FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

About SnoreLab

About

The SnoreLab app has helped millions of people to understand their snoring and discover solutions. The app is designed to make it easy for you to hear, measure and track your snoring. Our ultimate goal is to help you (and your partner) to get a better night’s sleep!

You can share SnoreLab’s reports with your doctor or dentist, or experiment with remedies and lifestyle changes and track their impact over time.

SnoreLab was first created by a husband after his wife complained about his snoring. If you enjoy or benefit from the app please do leave a positive review and talk about it amongst your family and friends.

We wish you success on your journey towards a more peaceful night’s sleep!

Medical disclaimer

SnoreLab is not a medical device, nor is it intended to replace professional medical advice and/or diagnosis. SnoreLab is not intended to diagnose or treat sleep apnea or any illness/medical condition. Please consult with a licensed medical practitioner before making any decisions or taking any actions that may affect your health, safety and wellbeing. Do not disregard professional advice because of anything you have seen, heard or read in the app. Always consult with a healthcare professional if you have any questions or concerns about your snoring or general health.

About Snoring

What is snoring?

Snoring is noisy breathing whilst you sleep. A narrowed or obstructed airway disturbs airflow which causes audible vibrations in soft tissue at the back of your mouth, throat and/or the base of the tongue. A congested nose can also create whistling or popping sounds.

Why do I snore?

Snoring is caused by a combination of factors which vary from person to person. You are more likely to snore if you:

Have certain anatomical features such as small nostrils, an enlarged tongue, tonsils, uvula or soft palate, or a recessed jaw.
Have nasal or sinus congestion.
Are overweight, particularly with fat around your neck
Sleep on your back
Sleep with your mouth open
Have weak muscles in your mouth
Smoke or drink alcohol
Are male
Are older

What remedies are most effective for reducing snoring?

There are many devices available that can be extremely effective for reducing snoring, but whether or not they will work for you depends on whether they address the underlying cause of your snoring.

Explore SnoreLab’s remedy information screens to discover potential remedies for you.

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Why is my snoring remedy not working?

Some remedies take time to adjust to. Always try a remedy for at least five nights to get a good idea of whether or not it is helping you.

If a remedy doesn’t appear to be working for you, it is likely it is not well matched to the causes of your snoring. For example, nasal dilators will make no difference to a person who can already breathe perfectly well through their nose.

Snoring remedies work best when tailored to the triggers of your snoring.

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What can i do to stop snoring naturally?

Depending on your snoring triggers, there are some methods that can reduce snoring without the need for specialist remedies:

Sleep on your side
Lose weight
Clean your surroundings
Stop smoking
Reduce alcohol and caffeine consumption
Do mouth and throat exercises
Keep hydrated
Practise good sleep hygiene
Have a hot bath or shower before bed

Often the best approach is to combine well chosen remedies with positive lifestyle changes.

What is sleep apnea?

Sleep apnea is a serious condition where your airway repeatedly closes during sleep, depriving you of oxygen. Common symptoms of obstructive sleep apnea are:

Frequent periods of restricted breathing followed by a gasp or choking sound
Excessive sleepiness when you wake up and throughout the day
Sore throat or headache in the morning
Loud snoring
Lack of concentration
Mood swings, irritability and depression

Sleep apnea can only be reliably diagnosed with a professional sleep study that will measure your blood oxygen levels, heart rate and other variables.

Can snorelab detect sleep apnea?

SnoreLab is unable to diagnose sleep apnea, which is defined primarily in terms of falling oxygen levels in your body. The app may, however, be useful in recording evidence of apnea, such as periods where there is no audible breathing followed by a sudden gasp or choking sound.

You may wish to activate Full Night Recording and scan through the recordings to identify suspicious events. SnoreLab’s recordings may be useful in medical consultations and it is a good idea to make full night recordings before visiting your doctor.

Please note that the app is not a substitute for proper medical diagnosis and if you are concerned by your symptoms, please consult with your healthcare provider regardless of any information provided by this app.

How to use the app

How should I position my device?

We recommend placing the device next to your bed at an arm’s length away from your face with the main microphone facing towards you. If possible, keep your charger connected so that your device is fully charged in the morning.

Placing your device face down when SnoreLab is monitoring dims the screen whilst allowing you to check it easily during the night without unlocking it. Face down placement is not strictly necessary, for example, if you use a wireless charger or if you prefer to lock your device.

