Sleep tracking is easy to do if you own a smartwatch or fitness band, but your options are less robust if you’re using a smartphone. However, the Android development team has just made its low-power Sleep API publicly available to third-party developers, which opens up the door for more quality sleep tracking apps for smartphone users.
Now, developers will have a more robust toolkit available to them for building sleep tracking apps, allowing them to upgrade existing services, create apps that offer a better selection of data, and conserve smartphone batteries while they run.
With this API in play, you will have access to “sleep confidence” reports at regular intervals up to 10 minutes. You’ll also be able to review a broader daily sleep segment report once you wake up for the day.
Currently, developers are working to combine sensor signals to determine when users start or end activities (like running or sleeping). These detection algorithms can be inconsistent between multiple apps, and when they’re both constantly trying to check for changes in activity levels, it makes your phone’s battery drain faster. To ensure its Sleep API will work properly (and not tank your smartphone’s battery), Google collaborated with Urbandroid’s Sleep as Android app. That app’s API centralizes detection processing in a way that doesn’t drain the battery.
Google is regularly updating and adding features to its sleep and wellness software, and now with this API opened up, we should hopefully be seeing a larger variety of improved app options in the Play Store. Devs interested in creating an app can check out the API Documentation.
via Engadget
