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Apple buys Beddit, maker of sleep-tracking device

The $150 device fits between your sheet and mattress to measure such things as total sleep time, resting heart rate and respiration rate.

Steven Musil Night Editor / News
Steven Musil is the night news editor at CNET News. He's been hooked on tech since learning BASIC in the late '70s. When not cleaning up after his daughter and son, Steven can be found pedaling around the San Francisco Bay Area. Before joining CNET in 2000, Steven spent 10 years at various Bay Area newspapers.
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Steven Musil
2 min read
Watch this: Apple acquires sleep tech company

Apple has acquired Beddit, the maker of a $150 device that lies between your sheet and mattress to monitor your vitals as you sleep.

The acquisition was revealed Monday in an update to Beddit's privacy policy page: "Beddit has been acquired by Apple. Your personal data will be collected, used and disclosed in accordance with the Apple Privacy Policy."

The Beddit Sleep Tracker uses a sensor about the same size and thickness as a piece of duct tape to measure total sleep time, resting heart rate, respiration rate, how long it took you to fall asleep, how many times you got up, and the amount of deep sleep achieved. The companion Android and iOS app then offers detailed postsleep analysis and feedback meant to help improve sleep.

The acquisition could help beef up the health- and wellness-tracking ambitions Apple has for the Apple Watch as it takes on Fitbit, a leader in the fitness-tracking market. The Apple Watch already has the requisite heart rate sensor built in but now needs the software and hardware to do more than just measure and track heart rate.

There's certainly a market for sleep tracking. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that there are 50 million to 70 million adults in the US who suffer from a sleep or wakefulness disorder such as sleep apnea.

Financial terms of the acquisition weren't released. Apple didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

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