Aim to keep the placement the same from night to night to ensure that your results over multiple nights are comparable.

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Can snorelab run in the background?

SnoreLab will normally prevent your device from locking to enable an improved user experience. If you would rather lock your device the app can run in the background, although this does increase the risk of the recording being interrupted by another process.

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Will I hear calls and notifications?

Phone calls should sound as normal but Apple devices may silence notifications whilst the app is recording. If this is an issue for you, we suggest that you run SnoreLab on a secondary device.

On Android devices, notifications and phone calls should sound as normal.

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Does snorelab require internet access?

The snoring detection happens on your device and does not require an internet connection.

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Does snorelab work in airplane mode?

Yes. You can record a session whilst your device is in airplane mode.

Can I set snorelab to start automatically?

Starting automatically is not currently possible as apps that record sound are prevented from starting from the background to protect your privacy.

We are developing some alternatives such as voice activated start and a notification reminder to start SnoreLab at a chosen time.

Do I need to remove my phone case?

Most phone cases do not obstruct the microphone and will not affect the results. However, some bulky cases can obstruct the microphone and you may get more accurate readings by removing the case.

I can only listen to a handful audio samples. Was the app recording all night?

Yes. Regardless of your Recording Mode setting or your Premium/Free status, SnoreLab listens and calculates all night long. The Snore Score and stats will not be affected if you use Samples mode versus Full Night Recording. This simply refers to the amount of audio that is available for playback in the morning.

Understanding the results

What is the snore score?

The Snore Score is SnoreLab’s unique measurement of snoring intensity. It is calculated using the average volume and the total duration of suspected snoring episodes during a night. A higher Snore Score indicates louder or more frequent snoring, whilst a lower Snore Score indicates quieter or less frequent snoring.

The Snore Score is designed to help you to compare your snoring across multiple nights and to measure the impact of remedies and factors. A typical Snore Score for a new user is around 25, whilst a score of 100 or more puts you in the highest 15% of users.

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What does light, loud and epic mean?

SnoreLab assigns volume ratings for different sound events in three categories:

Light: Unlikely to disturb a bed partner
Loud: Likely to disturb a bed partner; similar in volume to quiet talking
Epic: Very likely to disturb a bed partner; similar in volume to normal conversation or above

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The app has detected a lot of snoring. Should I be worried?

If snoring or poor sleep is negatively impacting your physical, mental or social wellbeing, or that of others, it should be a cause for concern and you should take steps to address it.

Loud snoring may be linked to conditions such as obstructive sleep apnea. If you snore loudly it does not definitely mean that you have sleep apnea (see sleep apnea FAQs).

If you are concerned by your snoring symptoms, please consult with your doctor.

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The snoring ratings seem too low. What could be wrong?

If the snoring ratings are lower than you expect, it is possible that noise interference, unusual microphone settings, or another factor has influenced the readings. If a bed partner is telling you that your snoring is worse than the app suggests, or if you are experiencing adverse health conditions that could be linked to a sleep disorder, you should not rely on readings from the app and you should seek a professional assessment.

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How accurate are the results?

SnoreLab is intended for informational purposes only.

Whilst we invest much effort into creating and improving our snoring measurement algorithms, we cannot guarantee the accuracy of data and information we provide through the app. SnoreLab’s results are estimates only and may be influenced by microphone sensitivity, noise interference, device placement and other factors.

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Audio recordings

How can I listen to the audio recordings?

To listen to the recordings simply tap the chart on the results page at the position you wish to hear. Once a recording is playing, you can scroll through the recordings either by dragging the blue spot on the chart or by using the navigation controls in the audio player.

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How do I record more or less audio?

To change how much audio SnoreLab saves per session, go to the Recording Options screen.

Record Samples. SnoreLab will save a selection of snoring sound samples throughout the night. You can adjust the number to save.
Full Night Recording. SnoreLab will record the whole night, separating it into manageable samples.
All Snoring. SnoreLab will save all audio samples that contain suspected snoring.

Please note that the number of recordings that you can play per night in the free version is limited. If you wish to hear more recordings you can upgrade to Premium.

How much disk space do the recordings take up?

In its default setting, SnoreLab use around 5 MB per night. In Full Night Recording mode, one hour uses about 20 MB. Changing the recording quality will also affect disk usage.

You can set a limit to the total storage used by the app. If this limit is exceeded, the app will automatically delete older recordings with less snoring. Audio from the most recent night will never be deleted automatically.

