Frequently Asked Questions

For optimal results, place your phone on a stable surface near your bed, such as a nightstand, with the microphone unobstructed and pointing toward you. The recommended distance is 1-3 feet (30-90 cm) from your head.

Getting started with SomniSense is simple:

1. Download: Get the app from the App Store or Google Play Store
2. Create account: Sign up with your email or use social login
3. Permissions: Grant microphone access when prompted (essential for sound analysis)
4. Quick setup: Follow the guided setup wizard that explains core features
5. Personal profile: (Optional) Input basic information like age, gender, and BMI for more accurate insights
6. Place phone: Position your phone on a stable surface near your bed
7. Start monitoring: Press "Start Recording" when you're ready to sleep

The app will automatically analyze your sleep sounds throughout the night. In the morning, simply stop the recording to view your comprehensive sleep report.

No, you don't need to keep the app in the foreground. Once you start recording, SomniSense will continue to record and analyze your sleep sounds even when your screen is off or while using other apps.

On some Android devices, you may need to adjust battery optimization settings to allow SomniSense to run in the background without restrictions. The app will guide you through these settings during initial setup if needed.

For the most comprehensive understanding of your sleep breathing patterns, we recommend:

• Initial baseline: Use SomniSense for at least 3-5 consecutive nights to establish your baseline patterns
• Regular monitoring: 2-3 nights per week for ongoing tracking
• Lifestyle changes: Increase to 4-5 nights when testing the impact of lifestyle changes (new sleeping position, alcohol reduction, weight loss, etc.)
• Seasonal monitoring: Some users experience different sleep breathing patterns during different seasons (especially with allergies or temperature changes)

The more consistently you use SomniSense, the more accurate your trends and insights will be. The app uses your historical data to identify patterns and provide personalized recommendations.

The SomniSense sleep report provides comprehensive information about your sleep breathing patterns, allowing you to understand both the overview and detailed analysis of your night.

The complete report includes:

• Snoring Analysis: Total snoring duration, frequency, intensity (in decibels), and percentage of sleep time spent snoring
• Breathing Irregularity Analysis: Number and duration of detected breathing pauses and reduced breathing events
• Breathing Irregularity Index: A score that measures the frequency of breathing abnormalities per hour of sleep
• Hourly Breakdown: Hour-by-hour analysis showing when snoring and breathing irregularities occurred most frequently
• Sound Recordings: Actual recordings of detected events with visual waveforms for reference
• Sleep Quality Indicators: Assessment of how breathing events may have affected sleep quality
• Trend Analysis: Comparison with your previous recordings to track changes over time
• Snoring Type Classification: Analysis of snoring patterns to identify potential sources (palatal, tongue-based, or epiglottic)

Yes, one of SomniSense's most unique and valuable features is the ability to play back actual recordings of detected events. You can listen to specific snoring episodes and the surrounding audio during detected breathing pauses.

This feature provides several key benefits:

• Hear actual sound patterns: Experience the intensity and rhythm of your snoring
• Identify breathing pauses: Listen to the silence or gasping that may occur during breathing irregularities
• Understand snoring types: Different snoring sounds can indicate different sources (nasal, throat, tongue)
• Track improvements: Compare recordings over time to hear how interventions are helping
• Share with healthcare providers: Export specific audio clips to share with professionals

The waveform visualization displays alongside the audio playback, helping you see the pattern of the sound while you listen. You can zoom in on specific sections, adjust playback speed, and bookmark important segments for future reference.

The lifestyle correlation feature helps you understand how your daily habits affect your sleep breathing patterns, providing personalized insights that can guide meaningful improvements.

