{"id":53324,"date":"2025-09-30T18:48:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T18:48:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/53324\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T18:48:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T18:48:07","slug":"ive-been-testing-wearables-for-years-and-i-was-still-shocked-by-my-smartwatchs-ability-to-read-my-dreams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/53324\/","title":{"rendered":"I&#8217;ve been testing wearables for years, and I was still shocked by my smartwatch&#8217;s ability to read my dreams"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"c0968934-0761-4ef7-a811-39b9af3786fb\">Maybe it was the fact I went to bed later than usual. Maybe it was because I was getting a little sick. All I know is that I was dreaming vividly and deeply, awaking with a start as I tried to inhale air through a blocked nose at 7am the next day, shortly before my alarm went off, and jolted me back to reality.<\/p>\n<p>At the time, I was wearing the Huawei Watch GT 6 Pro, which I&#8217;m currently testing to see if it&#8217;s worthy of inclusion in our <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.techradar.com\/news\/wearables\/best-smart-watches-what-s-the-best-wearable-tech-for-you-1154074\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.techradar.com\/news\/wearables\/best-smart-watches-what-s-the-best-wearable-tech-for-you-1154074\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">best smartwatches<\/a> guide. As I woke up slowly in the darkness, breathing returning to normal, I rolled over and peered at my smartwatch, my blurred vision coming into focus on its morning messages. It had already registered I was awake, and had sent through a report on my sleep.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"elk-seasonal\" href=\"\" data-url=\"\" target=\"_blank\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" data-hl-processed=\"none\"\/><\/p>\n<p id=\"c0968934-0761-4ef7-a811-39b9af3786fb-2\">Rated &#8220;average&#8221;, with a score of 78, I had slept for a little over six hours. My REM phase was much longer than usual, around 32% of my total time. Huawei said this was &#8220;a little high&#8221; and could indicate &#8220;excessive dreaming&#8221;. It advised me that &#8220;excessive dreaming makes you feel more tired when you wake up, prevents your body from recovering, and leads to reduced concentration and forgetfulness&#8221;. Sure enough, I felt drowsy and struggled to concentrate all day.<\/p>\n<p>You may like<\/p>\n<p>I was very impressed with the accuracy of Huawei&#8217;s statement, and a little shocked as the dream was so recently cut off as I woke up. Often, it&#8217;s tough to grapple or test even the <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.techradar.com\/best\/best-sleep-tracker\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.techradar.com\/best\/best-sleep-tracker\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">best sleep trackers<\/a> \u2013 such as the <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.techradar.com\/health-fitness\/oura-ring-4-review\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.techradar.com\/health-fitness\/oura-ring-4-review\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Oura Ring 4<\/a> and <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.techradar.com\/health-fitness\/samsung-galaxy-ring-review\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.techradar.com\/health-fitness\/samsung-galaxy-ring-review\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Samsung Galaxy Ring<\/a> \u2013 properly. Under normal circumstances, how well-rested you are is largely based on feel. A score of 80-90 might be &#8220;good&#8221;, getting the required seven-to-eight hours, but it&#8217;s hard to gauge accuracy from that.<\/p>\n<p>However, not only did Huawei provide me an accurate report straight away, via what it calls its TruSleep algorithm, but it also correctly identified I&#8217;d been dreaming heavily and vividly. It genuinely shocked me first thing in the morning how accurately it had read what was going on, and I&#8217;ve been testing wearables for years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"vanilla-image-block\" style=\"padding-top:56.24%;\">\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/LCM24HrLRxXoUrepzq7DdP.jpg\" alt=\"HUawei Watch GT 6 Pro after sleep\"   loading=\"lazy\" data-new-v2-image=\"true\" data-original-mos=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/LCM24HrLRxXoUrepzq7DdP.jpg\" data-pin-media=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/LCM24HrLRxXoUrepzq7DdP.jpg\"\/>\n<\/p>\n<p>(Image credit: Future)<\/p>\n<p id=\"89d9ccf1-b955-4d6d-a62c-ddd850ca45b7\">What&#8217;s more, it offered actionable advice in the Huawei Health app on how to proceed: eat more whole-grain foods and high-quality carbohydrates to maintain a normal blood sugar level, which helps you get a good night&#8217;s sleep. I hit the porridge straight away upon waking up.<\/p>\n<p>Sleep trackers, the <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.techradar.com\/best\/best-fitness-trackers\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.techradar.com\/best\/best-fitness-trackers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">best fitness trackers<\/a>, and other wellness technologies are getting better at this sort of thing. Just a few years ago, wearables used to provide us with metrics we didn&#8217;t know what to do with: stride length for our runs, sleep stages overnight, and heart rate graphs. They still do, of course, but more and more, I&#8217;m seeing apps and devices use this data to provide better insights and guidance, helping you to use the information in actionable ways.<\/p>\n<p class=\"newsletter-form__strapline\">Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more.<\/p>\n<p>I can&#8217;t help that I slept badly and dreamt heavily that night, but what I could do is reduce the impact that has going forward, and set myself up for success the next night by maintaining a normal blood sugar via ingesting some complex carbs over the course of the day. Without Huawei&#8217;s guidance, I would have rated the information interesting, but ultimately pretty useless.<\/p>\n<p><a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.techradar.com\/tag\/garmin\" data-auto-tag-linker=\"true\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.techradar.com\/tag\/garmin\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Garmin<\/a>&#8216;s Lifestyle Logging and Whoop&#8217;s Journal features allow you to add context of your own. Adding the tag &#8220;reading in bed&#8221; before a night with a good sleep score, and adding the tag &#8220;video games&#8221; before a night with a bad sleep score allows you to see your habits and how they affect wellness more clearly.<\/p>\n<p>In the morning, you can add tags like &#8220;dreamt heavily&#8221; to bad nights, or &#8220;getting sick&#8221; to reduced activity levels. Over time, you can repeat the habits that lead to better scores and minimize the ones that don&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p>Context is king. Next time you buy a fitness tracker or smartwatch, choose one that offers as much context as you can find \u2013 or, like the <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.techradar.com\/best\/garmin-watch\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.techradar.com\/best\/garmin-watch\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">best Garmin watches<\/a>, one that allows you to add your own context.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"elk-you-might-also-like\" href=\"\" data-url=\"\" target=\"_blank\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" data-hl-processed=\"none\"\/>You might also like&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Maybe it was the fact I went to bed later than usual. Maybe it was because I was&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53325,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[203,61,60,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-53324","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-gadgets","8":"tag-gadgets","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}