Sleep disorders are a growing public health issue, affecting millions of Americans and costing the healthcare system billions each year. Despite the risks, many patients avoid testing due to the inconvenience, cost, or discomfort of overnight sleep studies in clinical settings. New research from the University of Cambridge suggests that sensor-embedded sleepwear known as smart pajamas, may offer a more accessible way to monitor sleep health remotely.
The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, introduces wearable pajamas designed to track sleep stages with accuracy comparable to traditional in-lab polysomnography. This advancement could help healthcare organizations expand remote patient monitoring (RPM) programs and improve early detection of sleep disorders.
In this article, we explore new research on smart pajamas and how this wearable technology could offer healthcare providers a practical solution for remotely monitoring sleep disorders outside of traditional lab settings.
The Growing Impact of Sleep Disorders on Healthcare
The scale of sleep-related health issues in the United States is staggering. It is estimated that between 50-70 million Americans suffer from chronic sleep problems. Insomnia is the most common condition, impacting around one-third of adults short-term and 10% chronically. Obstructive sleep apnea affects an estimated 25 million adults but often goes undiagnosed due to barriers in testing access.
Left untreated, sleep disorders contribute to increased risk of heart disease, diabetes, depression, and cognitive decline. The economic burden is significant, with healthcare costs tied to sleep disorders surpassing $94 billion annually in the U.S. alone..
Yet despite the health risks and financial impact, many patients avoid sleep studies altogether. Spending a night wired to machines in a clinical environment is uncomfortable, expensive, and not easily accessible for patients in rural or underserved areas. This gap in care is exactly what smart pajamas are designed to address.
How Smart Pajamas Work
The Cambridge research team created smart pajamas by printing thin, flexible sensors directly onto textile fabric. These sensors detect small movements and breathing patterns generated during sleep. Data collected from the pajamas is then processed through a machine learning model, SleepNet, which analyzes the signals to classify sleep stages such as REM, non-REM, and wakefulness.
In clinical testing with 26 adults, researchers report that smart pajamas delivered sleep stage identification with 98.6% accuracy when compared to standard polysomnography. The technology also performed reliably in home-use trials, supporting its potential for consumer sleep monitoring in the home.
Why This Matters for Healthcare
Smart pajamas represent a practical way to make sleep monitoring more patient-friendly and scalable. The ability to collect accurate sleep data from the comfort of a patient’s home has implications not only for diagnosing conditions like insomnia or sleep apnea but also for managing chronic illnesses where sleep quality plays a critical role.
Patients living with conditions such as heart failure, COPD, or obesity often experience disrupted sleep patterns. Having continuous access to sleep data could enable providers to adjust treatment plans, improve outcomes, and prevent hospitalizations.
Smart pajamas also address, patient compliance, which is a long-standing challenge in sleep medicine. By eliminating the need for wires, machines, and overnight lab stays, this technology lowers the barrier to participation and could result in earlier detection and treatment of sleep disorders. The Cambrisge researchers are working to improve durability of the sensors for long-term use.
The Future Potential of Smart Pajamas
While the current prototype focuses on sleep stage monitoring, researchers see opportunities to expand the capabilities of smart pajamas. Future iterations could integrate sensors to track additional biometrics like oxygen saturation, heart rate variability, and respiratory rate. This evolution would make smart pajamas valuable not just for home sleep monitoring but as a broader tool for cardiopulmonary health tracking.
As wearable technology continues to advance, health systems will need to evaluate how to integrate these tools into care pathways. Smart pajamas could complement other remote monitoring solutions, offering continuous, passive data collection without disrupting patients’ daily lives.
What’s Next for Smart Pajamas?
Areas of focus for sleep monitoring include regulatory pathways, reimbursement models for remote sleep monitoring, and further validation studies across diverse patient populations. Equally important will be understanding patient experience. Comfort, usability, and trust in the technology will determine adoption rates, especially among populations that have historically faced barriers to accessing sleep diagnostics.
Smart pajamas present a new approach to sleep health monitoring. By bringing sleep studies into the home, this technology has the potential to improve access to care, support earlier diagnosis, and provide critical data for managing chronic health conditions.
For healthcare leaders focused on virtual care, digital health, and expanding remote patient monitoring programs, smart pajamas offer a glimpse into the future of sleep medicine wit the potential for more accessible, patient-centered, and scalable care.
