Required components of a sleep-wake online daily diary for accurate and efficient human research

Accurate documentation of sleep timing (enabling calculation of duration and variability) is imperative for research, health, and safety recommendations. Methods in real-world settings include one-time self-report, diaries, and wearables that vary by ease, expense, and accuracy. Here we highlight how programmable online daily diaries compare to gold-standard polysomnography for measuring sleep timing, should be preferred over one-time self-report, and complement wearables for longitudinal clinical and research studies and real-world applications.