CES 2025 – A French app revolutionizes the diagnosis of sleep apnea with AI and a smartphone

More than 900 million people worldwide are affected by sleep apnea. This pathology, often the victim of stereotypes, is still largely underdiagnosed at 80%. Therefore, the polysomnography examination to detect it requires advanced equipment and logistical means. Presented at CES 2025, APNEAL is an application that aims to allow any individual with a smartphone to detect if they suffer from this syndrome.

Detecting sleep apnea using a smartphone and AI

The French startup APNEAL presented its new eponymous mobile application which meets the requirements of a “medical device”; it makes it possible to detect sleep apnea with a correlation rate of 90% compared to traditional polysomnography, the clinical examination carried out to detect it. With this application, the user attaches their smartphone to their chest using an adhesive bandage (easily found in pharmacies) and activates airplane mode for the night. During sleep, the phone's sensors — the accelerometer, gyroscope and microphone — record breathing movements, heartbeats and breathing sounds (such as snoring, one of the symptoms of the disease). This data is then analyzed by artificial intelligence to generate a nightly report, sent to a healthcare professional.

Thanks to the precision of the smartphone's sensors, APNEAL aims to be more sensitive than connected watches equipped with a sleep apnea detection functionality. In fact, a smartphone's accelerometer provides no less than 500 values ​​per second and its gyroscope is capable of taking measurements on six axes. With its application, the startup wants to eliminate the stress and logistical challenges of having a traditional polysomnography.

The device is currently in the CE marking phase, with a large study underway involving 1,000 patients in 20 European centers.