathing changes.
• Oxygen measurements can add physiological context.
• Clinical testing may use nasal or oral sensors to assess airflow; this is not direct measurement of breath volume.
• Clinical professionals interpret the test signals using the applicable scoring criteria.

A clinician interprets those measurements with your history and symptoms. BRI adds a sound record you can revisit; it does not substitute for the clinical test.

Three ways to explore your own night

One completed report is enough to start. These three steps turn the summary number into something you can inspect:

1. Find a marked moment

Choose a marked moment from the night view. Look at when it occurred and what the waveform shows before and after it. Marks close together and marks spread through the night give you different places to review.

You do not need to decide what every mark means medically to examine your own recording. The estimated time and interval help you find the surrounding evidence.

2. Hear the surrounding sound

When audio is available, listen to the sound before the marked interval and the sound that follows it. Room noise, another sleeper and microphone position can affect what was recorded; the audio gives you context that the number alone cannot.

3. Keep a record you can return to

Save available minute audio if you want a copy. If you choose to record again, compare your own readings and marks under similar conditions. Several nights can reveal a recurring pattern; they are optional, not a prerequisite for using your first report.

Sharing a record with your clinician

If you choose to discuss your recordings with a health professional, bring the date, your concern and the available record, rather than presenting BRI as a diagnosis:

• "I've been tracking with a smartphone app called SomniSense."
• "It reports a product-defined acoustic metric called BRI; I understand it is not AHI."
• "My BRI averages around X over [time period] of nights."
• "Here's a structured wellness PDF showing the product observations and limits."

Your clinician decides whether the record is useful and whether testing is appropriate. Symptoms or concerns deserve attention regardless of a high or low BRI.

The night view adds context

Two nights can have the same BRI while their marks appear at different times. The night view helps you find those differences instead of treating the average as the whole story.

BRI describes the app’s own acoustic observations. It has no clinical “normal” band and cannot identify sleep stage or the cause of how you feel in the morning.

Open a marked region and follow it into the minute view. See how the whole-night view connects to a specific moment.