This app offers numerous benefits that I enjoy. This includes a soft wake-up option, sleep analytics, and optimal wake-up windows. The reason I am giving this app 3 stars is it lacks critical alarm components. The app does not offer the ability to set a standing alarm. I need to wake up everyday at the same time, yet I have to set it nightly. What are the odds that I’ll forget…often enough to knock a star off the app. I recognize the alarm is likely a secondary feature but I still wish I could use it more effectively. For me, the soft wake up alarm is the reason I use this app. I’m not banking on sleep analytics accuracy since I sleep in the same room as my husband and baby. For me, this is more of an added bonus feature. Secondly, it seems, if you touch your phone, let’s say 10-20mins before your alarm is set to go off (this is when I use the “no wake-up window function”) it de-activate the alarm, as far as I can gather. There have been a handful of times now that I’ve touched my phone to check the time before my alarm is set to go off, when suddenly my husband is the one waking me up?! Hence the 2nd star gone from my review. These few alarm components are too critical to not function appropriately when using them daily. It’s so close to being the best option I’ve found but I can’t trust it.

Allow me to preface by saying that I have used Sleep Cycle for about 8 years or more. I’d also like to mention that I am a Senior User Experience designer in the web and app space. Sleep Cycle’s new strategy for monetization seems to be a constant pop-up asking the user to upgrade. It seems the pop-up is scheduled to appear when the app is opened after 24 hours of it’s last appearance. The problem with this strategy is that people only use sleep schedule once per day, right before bed. This means that the user will see the pop-up every time they open the app - something that is horribly frustrating. There are often two routes to the monetization of free apps. The first is to improve and provide more than enough value to convince your users to subscribe. The second is to implement annoyances so that the user will pay to make them stop. It seems sleep cycle has gone with the latter approach. You may lose users in the process, but who cares right? They weren’t paying anyway. If there was enough value for the cost, I’d happily pay - but instead I will not even be using the free version of the app. Edit: Not long after this review, they went ahead and lightened the annoying popups. But now they are back and worse than ever. On top of that, we (early adopters) have lost feature we’ve been using for a decade. Absolutely disgusting and greedy business strategy. Uninstalling.

I pay for very few subscriptions but I use this app so much and it is so incredibly useful that I’ve just renewed for the second year. The statistics you can compile on your sleep are very useful and you can even compare to the national average of your country! I have struggled with sleep for over 10 years and this app has helped to figure out a cause and find a useful treatment option! I could find out the relationship between how much I snore or talk in my sleep and my stress level and sleep quality. The sleep quality percentage even feels accurate so I know the data is real. If I wake up and feel really rested the sleep quality matches how I feel and is always 89% and up. And it’s not all about how many hours I slept! I might sleep the same amount of time and feel very tired, and my sleep score matches that too! In addition to the data, I use the sleep stories and sleep ambiance every night and while I have my favorites, it’s good to have quite a few options when I want something different. And my favorites never go away so that’s great too! My absolute favorite is “Scents” - I highly recommend it! The guides have a mixture of counting down, guided breathing exercises, progressive muscle relaxation, and soothing descriptive storytelling. The subscription is a fantastic value as all of this is available for less than $10/month and for a drastic improvement in sleep quality it is well worth it!