What happens if I exceed my storage limit?

You can adjust the disk space allowance for audio recordings by going to the Audio Storage screen. If you are constrained by disk space on your device, you can delete old or unwanted recordings in several ways:

Individual sessions. Go to the results screen of the session you want to delete. Press the cog icon in the top-right corner of the screen. Here, you can select Delete Session which will erase all session data including Snore Score, chart data and audio. You can also select Delete Audio which will protect the statistical data but erase an unprotected audio.
Bulk delete. Press the More tab at the bottom of the screen. Select Audio Storage and then Delete Old Audio. Here, you can select how many of your recent sessions you wish to keep the audio for, you can also select how many audio recordings are saved (if any) in the older sessions.

Does snorelab collect audio recordings?

With Cloud Backup turned off, audio recordings made by the app are saved locally on your device and are not uploaded to a server without your permission. We cannot listen to your audio recordings unless you choose to share them with us.

If you choose to sign up to our Cloud Backup service you can optionally allow to us to collect and store a selection of encrypted audio recordings on our server. It is also possible to use Cloud Backup on a data-only basis if preferred. Audio recordings are encrypted using a unique key for each user before being transferred and stored on our server, providing a high level of privacy protection.

You can read more about this in our Privacy Policy.

Can I export my audio files?

You can export a selection of audio files is by emailing an individual session report. On a given session’s results page, press the cog button and select Email Report. This generates an email with marked audio files as attachments.

Additional export options for Android devices

On Android you can also transfer all audio to an SD card (if compatible with your model), or to Visible Device Storage. This creates a folder on your device that can be viewed in the app and on a computer when connected to your device via USB. To do this, go to the Audio Storage screen and change the Storage Location setting.

When you plug your phone into a computer, there’ll be a bar that appears at the top of your phone. When you pull down from the top, this bar should say:

Android System
USB charging this device (or something similar)
Tap for options

When you tap for options, select “Transfer Files”. This makes them visible on your computer.

Hopefully now, when your phone is plugged into your computer, you can select your phone folder, and navigate through to find your audio via this route:

(your phone) > Internal shared storage > Android > Data > com.snorelab.app > Files > Samples

The samples can be copied and pasted from here. If you change the file location on the phone the data then won’t be visible in the app.

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I have important audio. How can I stop this from going missing?

As you approach your audio storage limit SnoreLab will start to automatically clean up older audio files.

You can prevent this from happening to the sounds that are important to you by using the Protect Audio feature found under the cog button in the top-right corner of the Results screen. When this is done you will see a padlock icon to show that this session is protected from deletion.

Snorelab has picked up sounds that are not snoring

SnoreLab works best in a quiet environment as the app can sometimes detect and record sounds that aren’t snoring. However, you can mark specific recordings as ‘not snoring’ to exclude them from your snore stats.

To mark a recording as ‘not snoring’ on an iOS device:

Click on the recording and select the signal icon in the top right hand corner on the playback control panel

To mark a recording as ‘not snoring’ on an Android device:

Click on the recording and press the X button in the bottom right hand corner on the playback control panel

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SnoreLab Premium

Is snorelab free?

The app is free to download and use but some features require a premium upgrade to access. There are also some usage limitations in the free version.

What additional features does snorelab premium have?

Upgrading to SnoreLab Premium gives you:

The option to listen to more samples or make audio recordings for the whole night.
Full session history
Rest rating
Access to the Trends area to compare your snoring and sleep stats over time
Access to soundscapes to help you drift off
No adverts
Cloud Backup.

Can I transfer my premium purchase to another device?

Your purchase is linked to your personal Apple or Android ID (i.e. your App Store or Play Store login). It can be transferred to any device on the same platform that is linked to the same ID.

Your premium credentials should automatically be detected if you install the app on a new device linked to your purchase ID. If this process fails, use the Restore option on the Premium upgrade screen.

Note that in-app purchases are not eligible for family sharing and cannot be transferred between platforms.

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Can I transfer my premium purchase to another device?

Please check your device’s settings as well as your App Store or Google Play account to make sure you are permitted to make in-app purchases. Because purchases are conducted via the App Store or Google Play, errors on these platforms can sometimes cause difficulties when making a purchase. Be patient and try again later.

If you continue to have problems, contact us on support@snorelab.com.

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CLOud Backup

What is cloud backup for?

