- A smartphone running Android and a decent battery life, and a firm vibration and/or loud speaker.
- Your smartphone should support the following sensors:
- android.hardware.sensor.accelerometer (the app uses motion readings from an accelerometer on the device)
- android.hardware.sensor.compass (the app uses directional readings from a magnetometer (compass) on the device)
- You can check what sensors your device has with the free app Sensors Toolbox
(Look for the Accelerometer and Geomagnetic Field sensors in this app)
- Once installed, no internet connection is required to use the Torena app.
- A running belt to wear your smartphone on your body during the night.
These can be bought cheap, like 10 euros, on lots of webshops (Decathlon, Amazon, etc).
Look for something like these, you can find them without hard clips as well (see second example):
Prerequisites
Download and installation of the app
Download and install the app from Google Play Store.
Once downloaded and installed, you will find the app in your app drawer named Torena with this icon:
Quick overview
When starting the app, you'll see the main screen.
From here you can start tracking your sleep positions by pressing the big "START" button.
Lets not get ahead of ourselves and explore the app a bit further first.
You can review previously recorded sessions by pressing the "Statistics" icon in the bottom bar menu:
You can configure the app by pressing the "Settings" icon in the bottom bar menu:
You can check version info and other useful stuff by pressing the "About" icon in the bottom bar menu:
To reach the main screen again, press the "Home" button in the bottom bar menu:
Configure the app
Configuration of the app largerly depends on your needs. We'll go through all options here so you can choose what is important for you and which settings apply for you.
Push the "settings" icon in the bottom menu bar, and you'll see all options which can be set to your needs:
Allows you to set whether your phone screen is facing away from your body or towards your body. It's important to allow the app track the correct sleep positions. If you don't configure this correctly, the app might tell e.g. you sleep on your back, while in fact you're sleeping on your stomach.
Allows you to set whether your phone is positioned in landscape or portrait mode, and which way the top of your phone is facing. It's important to allow the app track the correct sleep positions. If you don't configure this correctly, the app might tell e.g. you sleep on your left side, while in fact you're sleeping on your right side.
Allows you to set where you put your phone on your body. You can choose from either chest, back, left side, or right side. In theory you could thus put your phone on your upper arm, but we strongly advice against this, because the arm can move free from your body, and position tracking will be too far off compared when putting the phone somewhere around your torso.
Allows you to set when the app should detect each position. You decide at which point sleep position A changes to sleep position B. This is a powerful way to configure the app as close to your needs as possible. Only change the settings when the defaults are not a good fit for you.
Allows you to do a test run with the above settings for "screen facing" and "screen rotation". It's a quick way to see if your configuration is correct. Just start a test, then install the phone on your body in the configured settings. Go lie in different positions, e.g. right side, left side, back, stomach, up, and see whether the app tells you the correct positions. If not, then check the settings above and make sure you install the phone in the same way on your body.
Allows to delay tracking sleep positions. Since not everyone falls asleep within the same time, you can configure the app to delay the tracking after you press "START" on the main screen. E.g. if you know you need about 20 minutes before falling asleep, you can start the actual tracking of your sleep positions after 20 minutes. This way the app won't track the positions in the first 20 minutes where you might toss and turn while being still awake.
Allows to enable airplane mode on your phone whenever you start a new tracking session. When stopping a session, it will allow you to turn off airplane mode again. Because it's never a good idea to sleep with your phone with all signals active, we advise you to enable airplane mode during tracking sessions. It will block unhealthy signals, or notifications that might wake you up, and it will also save battery.
Allows to set the sleeping position you want to avoid while sleeping. Whenever you lie in this position, the alarm will get triggered. Note: this only works when you enable the alarm (see above).
Allows to enable an alarm for a specific sleeping position. E.g. if you want to avoid sleeping on your back because you're suffering positional sleep apnea, then you can activate the alarm mode, and configure the alarm to get triggered when you're sleeping on your back (see further). You can choose any sleep position, so if you are e.g. recovering from surgery on your left side and you should avoid that side, you can also configure the alarm on this specific position so the alarm will get triggered whenever you're turning on your left side while sleeping.
Allows to delay the alarm trigger. If you know you toss and turn a lot during sleep, you might not want to trigger the alarm straight away when you know you're just turning over from one side to another. Then configure a delay for some seconds, and you wont be waken up just because your changing sides. Note: this only works when you enable the alarm (see above).
