Top 5 Best Sleep Apps

1. Best for sounds: Sleep Sounds

Rated 4.9/5, Sleep Sounds by Craftsman Spirit is the highest-rated sleep sounds app with hundreds of sounds. It lets you create unique mixes, too, so you can snap sounds together to create memorable melodies that you love.

It works simply – choose a melody and set a timer. The app plays sounds for the duration of the timer and fades out. Sleep Sounds is free, although the app's premium version unlocks more sounds.

See links here to download: Play Store, App Store.

2. Best for meditation: Balance

Balance is our favourite meditation app because it adapts to you based on lifestyle preferences. You select what stresses you out, and Balance creates a meditation plan to help you fall asleep.

Balance has a sleeping tab, with sleep, nap, back-to-sleep, and deep breathing modes. You can also choose from a range of sleep sounds.

The app currently offers a year's free membership, although you might not need a premium account since many features are free.

See links here to download: Play Store, App Store.

3. Best for mindfulness: Medito

Medito is a better app than Balance for mindfulness, although both apps overlap with features for meditation. Medito is a 100% non-profit app, so it's the best option if you are concerned about companies profiting from mental health.

What is Medito? It is a stress, anxiety, and well-being app that looks after your mind, helping you meditate with new and ancient techniques.

The app has exercises for different sleep goals. We like the gradual, fully body relaxation exercise, which lasts around eight minutes.

See links here to download: Play Store, App Store.

4. Best sleep monitor: Sleep Monitor

Although fitness bands and smartwatches have mostly replaced smartphones for sleep monitoring, Sleep Monitor offers even more profound insights, using your microphone and phone sensors to collect detailed information on sleep.

Sleep Monitor tracks all stages of sleep, giving you a sleep score, and it has an intelligent alarm mode that wakes you out of different sleep stages.

You can wear your smartphone with an armband or put it under your pillow. It collects a lot of data that is useful for understanding sleep.

See links here to download: Play Store, App Store.

5. Best for ambience: Hatch

The Hatch app helps you make the most of Hatch intelligent devices like the Hatch Restore - a brilliant light and alarm clock. With the Hatch app, you can set the ambience of your bedroom and play sounds from your Restore.

You'll need a Hatch product (Restore, Rest+, Rest, Mini), but these devices are worth it if you want to make your bedroom a relaxing space.

The best app feature is the sunrise alarm, which lets you select a wide range of ambiences for the morning to replicate different sunrises.

See links here to download: Play Store, App Store.