Sleep Tracking with a Suunto Spartan Ultra

(Disclaimer: The Spartan Ultra I’ve been using was provided to me by the company, in my role as (unpaid) beta tester for them.)

When Suunto announced that sleep tracking would be coming to the Spartan Collection, people were wondering what this would mean for the Spartan Ultra.

Well, here it is: It means that you get sleep tracking on it, same as on the newer models.

Sleep tracking display 1 (last night's sleep) no SS WHR Baro and Spartan Ultra
Sleep tracking display 1 (last night’s sleep) no SS WHR Baro and Spartan Ultra

Okay, without some of the values that a model equipped with an optical heart rate sensor (a WHR model) could give you, but still.
Since sleep, awake times and deep sleep times are all tracked only by motion, no heart rate measurement is required for the basics of that.

Sleep tracking on a Suunto Spartan Ultra counts

  • from which time to which time you have (probably) slept,
  • how long that was (and how long that was compared to your target),
  • how much time you seem to have spent awake and in deep sleep (going by movement or lack thereof).

Watch here for all about it, or go on reading below the video. Or both 😉

Activate Sleep Tracking

In “Settings” -> “Sleep” or using the shortcut of long-pressing the middle button while on the sleep tracking screen, you can turn on (or off) sleep tracking. That also immediately asks you to input the usual times when you go to bed and when you wake up, to help the watch recognize that.

Good Morning / Sleep Summary Screen

When you wake up and push a button – or even better, when you exit DND mode (more on that below) – all preferably close to the usual time you have said you get up, the watch greets you with a “Good morning! Looks like you were sleeping” and, next up, the sleep summary screen.

This gives you

  • Time you were asleep (and difference to your sleep target time)Time when you fell asleep and woke up (as per the watch)
  • Time awake and
  • Time in deep sleep, and the
  • 7-day average (time and graph)

You can also get to this screen from the “Sleep” menu or the menu shortcuts in the sleep tracking screen.

Sleep Tracking Screen

The Sleep screen among all the tracking screens (reached by swiping down from time display) shows

  • the length of the last night’s sleep on the first display,
  • one swipe left, the last 7 days’ average sleep duration (in hours and minutes and, for each of those days, by a bar on a graph)
Second screen of the sleep tracking display (SS WHR Baro and Spartan Ultra)
Second screen of the sleep tracking display (SS WHR Baro and Spartan Ultra, the latter not recently used)

The Role of DND (Do Not Disturb)

In the Suunto Spartan Ultra, the Do Not Disturb does not matter much (unlike on the WHR models, where it interacts with the HR tracking).

However, it may still be helpful to activate DND.

Automatic Do Not Disturb in a certain time interval (such as sleeping times) may be a good idea to keep you from getting disturbed by notifications while you want to be sleeping, but might or might not help with the sleep tracking.

Manually turning on and certainly off, when up and about again, the DND seems to help, as exiting DND at around the time when you said you’d usually get up tends to lead straight into the “Good Morning! Looks like you were sleeping” screen giving the summary of the last night’s sleep.

Sleep well! 😉

2 responses

  1. Peter Avatar
    Peter

    Hi,

    So, I’m wondering about the best combination of setting for Sleep Tracking and Auto Do Not Disturb.

    I usually go to bed some time between 22:00 and 01:00 most nights, and wake up between 06:00 and 08:00 most mornings… So, I assume I should set my Sleep Tracking for the maximum possible sleep window (22:00 – 08:00), and then what about the Auto Do not Disturb? Should I also set it for the maximum? or the minimum (e.g. 01:00 – 06:00)?

    If I set if for the minimum, then I can always turn it on manually before going to bed… but what will happen in the morning if I sleep late? will it just switch of the HR monitor at the time that Auto Do Not Disturb turns off and keep tracking sleep time?

    1. Yeah, your sleep times don’t make for easy tracking…

      Chances are (seem?) quite good that you’d be active enough when or if you were to turn off the Auto DND that sleep tracking also gets stopped. If you want sleep tracking (with HR tracking) to record HR for sure, you probably should set both for the same, and longest, duration – and then, it’s still a question what you’re doing on those days when you go to sleep so late. If it’s just work in front of a computer, chances are good that you’d often be moving so little that the watch thinks you’re already asleep, for example.

      Looks to me like the only advice I can give with any confidence is this: Better sleep hygiene, i.e. more regular sleep times, might be advisable 😉

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