How it works:

1. Pre-sleep logging: Before starting a sleep recording, you can log factors like:
• Alcohol consumption (time and amount)
• Caffeine intake (time and amount)
• Exercise (intensity and timing)
• Medications
• Sleeping position preference
• Stress levels
• Late meals
• Screen time before bed
2. Data collection: As you continue using SomniSense over time (2-3 weeks minimum recommended), the app collects data on these factors alongside your sleep breathing metrics.
3. Pattern identification: Our AI algorithms identify correlations between your habits and sleep breathing events.
4. Personalized insights: The app generates insights like:
• "Alcohol consumption within 4 hours of bedtime is associated with a 40% increase in breathing pauses"
• "Sleeping on your side reduces snoring intensity by 60%"
• "Exercise days show 30% fewer breathing irregularities than non-exercise days"

SomniSense primarily focuses on breathing-related sleep issues rather than sleep stages. While many general sleep apps attempt to track sleep cycles, our specialized approach provides deeper insights into the critical area of sleep breathing.

What SomniSense does track:

• Total recording duration (from start to stop)
• Periods of detected sleep sounds (snoring, breathing events)
• Estimated sleep disruptions based on breathing events
• Sound patterns that might indicate movement or restlessness
• Detailed breathing analysis throughout the night

What SomniSense does not track:

• Light, deep, and REM sleep stages (which require movement detection or heart rate monitoring)
• Sleep quality scores based on movement
• Heart rate variability

Our focused approach allows us to provide deeper, more accurate insights into breathing patterns than generalist sleep apps that try to track everything but may not excel at detecting specific health-critical events like breathing pauses.

SomniSense gives you control over your data storage, with different retention policies depending on your subscription level and preferences:

Free Version:

• Detailed sleep reports: 7 days
• Basic sleep metrics and summaries: 30 days
• Audio recordings: None stored beyond the current session

Premium Version:

• Detailed sleep reports: Unlimited
• Full metrics and trend data: Unlimited
• Audio recordings: Configurable storage options
• Cloud backup: Optional, with encryption

You can manually delete recordings or reports at any time regardless of your subscription level. For complete data management information, please refer to our Privacy Policy.

SomniSense uses advanced AI algorithms to analyze audio recorded through your smartphone's microphone. Our technology works through several sophisticated processes:

Snoring Detection:

• Acoustic pattern recognition: Identifies the distinctive sound signatures of snoring
• Frequency analysis: Examines specific frequency ranges typical of snoring sounds
• Rhythmic pattern detection: Recognizes the cyclical nature of snoring sounds
• Amplitude measurement: Determines loudness and intensity patterns
• Snoring classification: Categorizes different types of snoring based on acoustic properties

Breathing Pause Detection:

• Silence pattern analysis: Identifies unusual silences between breathing sounds
• Recovery sound detection: Recognizes gasping or louder breathing that often follows a pause
• Breathing rhythm analysis: Detects disruptions in the normal breathing pattern
• Duration measurement: Calculates the length of potential breathing pauses

Reduced Breathing (Hypopnea) Detection:

• Amplitude reduction: Measures significant decreases in breathing sound volume
• Pattern changes: Identifies alterations in normal breathing sound patterns
• Effort detection: Recognizes sounds associated with increased breathing effort

Based on our clinical validation studies, SomniSense achieves impressive accuracy levels when compared to professional polysomnography (PSG) equipment:

Validated accuracy metrics:

• Snoring detection: 91% detection rate with 98.5% accuracy
• Breathing pause detection: 80% detection rate with 91% accuracy
• Overall breathing event detection: 72% total detection accuracy

While SomniSense provides excellent accuracy for a consumer application, it's important to understand the differences between our app and professional medical equipment:

SomniSense's value lies in its ability to provide reasonably accurate monitoring over extended periods in your natural sleep environment, helping you identify patterns and track improvements that might not be captured in a single-night medical study.

The Breathing Irregularity Index (BII) is SomniSense's proprietary metric that quantifies the frequency of detected breathing irregularities during sleep. It provides a single number to help you understand and track your sleep breathing health.

This index gives you a single number that indicates how many breathing irregularities occur, on average, each hour while you sleep. To make the number meaningful, we categorize the BII into severity levels:

• Normal: Less than 5 events per hour
• Mild: 5-14 events per hour
• Moderate: 15-29 events per hour
• Severe: 30 or more events per hour

Important note: While similar in concept to the Apnea-Hypopnea Index (AHI) used in clinical settings, our BII is designed for personal reference rather than medical diagnosis. The BII should not be interpreted as a medical diagnosis of sleep apnea or any other sleep disorder.