Allows to enable a vibration alarm for a specific sleeping position. E.g. if you're sleeping with your partner next to you, you obviously don't want to bother your partner with a sound alarm each time you turn in a specific sleep position. You can set a vibration alarm wich you will feel on your body whenever you're in the alarm sleeping position. The vibration will continue until you move away from the alarm sleeping position. You can choose from a list of vibration pattern, so pick one you think you will feel while sleeping in order to change your sleeping position. You can combine this with a sound alarm to have both a vibration and sound alarm when the alarm is triggered.
You can also select a random pattern (see also: "alarm randomize interval")
Note: this only works when you enable the alarm (see above).
Allows to enable a sound alarm for a specific sleeping position. E.g. if you're sleeping alone, or if a vibration alarm does not work out for you, then you can choose to play a sound alarm whenever you're in the alarm sleeping position. The sound will continue to play until you move away from the alarm sleeping position. You can choose from a list of sound alarms, so pick one you think you will hear while sleeping in order to change your sleeping position. You can combine this with a vibration alarm to have both a sound and vibration alarm when the alarm is triggered.
You can also select a random sound (see also: "alarm randomize interval")
Note: this only works when you enable the alarm (see above). Also be aware of anyone sleeping in the same room. You might not want to bother them with a sound alarm (see "enable subtle alarm").
Allows to enable a subtle sound alarm. By default the alarm will play at the selected volume of your device. With a subtle alarm the Torena app will play the alarm at a low level first, and then increase the volume over time. This can allow to use a sound alarm without necessarily waking up your partner.
Note: this only works when you enable a sound alarm (see above).
When you selected "random" for the alarm sound or vibration pattern, you can configure when the alarm should switch to a different sound or pattern.
Note: this only works when you enable an alarm (see above).
Here you can choose wether the sound and vibration alarm settings should go off at the same time, or if you prefer a vibration alarm first and then a sound alarm and so on.
Note: this only works when you enable both vibration and sound alarm (see above).
If you chose to trigger sound and vibration seperate from eachother, you can choose when the second alarm should go off after the first alarm was started.
Note: this only works when you enabled a seperate combination of vibration and sound alarm (see above).
Allows you to choose what info you want to see in the statistics session listing.
You can choose between position info which shows you info on the amount and time you spent in each position, or alarm info which shows you info on how much time you spent in the configured alarm position etc.
Allows you to enable automatic purging of the oldest sessions when the session limit has been reached (see "data retention policy"). This is useful when you want to keep storage consumed by the app limited, or when you have a lot of sessions saved. The app stores session data on your device, so it will consume storage with each session (albeit limited) and when having a lot of sessions some screens may become slower due to the amount of data being read. By setting a limit on the number of sessions to keep, you can avoid the app becoming slow, or your device running out of storage.
When enabling data retention this allows you to set the number of sessions you want to keep. When you track new sessions, the oldest sessions will be removed when the total number of saved sessions exceeds the configured limit. Note: this only works when you enabled data retention (see "enable data retention").
Export all your sessions to a JSON file.
You can use this file in other applications, e.g. on our Summarize page, or to move your data to another device (e.g.) when you buy a new phone and want to continue tracking your sleep positions there without losing your previous sessions.
Import session data from a JSON file.
You can import a previously exported JSON file, e.g. from another device running the Torena app. This allows you to move data from another device to your current device.
Should only be used when needed!
Allows to write debug info to a log file. This might be helpful for investigating issues with the app. You shouldn't enable this unless you know what you're doing or if we ask you to in order to investigate a problem you're having with the app.
Should only be used when needed!
Allows to view the log file when debugging is enabled (see above). You can also clear the contents to free up space after debugging. You shouldn't use this unless you know what you're doing or if we ask you to in order to investigate a problem you're having with the app.
Should only be used when needed!
Allows to remove all tracked sessions you have stored in the app. This can be useful if you don't need this info anymore, or if you have a lot of sessions and want to clear some space for new sessions, or any other scenario where you don't need the session info anymore.
If you want to delete a specific session, and not all sessions, then go to the "Statistics" screen (see further).
Note: be careful! This cannot be undone, once deleted this is permanent!
Statistics
When you push the "statistics" icon in the menu bottom bar, you'll see a list of all sessions you've tracked before.
Click on a session to see more details.
Click on the recycle bin icon to delete the session.
If you want a more in-depth analysis of your sessions, or better viewable graphs, you can export your sessions to a datafile, and then upload them on our summarize page in the top menu.
About
When you push the "about" icon in the menu bottom bar, you'll see version info along with links to the terms & conditions, and this help & support page.
Track sleep positions
So you've configured everything needed, and you know how the app works? Good! Then you're ready to start tracking your sleep positions while sleeping.
Checkout the next guide: Tracking sleep positions