If you've used other sleep trackers, you might notice something missing in the Hatch app: there's no sleep score. That's intentional.
When the number takes over
A sleep score has a way of becoming the whole point. You wake up, check it, and suddenly your morning is colored by a number — not by how you actually feel. Researchers even have a name for when sleep tracking tips into obsession: orthosomnia. "Sometimes, this kind of feedback can cause sleep loss or make sleep problems worse," says Dr. Sabra Abbott, a neurologist at Northwestern Medicine who helped coin the term. Sleep therapist Katie Fischer puts it simply: "Perfect sleep doesn't really exist. Micromanaging data only creates stress."
If you've ever woken up feeling rested but then felt deflated by a low score, you already know what they mean.
What we pay attention to instead
How much REM sleep you got last night isn't really in your hands. But when you got into bed, whether you wound down with your playlist, when you got out of bed — those are. That's what Hatch Sleep Clock pays attention to.
Hatch Sleep Clock connects the things you do to how you sleep. Did going to bed a little earlier make a difference? Did your routine help? That's the kind of feedback worth having — something to build on, not a score to stress over.
Better sleep, not a better score
Our goal isn't to grade your night. It's to help you build a bedtime ritual you actually look forward to — one that gets easier and more natural over time. A routine you enjoy is one you'll keep.
So instead of a number, we focus on your routines and try to make them worth returning to. If your night felt good, that's the whole point.
Sources:
- Baron KG, Abbott S, et al. — "Orthosomnia: Are Some Patients Taking the Quantified Self Too Far?" Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 2017
- Northwestern Medicine — How Tracking Your Sleep Can Make You Lose Sleep (October 2025)
- The Guardian — Sleep perfectionists: the exhausting rise of orthosomnia (October 2024)