No, SomniSense is not a medical device and cannot diagnose sleep apnea or other sleep disorders.

The app provides monitoring and analysis of sleep breathing patterns for personal awareness and tracking only. A formal diagnosis of any sleep disorder requires:

• Evaluation by a qualified healthcare professional
• Clinical sleep studies using medical-grade equipment
• Consideration of your complete medical history and symptoms

SomniSense can complement professional care by:

• Providing initial insights about your sleep breathing patterns
• Offering ongoing monitoring between medical visits
• Helping track the effectiveness of treatments or interventions
• Creating exportable reports you can share with your healthcare provider

Always prioritize professional medical advice for health concerns related to sleep breathing.

There are several reasons why SomniSense might not detect all snoring episodes. Understanding these factors can help you improve detection accuracy:

Remember that SomniSense is designed to maintain a balance between detecting genuine events and avoiding false positives. If you believe significant snoring episodes are consistently being missed despite these adjustments, please contact our support team with details about your device model and recording environment.

SomniSense is optimized for minimal battery consumption, but continuous overnight recording will use some battery power. Here's what to expect and how to manage battery usage:

If you notice excessive battery drain (more than 15% in 8 hours) while using SomniSense, check if other apps are running in the background or contact our support team for troubleshooting assistance.

Unexpected recording stops can be frustrating. Here are the most common causes and solutions:

If recordings consistently stop at a specific point in the night, please contact our support team with details about your device model and when the interruption occurs. We may be able to provide device-specific recommendations.

It's natural to question the accuracy of detected breathing pauses, especially since you're asleep when they occur. Here's how to verify and better understand the detections:

Remember that even if some individual detections may not be perfectly accurate, consistently detected patterns across multiple nights often indicate something worth paying attention to. If you're concerned about detected breathing irregularities, especially if they occur frequently, we recommend consulting with a healthcare provider for professional evaluation.

SomniSense offers several ways to export and share your sleep data, which can be useful for personal tracking or sharing with healthcare providers:

Available export formats:

• PDF Report: Complete visual report with charts and analysis
• CSV Data: Raw data for detailed analysis or importing to other systems
• Audio Clips: Selected recordings of significant events
• Chart Images: Individual graphs and visualizations

Note that some advanced export features are only available to Premium subscribers. Free users can still export basic PDF reports and screenshots.

Yes, we take your privacy seriously. Your sleep data security is a top priority for SomniSense:

For complete details about our data practices, please review our Privacy Policy.

Your privacy is paramount to us. Access to your sleep recordings is strictly limited:

If you choose to enable cloud backup (premium feature), your encrypted data is stored on secure servers with strict access controls and regular security audits. Even in this case, the data is accessible only through your authenticated account.

Our business model is based on providing a valuable service through paid subscriptions, not monetizing your data. We earn revenue when users upgrade to premium features, not by selling data to third parties.

Yes, you have full control to delete your data at any time. Here's how to manage your data:

When you delete data:

• It's removed from both your device and our servers (if cloud backup was enabled)
• Backups are purged within 30 days
• Any anonymized data that was included in research aggregates cannot be individually removed, but contains no personally identifiable information

If you need help with data deletion, please contact our support team at [email protected].

SomniSense offers both free and premium options to accommodate different needs:

The free version provides valuable basic functionality, while premium offers the comprehensive tools needed for ongoing monitoring and improvement of sleep breathing issues.

You can cancel your SomniSense premium subscription at any time. The cancellation process depends on how you subscribed:

If you're cancelling due to technical issues or have other concerns, please contact our support team at [email protected]. We value your feedback and are committed to ensuring you have a positive experience with SomniSense.

Yes, we offer several options for families and households who want to monitor sleep health together:

For healthcare providers or sleep coaches monitoring multiple clients, we offer professional plans with additional features. Please contact our business team at [email protected] for more information.