When the 2nd-gen Nest Hub was announced in March of 2021, Google said Sleep Sensing would eventually become a paid feature. After previously targeting 2023, sleep tracking will now be free for another year.
The Nest Hub’s Google Store product page was recently updated to say Sleep Sensing is “free through 2023.” The preview was previously “free through 2022,” which was what Google established in November of 2021.
Google now “plans to integrate Sleep Sensing into Fitbit Premium” in 2024. The company has not been specific about what that entails, but one interesting integration would be combining sleep data from the Nest Hub with the Pixel Watch and Fitbit smartwatches our trackers. With Health Connect last month, Google Fit has already made it so that wrist-based heart rate data is shown alongside other Nest Hub sleep stats.
In our experience, Soli radar-powered Sleep Sensing is quite accurate and comparable to wrist derived stats. You can get sleep stages (Awake, REM, Light, and Deep), as well as find out whether you were snoring or coughing over the course of a night. The Nest Hub also tracks other sounds and light changes that might have disrupted your sleep. You’ll also get a room temperature readout that unfortunately remains limited to Sleep Sensing and cannot be accessed on-demand for other uses.
It’s a nice sleep tracker for those that don’t want to wear anything on their wrist. That said, if a user already has a smartwatch they wear to sleep, it’s not clear that Sleep Sensing is valuable enough to pay for. Google will eventually require Fitbit Premium to use and that’s currently $9.99 per month or $79.99 per year.
More on Nest Hub:
- These Google and Nest devices work with Matter
- Google preparing to upgrade Nest Audio as Fuchsia’s first smart speaker
- Android 13 output switcher support for Chromecast rolling out, starting with YouTube Music
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