How to Set Up Snollo: Complete iPhone Sleep Tracker Setup Guide

Quick Answer (TL;DR)

Install Snollo, grant Microphone and Motion & Fitness permissions, place your iPhone within 1–2 feet of your head, and tap Start before bed. That is the complete setup. Everything else in this guide is optional detail and troubleshooting.

Key Takeaways

• Snollo requires three iOS permissions: Microphone (snoring), Motion & Fitness (sleep stages on iPhone), and optionally Apple Health (Apple Watch data).
• You must tap Start manually before each sleep session — the app does not auto-start.
• iPhone placement within roughly 1–2 feet of your head is recommended for reliable snore detection; research on smartphone microphone-based snoring detection confirms that unconstrained bedside placement achieves high accuracy.
• Sleep stages are estimated from movement patterns (accelerometer data) and, when Apple Watch is worn, from combined heart rate and motion data — a combination that research shows improves stage classification accuracy.
• Commercial sleep trackers, including wrist-worn devices, reliably estimate total sleep time but have limited accuracy for individual sleep stage classification compared to polysomnography (PSG).
• Plug in your iPhone before starting a session; overnight audio recording consumes battery, and charging does not affect recording quality.

Overview

Snollo is set up in under two minutes. The core steps are: install, grant three permissions, place your iPhone, and tap Start before bed. This guide covers every step in detail, explains what each permission does, and includes fixes for the most common setup issues.

What You Need

• iPhone running iOS 17 or later
• The Snollo app (free from the App Store)
• Apple Watch Series 4 or later (optional, but improves sleep stage accuracy)

Step 1 — Download Snollo

Open the App Store, search Snollo, and tap Get. Snollo uses the Apple ID you already have — no separate Snollo account, email, or payment to set up. The free tier — nightly snore detection, sleep stage breakdown, listen-back audio clips, and 7 days of history — is permanent. Premium is an auto-renewable subscription you can add later if you want the extended sound library, unlimited history, or AI insights.

If you already have Snollo installed, make sure it is updated to the latest version before proceeding.

Step 2 — Grant Permissions

Snollo asks for three iOS permissions. Each one controls a specific data source. Here is what each permission enables and what happens without it:

Microphone (required for snore detection)

What it enables: Real-time audio classification — detecting snoring, breathing, coughing, and sleep talking using the iPhone microphone.

Research confirms that smartphone microphone-based snoring detection in ordinary bedroom conditions is feasible, with studies reporting accuracy above 95% for identifying snore events versus background sounds.¹²³

Without it: No sound events, no snore detection, no listen-back clips. The app will still launch but the core functionality does not work.

If you missed it: Go to Settings → Privacy & Security → Microphone → Snollo and toggle it on.

Motion & Fitness (required for iPhone-only sleep stages)

What it enables: Sleep stage estimation from iPhone accelerometer data when no Apple Watch is paired. The app uses movement patterns — still phases, restless periods, and transitions — to estimate periods of lighter and deeper sleep.

This approach is based on actigraphy principles. Research shows that consumer devices using accelerometer data can reliably estimate total sleep time, though accuracy for individual sleep stage classification (light vs. deep vs. REM) is more limited compared to polysomnography, the clinical gold standard.⁴

Without it: If you are not wearing an Apple Watch, sleep stages will not appear in your morning report.

If you missed it: Go to Settings → Privacy & Security → Motion & Fitness → Snollo and toggle it on.

Apple Health (Apple Watch users)

What it enables: Snollo reads your Apple Watch’s heart rate, HRV, blood oxygen (SpO2), and breathing rate data from Apple Health after each night. This produces the heart rate and SpO2 charts.

Combining accelerometer and heart rate data improves sleep stage classification compared to motion alone. One study found that adding heart rate to accelerometer data improved NREM/REM discrimination accuracy by 15–25% across classifiers.⁵ Blood oxygen (SpO2) monitoring during sleep is also used clinically as a component of respiratory event assessment.⁶

Without it: No heart rate, HRV, blood oxygen, or breathing rate charts. Sleep stages are estimated from iPhone-only data instead.

To configure: Go to Settings → Health → Data Access → Snollo and enable:

• Heart Rate
• Heart Rate Variability (HRV)
• Sleep Analysis
• Respiratory Rate
• Blood Oxygen

No Watch app is required. Snollo reads the data that your Watch writes to Apple Health automatically each morning.

Step 3 — Position Your iPhone

Placement affects snore detection quality, especially when not wearing an Apple Watch.

Without Apple Watch:

The iPhone microphone needs a clear path to capture breathing and snoring sounds. Good positions:

Research on smartphone-based snoring detection used unconstrained bedside placement — phones placed on the bed or nightstand near the head — and found this sufficient for reliable detection without strict distance requirements.¹

With Apple Watch:

Placement is much more flexible. The Watch handles heart rate, motion, and sleep stage data from your wrist. The iPhone can sit on the nightstand at a normal distance. The microphone still captures snoring, but the proximity requirement is less strict.

Step 4 — Tap Start Before Bed

Snollo does not auto-start. Each night you must:

1. Open Snollo
2. Tap the Start button
3. Put the phone face-down (or in your preferred position) and go to sleep

If you close the app or forget to tap Start, no data is recorded. This is intentional — Snollo only records when you explicitly start a session.

Recommended: Plug your iPhone into a charger before tapping Start. Overnight audio recording typically consumes 10–15% battery. Charging eliminates drain and is safe to run all night.

Step 5 — Review Your Results in the Morning

In the morning, open Snollo to see:

• Sleep quality score — overall score for the night
• Sleep stage breakdown — time in lighter sleep, deeper sleep, and REM sleep⁷
• Sound event timeline — timestamped snoring, breathing, and other events
• Listen-back clips — tap any event to hear what the mic captured
• Heart rate and SpO2 charts (with Apple Watch only)

Sleep occurs in cycles of roughly 80–100 minutes, with four to six cycles per night. More deep sleep typically occurs early in the night, while REM sleep increases toward morning.⁷

The session ends automatically when you tap Stop in the morning, or you can let it run past your wake time — Snollo uses motion and audio patterns to approximate when you woke.

Troubleshooting

Sleep stages are missing

Most likely cause: Motion & Fitness permission is off.

Go to Settings → Privacy & Security → Motion & Fitness → Snollo → toggle on. Also check Settings → Health → Data Access → Snollo if you wear an Apple Watch.

No snore events recorded

Check in this order:

1. Microphone permission — Settings → Privacy & Security → Microphone → Snollo
2. Did you tap Start? — if you forgot, nothing recorded
3. iPhone placement — was it within 1–2 feet of your head?
4. Did you actually snore? — if snoring is infrequent or mild, no events is a valid result

Heart rate chart is empty

Apple Watch data requires Apple Health permission. Go to Settings → Health → Data Access → Snollo and enable Heart Rate. Also confirm your Apple Watch was charged and worn during the night — if the Watch ran out of battery, it stops writing heart rate data to Health.

Battery drained overnight

Plug in your iPhone before starting a session. Snollo is safe to run while charging. If you cannot charge overnight, fully charge your iPhone before bed — a full charge will typically end the night at 85–90%.

Settings Reference

For a deeper look at iPhone snore detection without Apple Watch, see iPhone snoring tracker without Apple Watch.

Sources