SleepTrace vs Sleep Cycle

No. Sleep Cycle's free tier covers the smart wake-up, sleep analysis and the nightly sleep graph, but snore detection and sound detection are Premium features (Sleep Cycle support, updated June 2026). SleepTrace includes snoring detection with playable clips on its free tier, 3 clips a month. If hearing your own snoring is the reason you are downloading an app, that is the difference that matters most.

Sleep Cycle is a mature, polished product with a very large user base, an extensive sleep aid library and a feature that can tell two snorers apart. SleepTrace is newer and narrower: it puts snoring detection and sleep stages in the free tier and analyses the night on the device. Choose Sleep Cycle for breadth and a long track record; choose SleepTrace if you want to hear your snoring without paying and prefer the analysis on the phone.

Sleep Cycle listens to the night through the phone’s microphone, which its support calls the recommended mode, or reads movement with the accelerometer or an Apple Watch (support article). From that it estimates sleep stages and wakes you in your lightest phase inside a window that you set, which its support article gives as 10 to 30 minutes and its Google Play text as up to 90 minutes. SleepTrace works from sound only, with no motion sensor, and estimates awake, light, deep and REM every 30 seconds.

Awake, light, deep and REM, estimated mainly from breathing patterns. Sleep Cycle’s support says the result is an estimate, not a medical measurement, and that distance, background noise and sleeping position can throw it off (support article). SleepTrace estimates the same four stages from sound in 30-second steps and carries the same caveat: a phone on the nightstand is not a sleep lab.

After each night it draws a sleep graph with your stages; the nightly graph is on the free tier, and Premium adds the full statistics such as sleep quality, regularity, snore and ambient noise by day, week or month (support article). A red line on the graph is your heart rate, imported from Apple Health if an Apple Watch records it (support article). SleepTrace shows the night as stages in 30-second steps, plus trends such as sleep score and duration over a week.

Yes, its 'Who's Snoring?' feature uses machine learning to distinguish between people sharing a bed. SleepTrace cannot do this: it records the room, and while placing the phone on your side biases the recording towards you, it does not identify who is snoring. If you share a bed and that distinction matters, Sleep Cycle has the better answer.

Yes. Sleep Cycle says it can track two people in one bed, though it is harder if the other person is louder. On iPhone, two Premium users on the same Wi-Fi get partner link, and Premium also has Who’s Snoring?; partner link is not yet on Android. You can also label a partner’s sounds as “other” or try the accelerometer mode (support article). SleepTrace has nothing comparable and cannot tell two sleepers apart.

In microphone mode the phone can sit on a nightstand or similar; keep the app open in the foreground with the phone unlocked, and an iPhone 8 or later can lie face up. In accelerometer mode the phone has to be in the bed. Sleep Cycle advises against a spot under a pillow or thick mattress because the phone can get warm while charging, and says the floor next to the bed works but closer to you gives better accuracy (placement, floor). SleepTrace also needs its app left open, with the screen dimming by itself, and the phone plugged in.

About 30% of the battery in one night on average, though it varies; Sleep Cycle recommends keeping the phone on a charger and offers a low-battery warning in Settings (support article). We have no measured battery figure for SleepTrace, which also asks you to plug the phone in.

Sleep Aid is Sleep Cycle’s library of sleep stories, sleep music, sleep sounds, meditations, guides and sleep coaching. The free tier gets limited access, the full library is Premium, and all-night sleep aids play only in accelerometer mode (support article). SleepTrace has calming sounds with an auto-off timer and no library of stories.

The free tier has a selection of alarm sounds and melodies; Premium has a wider range and lets you choose your own song from your music library (free versus Premium). On iPhone that needs the Apple Music app on the phone, with the song or playlist downloaded (support article).

No, it is not iPhone only. Sleep Cycle runs on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Apple Vision, and it is on Google Play with 10M+ downloads (read 2 November 2026; App Store, Google Play). An Apple Watch alone cannot detect snoring, because it tracks movement (support article). SleepTrace runs on iPhone and Android.

On the App Store listing, iPhone needs iOS 16.2 or later, iPad needs iPadOS 16.2 or later, Apple Watch needs watchOS 9.0 or later and Apple Vision needs visionOS 1.0 or later (App Store, read 2 November 2026). The Android version it needs is on its Google Play page.

Neither. Both work with the phone on the nightstand. Both can optionally pair with a smartwatch for heart rate and related metrics, but it is not required for sleep tracking in either app.

In the App Store privacy section, filled in by Sleep Cycle AB, identifiers may be used to track you, and health and fitness data, purchases, coarse location, contact info, identifiers, usage data and diagnostics are listed as linked to you (App Store). Its privacy policy says health data is stored on the device by default, and its support says recorded sounds stay on the phone unless you opt in to share them (support article). SleepTrace analyses the night on the device, does not sell your data or use it for advertising, and lets you delete your data in the app.