Switching CPAP Brands? Keep Your Data History Across Vendors

Switching CPAP machines is more common than most people expect — a warranty runs out, a model gets recalled, or a new prescription points you to a different brand. The therapy may continue without missing a beat, but your data history usually does not. The app that came with your old machine stops at the moment you switch, leaving you with a wall between "before" and "after" exactly when you most want to compare.

This guide explains why that gap exists, who runs into it most, and how to keep one continuous record across ResMed, Philips Respironics, and Löwenstein.

Why manufacturer apps don't follow you across brands

Every major CPAP maker ships its own companion app, and each one is deliberately walled off to that maker's hardware:

• ResMed myAir is ResMed-only. It reads the cloud feed from AirSense and AirCurve devices and shows a daily 0–100 score weighted heavily toward usage hours. The exact formula has never been published, and the app doesn't break out event types, leak detail, or flow limitation — you can score a perfect 100 with a residual AHI of 4.9. (For more on what that score leaves out, see How to Read Your ResMed myAir Score.)
• Philips DreamMapper was Philips-only and shut down in January 2026. Even while it ran, it covered DreamStation-family devices and nothing else.

So if you move from a ResMed AirSense to a Philips DreamStation 2, or from a Philips machine to a Löwenstein prisma, neither app carries your past with it. myAir never saw your Philips data; DreamMapper never saw your ResMed data — and it's gone now anyway. You're left re-starting from zero with a brand-new app that knows nothing about the months or years that came before.

This isn't a bug. Manufacturer apps exist to support that manufacturer's ecosystem, not to give you a portable, lifelong record. The deeper limitations of these apps are covered in myAir & DreamMapper Limitations.

Why it matters: single-night numbers are noise. Real insight comes from trends over weeks and months — and trends are exactly what a brand switch erases when your history resets to day one.

The post-recall switcher problem

The most common reason people end up straddling two brands is the 2021 Philips Respironics recall. Millions of DreamStation and System One devices were recalled over concerns about the polyester-based polyurethane (PE-PUR) sound-abatement foam, and many users moved to a different machine — sometimes a ResMed, sometimes a Löwenstein, sometimes a repaired or replacement Philips unit.

A few facts worth keeping straight, since this topic is widely misreported:

• The original recall concerned the PE-PUR foam potentially degrading into particles and gases.
• For the silicone-based replacement foam, an FDA inspection report and independent laboratory tests (the latter commissioned by Philips itself) raised concerns that the new foam could emit volatile organic compounds, including formaldehyde. The FDA did not issue its own finding that the foam releases these chemicals; after a silicone-foam device sold outside the U.S. failed one VOC test, the FDA requested additional independent testing and, while that testing was pending, advised patients to keep using their repaired or replacement devices. Philips maintains that detected VOC levels stayed below applicable thresholds, though some independent experts dispute which thresholds apply.

For a neutral, fuller account, see the Philips Respironics recall explained.

Here's the data angle that's easy to miss: a recall switch is the worst possible moment to lose your history. If you want to know whether your new machine is treating you as well as the old one — same residual AHI, same leak control, same comfortable pressure — you need both sides of the switch in one place. The manufacturer apps guarantee you won't have that. A recall switcher who relied on DreamMapper, then moved to ResMed and opened myAir, now has two disconnected partial records and no way to lay them side by side.

What a continuous multi-vendor history looks like

A continuous history means your nightly numbers live in one record regardless of which machine produced them. Instead of two apps with a hard cutoff between them, you get a single timeline that reads straight across the brand change.

That's the gap SomniCharts is built to close. SomniCharts keeps one continuous, multi-vendor history so switching machines doesn't reset your data — the very thing myAir and DreamMapper leave wide open. It imports data from:

The DreamStation 2 point deserves emphasis. Its SD-card data is encrypted and not readable by OSCAR or other third-party desktop tools. SomniCharts supports DS2 directly — so a Philips-to-anything switch (or anything-to-Philips) doesn't strand the encrypted segment of your record. (More on that in Philips DreamStation 2: Why Its Data Is Encrypted.)

One note on scope: SomniCharts imports ResMed, Philips (incl. DS2), and Löwenstein prisma data. It does not import Fisher & Paykel data — if you use an F&P machine, treat that as ecosystem context, not a supported import.

Comparing therapy across machines

Once both eras of data sit in one place, you can actually answer the question that matters after a switch: is the new machine doing as good a job as the old one? The honest comparison hinges on understanding that different brands report some metrics differently — so a raw number-for-number match can mislead.

A few cross-brand gotchas to know before you compare:

• Leak is reported on different baselines. ResMed reports excess leak (leak above the expected mask vent flow), with a commonly cited threshold of 24 L/min at the 95th percentile. Philips reports total leak, which includes the intentional vent flow. So a Philips "leak" number will look larger than a ResMed one for the same real-world seal — you can't compare the figures head-to-head without accounting for the baseline. This matters because a large leak can invalidate or under-report your AHI: the machine can't reliably detect events through air that's blowing past the mask. CPAP Leak Rate: What's Acceptable walks through the thresholds.
• Device-reported AHI is an estimate, not a lab score. Every machine estimates the apnea-hypopnea index from flow and pressure signals alone — no EEG, no scored arousals. Lab-scored AHI follows AASM rules (Rule 1A counts a hypopnea on a 3% desaturation or arousal; Rule 1B / CMS uses a 4% desaturation), so your machine's number and a sleep lab's number can legitimately differ. Brands also draw their event lines slightly differently, which is one more reason trends matter more than any single night's digit.
• The treatment benchmark is the same regardless of brand. A residual AHI below 5 events per hour is the widely used target for effective CPAP therapy; the AASM defines an "optimal" titration as reducing AHI to fewer than 5. Some clinicians aim lower (e.g., under 1–2) when it's comfortably achievable, but targets are individualized with your provider — there's no formal guideline establishing "below 2" as a universal standard. (What Is a Good AHI on CPAP? covers the ranges.)

One more thing to watch after a switch: a rise in central (clear-airway) events. CPAP is designed to splint the airway open and reliably treats obstructive apneas, but it does not directly correct the unstable breathing drive behind central events. A jump in central events on a new machine can reflect treatment-emergent central sleep apnea (TECSA), which often resolves on its own within weeks to a few months of continued CPAP (spontaneous resolution is reported in roughly 60–80% of cases). If it persists — especially with returning symptoms — that's a conversation for your sleep clinician, who might consider BiPAP or ASV. Do not raise your own pressure to chase central events; higher pressure doesn't fix them and can sometimes provoke them. See Central Apneas Showing Up on CPAP for the full picture.

A continuous record turns all of this from guesswork into a clear before-and-after. SomniCharts explains these numbers in plain language automatically — so you don't have to hand-normalize leak baselines or decode each brand's event labels yourself.

One tool for ResMed, Philips, and Löwenstein

If you've changed machines — or expect to — the practical move is to keep your data in a tool that doesn't care which brand produced it.

To see exactly which tool reads which machine, the OSCAR vs SleepHQ vs SomniCharts support matrix lays it out in detail.

Whatever you choose, the principle holds: your therapy data is yours, and it shouldn't reset every time the hardware does. Keeping one continuous, multi-vendor history means a brand switch becomes just another data point on a long timeline — not a wall between two halves of your story. That continuity is what lets you (and your clinician) judge whether a new machine is genuinely keeping you well treated.

For the bigger picture on devices and how their data differs, head back to the CPAP Machines & Devices hub.