So far, I’ve used my Galaxy Watch 4 for sleep tracking.
Now I’ve switched to my Polar H10 - so I also get to track my breathing. Works well enough.
Problem: I’m sleeping with earplugs, so I’m reliant on my Smartwatch vibrating to wake me up. However, it does not do that anymore when I set it up to connect to my Polar H10. Setting it to “AUTOMATIC” makes it connect to my Smartwatch only, so my Polar H10 doesn’t work then.
Suggestion: Let users add multiple devices, and check which device does what (e.g. my Polar H10 is for HR and Breathing tracking, my GW4 is only for the alarm)
However, I now might know a workaround for this - it isn’t elegant but should be practical. I had to use this when I bought a Xiaomi Smart Band 8, because that device had different problems with vibration (it would only vibrate like 10 seconds, then stop forever, instead of vibrating until I turn off the alarm) - and it worked well enough.
Sleep As Android has, IMO, good Tasker integration - see Tasker, Automate - Sleep as Android ( I personally don’t know the Automate app, but I think this would work the same).
One event you can listen to is “Alarm started” - so you can create a simple profile that vibrates your smartwatch (e.g. by sending a simple notification to your smartwatch) in a loop - with the event “Dismiss (alarm)” being the stop condition for the loop. You could even design the loop so it does a “soft wake up” - like “notification” → “sleep 10s” → “notification” → “sleep 8s” → …
It took me quite some time to get used to Tasker and figure things out… And there are obviously some things to be careful of (smartwatch has to vibrate on a notification from that app, it shouldnt be set up so that multiple notifications only trigger the vibration once,…) - but, depending on how tech savvy you are, it should definitely be doable. You can also use AI like chatGPT for help, or ask me (I will see what I can do then).
Using some automation had crossed my mind, but I assumed it would be hacky and brittle so never pursued it. Having someone confirm that it can work is incredibly helpful, so thank you for that. I also had a Miband 7 with similar vibration issues and sent it back because of this, but for the few times it worked I had an eye-opening experience (wink) with the smart alarm. Somehow I got to the Polar devices and had a good experience with accurately detecting light sleep, but the last piece of the puzzle was getting the wrist vibration again (to not wake my partner). I’m leaving all this detail here in case anyone else is in a similar boat.
I’m off to find a smart watch that’ll work with this setup, hopefully with good battery life. I anticipate having to do a few Amazon returns before landing on something that works, but I’m going to start with the Nothing Watch Pro/2. I’ll report back if successful.