The SnoreLab Premium subscription offers access to a Cloud Backup service which allows you to save and restore your session history and premium status to a new device. Creating a SnoreLab Cloud Backup account also circumvents the issue of transferring subscriptions from one device to another or from platform to another (ie. iOS to Android, or vice versa).

Please note that SnoreLab Cloud Backup is not in any way linked to your personal existing cloud backup accounts, and cannot be used to access your SnoreLab data outside of the app.

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How to use cloud backup

To set up your SnoreLab Cloud Backup account, go to the Profile menu of SnoreLab and tap ‘Cloud Backup’.

Choose the sign in method you prefer (ie. Google, Apple, email) and create an account. Once complete, navigate to the same Cloud Backup menu on your new device and use the same sign in method to login to your account. This will restore your session history and premium status. Creating this account will also store your session history in case you lose access to your current device.

Please note there are some limitations to the amount of audio recordings that can be saved to the Cloud Backup account. Audio backup is provided for up to 10 recordings per night plus all of your pinned recordings. Audio recordings are encrypted to protect your privacy.

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Troubleshooting cloud backup

If you’re having trouble accessing your Cloud Backup session history or premium status, try disconnecting and reconnecting your Cloud Backup account.

To disconnect your account:

Go to Cloud Backup in the Profile menu
Tap the cog in the top right hand corner of the screen
Tap ‘Disconnect’
In the next two screens, select ‘Keep cloud backup’ and ‘Keep data’

To reconnect your account:

Navigate to Cloud Backup in the Profile menu
Select your sign in method (ie. Google, Apple, email) and login with your details

Please note that using the same sign in method is important in properly restoring your Cloud Backup account. Please ensure you make note of which sign in method you use (ie. Google, Apple, email) and use the same sign in method each time you login. If you use a different sign in method than you used originally, you may experience difficulties restoring your account.

Is my cloud backup data safe?

Your Cloud Backup data is stored in secure third party servers. We do not have access to any audio data through these servers. We can only access your audio if you choose to send it to us directly.

For more information, please refer to our Privacy Policy here.

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How to delete your cloud backup

To delete your Cloud Backup account permanently, follow the steps below. Please note that once this is done, we cannot retrieve your data as it will be completely deleted from the server.

Navigate to Cloud Backup in the Profile menu and click the cog in the top right hand corner of the screen.
Tap ‘Disconnect’ and when prompted tap ‘Delete cloud backup

Troubleshooting

The recording process has failed.

The most common reason for failed recordings is the app being interrupted by a system process or by another app.

You can reduce the risk of termination by ensuring the app remains open in the foreground with the device unlocked. You may wish to activate Airplane or Do Not Disturb mode.

You should protect the app from being affected by any system features that limit how long an app can be open during the night such as Apple’s Screen Time or the Android App Timer.

Keeping your device plugged in can prevent recording being terminated by battery saving measures.

You should also disconnect from audio devices (either directly or via Bluetooth) such as headphones or hearing aids.

There are two snorers in the room.

Currently, SnoreLab cannot automatically distinguish one person’s snoring from another’s. If you want to see who is the worst snorer, we suggest that you use the app a few times separately and make a note of who is being recorded.

My snore score is low but I am still told that I snore.

SnoreLab works best in a quiet environment. Background noises such as fans or air conditioning units can interfere with snoring detection and volume estimation. We are doing work to reduce the impact of background noise on the results.

Snorelab has picked up sounds that aren't snoring.

SnoreLab works best in a quiet environment as the app can sometimes detect and record sounds that aren’t snoring. To stop these events from affecting your Snore Score, press the X button on the playback control panel. This will remove that audio event from the chart and adjust your Snore Score accordingly.

I forgot to stop Snorelab in the morning.

If you have forgotten to stop SnoreLab in the morning, or have non-snoring sounds at the beginning or end of a session, you can remove these noises using the Adjust Time in Bed function in the results screen under the cog button.

Why can't I change the sensitivity settings?

One of the key design goals for SnoreLab was to create an app that ‘just worked’ with no calibration needed. SnoreLab has been carefully calibrated to work in the bedroom environment when positioned as specified.

Giving users freedom to alter the sensitivity would be hazardous; creating the possibility that people might get it wrong and get nonsense results. Additionally, SnoreLab has been designed to allow users to compare their snoring between nights. However, this can’t be done if users are allowed to change the sensitivity. After all, how can you compare night A to night B if they were run with different settings?

If you feel that the readings you are getting are not realistic, please get in touch with us using the support form.