COMPARISON · CLINICAL STUDY VS WELLNESS RECORD
A sleep study answers clinical questions. Your phone adds nights you can review.
Keep a sleep study for diagnosis and care. SomniSense, a sleep apnea detector app, independently analyzes breathing sounds on your bedside phone, with marked moments you can see and hear across the ordinary nights you choose. No appointment, electrodes or new monitoring hardware; your first complete breathing report is free.
An in-lab sleep study records multiple physiological signals for professional interpretation and can support diagnosis and treatment decisions. SomniSense adds a different kind of personal evidence: independent phone-audio analysis with specific breathing moments you can open and hear. Use each record for its own task.
WHAT SOMNISENSE ADDS
Start tonight. Open a breathing moment in the morning.
Place a compatible phone as the app guides you, then record an ordinary night. Open a marked possible pause or shallow-breathing pattern to see its estimated time and duration, follow the waveform and hear available sound around it. You choose whether more nights would be useful; this separate record does not replace a sleep study.
- Candidate pause-like or shallow-breathing-like type, time, and model-estimated duration
- The marked waveform and playback of the sounds before and after the candidate interval
- Whole-night position, followed across nights in recent comparisons and structured reports
Phone audio is a limited wellness signal. Candidate regions are not clinical apnea events, AHI, oxygen measurements, airway-source findings, or a diagnosis.
iPhone · version 1.2.0 interface example. Example recordings; your observations will differ.
The lab night you might already have had
An in-lab study uses multiple sensors and trained staff to record signals that a phone microphone cannot: sleep state, airflow, oxygen saturation, respiratory effort, heart activity, movement, and other clinical context.
It is the clinical reference for a reason. Professional interpretation can support diagnosis and treatment decisions; SomniSense cannot.
Cost, scheduling, setting, and the number of nights vary by care pathway. Those practical differences do not reduce the study's clinical role.
A study is appropriate when a diagnosis or treatment decision is needed. A consumer app can only keep a separate observational record between clinical encounters.
Ordinary nights outside the study
Ordinary nights can give you a personal record beyond one clinical appointment.
Start with one complete breathing report, then decide whether to keep observing. Review an estimated pause or shallow-breathing mark, listen to the available surrounding sound, and look for patterns across your own nights if that is useful. Optional tags keep routines in context; they do not determine treatment effects.
Our own audio algorithms were studied using recordings paired with clinical sleep-study (PSG) labels: 80 person-nights from 40 participants. A published compressed-model evaluation achieved 88.49% accuracy in classifying labeled 200-second breathing windows. This supports the phone-analysis method; it is not the accuracy of every app event or a measure of treatment effectiveness. Read the audio research →
Where each one fits
On a small screen, swipe the table sideways to compare both paths.
| In-lab PSG | SomniSense | |
|---|---|---|
| What it provides | Clinical physiological measurement for professional interpretation | Candidate acoustic observations from ordinary nights |
| Setting | Sleep facility arranged through a clinical pathway | Your own bed |
| Sensors | EEG + EOG + EMG + SpO2 + airflow + chest band + leg + audio | Phone microphone |
| Access path | Clinician order, scheduling, payment or insurance, and lab or device availability vary | Start tonight with the supported phone already beside your bed |
| Recording cadence | Episodic and set by the clinical care pathway | User-controlled and repeatable across ordinary nights |
| Diagnostic authority | High — gold standard | None — wellness tool |
| Longer-period view | Depends on the prescribed clinical pathway | The 7, 30 and 90 options select up to that many recent qualifying recording days, not consecutive calendar days. The app shows the actual dates and available readings. |
| Selected audio review | Depends on the clinical report | Local audio around selected candidate regions |
| Personal routine tags | Not the purpose of the clinical study | Compare tagged and untagged app nights |
How the records can sit beside each other
The two records can sit beside each other only when their roles stay separate.
Step 1. If symptoms, witnessed pauses, gasping, persistent sleepiness, or safety concerns warrant it, speak with a clinician regardless of any app value.
Step 2. Complete the clinical testing recommended for you. The resulting measurements and professional interpretation are authoritative for diagnosis and care.
Step 3. If useful, share an optional SomniSense wellness summary as background. Your clinician decides whether and how to use it.
Step 4. If you begin clinician-guided treatment or another change, SomniSense can keep a separate acoustic record over time. It cannot determine whether treatment is effective.
A repeatable personal record, with a clear clinical role for the study
- Not a replacement for in-lab PSG. The lab is a different kind of measurement.
- Not a replacement for a qualified HSAT when one is medically indicated. Clinical home tests use physiological signals and an interpretation pathway that phone audio does not provide.
- Not a clinical diagnosis. BRI is a product-defined acoustic metric, not clinical AHI; it does not use AHI severity thresholds.
SomniSense gives you a low-friction way to inspect your own breathing sounds, retain useful context and choose the ordinary nights you want to follow. You can try your first complete breathing report free. A clinical question remains a reason to speak with a qualified clinician, whatever the app shows.
Put your phone by your bed and review your own night after sleep.
Your first complete breathing report is free to view—and stays free to revisit.
No valid report yet? You can try again for free.
Start for freeRecording and analysis stay free. Pro unlocks later complete breathing reports; snoring stays free.
Read next
Common questions
- If I get an in-lab study, do I still need SomniSense?
- No. A clinician and the study answer the clinical question. SomniSense is optional if you want a separate microphone-based wellness record across ordinary nights.
- Can SomniSense replace a sleep study?
- No. PSG and qualified HSAT pathways measure clinical signals for professional interpretation. SomniSense is a wellness tool that organizes phone-acoustic observations; it does not diagnose.
- What if my SomniSense data and my lab study disagree?
- Use the clinical study and your clinician for diagnosis and care decisions. SomniSense outputs are not clinical measurements and should not be used to overrule or reinterpret the study.
- Should I show my SomniSense data to my sleep specialist?
- You can share it as a consumer wellness record if you think the longer pattern is useful. Your clinician decides whether and how to use it; it is not a clinical sleep report.
- How do cost and timing compare?
- Clinical-study cost, access, scheduling, and insurance steps vary by location and care pathway. SomniSense can start tonight with the phone you already own, but that access advantage does not give it clinical authority.
Already using SomniSense? Close this page and open a marked moment in your Night Report. More nights and context tags are optional.