Smart Wake Up: Does it only work when tracking is enabled?

After many years of using Sleep as Android, 98% of the time with no tracking, I’ve come to realize my default Alarm settings have “Smart wake up” period set to 30 minutes. Yet I’ve noticed that my alarm consistently goes off at the same time. So my question is: Does smart wake up only work when tracking is enabled?

My general goal is to have my alarm ring when I need it to so I don’t miss meetings, and so far it has accomplished this. Now I could simply turn the feature off, but I’m also perplexed why with the default setting at 30 minutes it hasn’t given me different wake-up times?

I tried to read through documentation but it doesn’t seem to explain anything about requiring sleep tracking to be on. It does suggest that if your alarm always rings at the set time, then to increase movement sensitivity (for reference mine is set at 3/4 where 4/4 is most sensitive).

Edit: I should add that if this is really the case, then that is fine. When I am tracking I probably want my alarm to wake me up at an optimal time. When I’m not tracking, I want it to ring when I set it to ring, but just wanted to understand the functionality of the app / setting.

Yes, i think smart wake up works only while tracking. It makes logical sence. “Smart wake up” is triggered as reaction to your sleeping stage, to wake you app while you are in light sleep. So without tracking there is no way the app knows what is your current sleep stage.

See the docs on automatic sleep tracking. There is no way for it to know when you’re in light sleep without monitoring you, but it can start sleep tracking before your alarm. https://docs.sleep.urbandroid.org/sleep/automatic_sleep_tracking.html#smart-period

The functionality makes sense that it requires tracking. I think it might be helpful to list that though that Smart Period only works if you turn on tracking. I had a moment of panic when I saw this setting was set at 30 minutes by default and was wondering if my alarm was waking me up correctly, but then paid attention the next few days and noticed my alarm rings right on the dot.

Hello, sorry for the confusion, I added a warning to the docs. Thank you!

Thank you. I am wondering if it makes sense to show some info as in text as a helper/subtext in the box when you set an alarm?