What is Pokémon Sleep?

Pokémon Sleep is a sleep-tracking mobile app developed by Select Button that scores a player's nightly sleep and rewards them with Pokémon gathering around a giant Snorlax.

Where did Pokémon Sleep come from?

It was announced by The Pokémon Company on May 28th, 2019, at a Tokyo press conference alongside the Pokémon GO Plus + accessory.

What does Pokémon Sleep mean?

The name refers to the app's core idea of "turning sleeping into entertainment," with sleep quality translating into in-game progress the way steps did in Pokémon GO.

How do you use Pokémon Sleep?

Players leave their phone on the mattress overnight so the app can log movement and sound, then wake up to see which Pokémon showed up based on their sleep style.

Is Pokémon Sleep still popular?

Yes, the app launched worldwide between July 16th and 18th, 2023, and its release fueled ongoing memes about shiny hunting and fan art of Professor Neroli.

Pokémon Sleep

2019mobile gameactive

Published September 22, 2026

Pokémon Sleep is a sleep-tracking mobile game from The Pokémon Company and Select Button, announced in May 2019 and released worldwide in July 2023. The app rewards players for logging real sleep by matching their patterns to Snorlax's naps, and its 2023 launch spawned a wave of shiny-hunting jokes and Professor Neroli fan art.

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Overview

Pokémon Sleep is a sleep-tracking mobile app built around the idea of turning bedtime into gameplay, with players logging naps to attract Pokémon that gather around a giant sleeping Snorlax1. The Pokémon Company pitched it as a follow-up in spirit to Pokémon GO, aiming to do for sleeping what that game did for walking2. Sleep sessions are scored and categorized into styles like dozing, snoozing and slumbering, which determine which Pokémon show up in the morning.

Online, the game turned into a running joke well before it was even playable, with users treating the announcement as an excuse to imagine Pokémon versions of every other lifestyle app1. After the July 2023 launch, the community pivoted to memes about grinding sleep data, hoarding phones to hunt shiny Pokémon, and thirsting over Professor Neroli, the pink-haired sleep researcher who narrates the game3.

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Origin & Background

Platform

Press conference (announcement) / Twitter and YouTube (viral spread)

Creator

The Pokémon Company and Select Button; meme edits by fans

Date

2019

Pokémon Sleep was announced on May 28th, 2019, at a Pokémon Company press conference in Tokyo, where president and CEO Tsunekazu Ishihara said the app would aim to "turn sleeping into entertainment" much like Pokémon GO did for walking2. The same event unveiled the Pokémon GO Plus + accessory, a disc-shaped device with a built-in accelerometer that tracks how long the user sleeps and syncs data to the app over Bluetooth1. Development was handed to Select Button, the studio behind Pokémon: Magikarp Jump1.

After a long delay from the original 2020 target, an official trailer went up on YouTube on February 27th, 2023, and the finished game launched worldwide on iOS and Android between July 16th and 18th, 20233 4.

How It Spread

The 2019 announcement was picked up by mainstream outlets including CNN and Polygon, which both zeroed in on the "sleeping is the new walking" framing1 2. On Twitter, users @merrittk and @Garrts_ went viral riffing on the concept, with @Garrts_ setting Pokémon Sleep against the lyrics of System of a Down's "Chop Suey" for thousands of likes3. YouTube reactors piled on the same day, with GameXplain and Austin John Plays racking up tens and hundreds of thousands of views recapping the press conference3.

The four-year gap between announcement and release kept the app in a running-joke state, with fans regularly asking whether Pokémon Sleep was still real. That skepticism broke when the February 2023 trailer dropped and July's global rollout followed3 4. Post-launch memes leaned into how the tracker actually works: on July 16th, 2023, Twitter user @RexProfessor posted a photo of themselves asleep surrounded by phones all running Pokémon Sleep, captioned "So yeah, I'm a shiny hunter," pulling 2,900 likes in four days3.

Professor Neroli, the scientist studying Snorlax's sleep, quickly became the game's breakout character, spawning fan art and thirst posts across the Pokémon fandom3. Urban Dictionary entries also popped up mocking players who took the tracking too seriously5.

Timeline

2019-05-28

The Pokémon Company announces Pokémon Sleep and the Pokémon GO Plus + accessory at a Tokyo press conference, targeting a 2020 release.

2019-05-29

CNN, Polygon and other outlets cover the announcement; Twitter users @merrittk and @Garrts_ post viral jokes about the app.

2023-02-27

The official Pokémon Sleep trailer is released on YouTube after nearly four years of silence.

2023-07-16

Global rollout of Pokémon Sleep begins on iOS and Android; @RexProfessor posts the "shiny hunter" phone-pile tweet the same day.

2023-07-18

Worldwide launch completes; Professor Neroli fan art and memes take off across the Pokémon fandom.

How to Use This Meme

In the app itself, players place their phone on the mattress at bedtime, let the microphone and accelerometer log the night, and wake up to a "sleep style" reading that dictates which Pokémon join Snorlax's research site. As a meme, the format usually shows either a person setting up an absurd number of phones to game the tracker (the shiny hunter joke) or fan art of Professor Neroli, the pink-haired sleep scientist added in the 2023 release3.