Apple Watch Series 4 Sleep Tracking

[tromboneaholic]

After talking to a few members about sleep tracking apps, settings, and battery life, I decided to pay attention to my settings and battery life and keep track of it last night when sleep tracking.

Usually I charge my watch in the morning after sleep tracking, but last night I charged it before bed so it would be at 100%

Monday Night

I took the Watch off the charger at 10:15 pm and had 92% battery remaining after 8 hours.

Series 4 Watch 44mm running WatchOS 5.0.1
iPhone X running iOS 12.0.1

Settings:
I was running AutoSleep, but I force quit any other app that was running in the background.
Inforgraph Digital watch face
Turned on Do Not Disturb, Theater Mode, and Mute. (Airplane Mode was not enabled).


I recently turned off "auto detect gym equipment," as I don't use this feature.
Raise to speak - Off
Brightness - Max

[Update] Tuesday Night

Same settings as above, but with Airplane Mode enabled 93% battery remaining after 8 hours, so 7% usage.

Obviously, the minor decrease in battery usage might not be due to Airplane Mode but possibly to me tossing and turning less. It's a small difference, but I'll keep an eye on it.

[Update] Wednesday Night

Last night I changed things around and didn't charge my watch before bed, so it was off the charger being worn since Tuesday night.

Went to bid with 63%, and got out of bed 7 hours later with 54%, so 9% usage after 7 hours.

[Update] Thursday Night

I haven't charged my watch since Tuesday night, so it was at 25% when I went to bed last night. After 7 hours it's at 13%, so 12% usage after 7 hours.

So the last time my watch was on the charger was Tuesday night, and I've worn it for 3 nights in a row without charging.

Tuesday night, when I started with 100% battery, I used 7% after 8 hours.
Wednesday night I started with 63% battery and used 9% after 7 hours.
Thursday night I started with 25% and used 12% after 7 hours.

It seems like my usage increased a little bit each night the further away I am from a full charge (at least for these past 3 nights). I'm not sure if my battery usages is actually increasing, or if it's just how the Apple Watch battery meter works. I notice when it's at 100%, it likes to stay there for quite some time before it starts dropping.

I'm going to see how long my watch lasts until it runs out of juice today, and see if that affects my calibration of the battery meter.

[Update] Friday Afternoon

Battery finally died. The last time I checked my usage was 2 days, 15 hours of standby, with 5 hours, 5 minutes of usage. Decreasing my brightness from max would probably stretch this out a little. It was charged to 100% in a little under 2 hours.


[Update] Friday Night

I had an interesting development last night.

I had 95% battery remaining after 7 hours and 15 minutes, for 5% battery usage.

After letting my battery run down all the way yesterday, I left it on the charger and put it on before bed. I force quit all the apps, but I forgot to launch AutoSleep and hit lights out.

This was the least amount of battery I've used over a 7-8 hour period, so I'm wondering if it was from calibrating my battery, or from just having no apps open (not even the sleep tracking app).

An interesting side note is that the sleep tracking seems more accurate without hitting "light out" in AutoSleep. AT least for me, it's been counting me as asleep when I'm lying in bed motionless in the morning, but today it should I was awake for about 20 minutes that it normally would have counted as asleep.

[Update] Saturday Night

I wore the watch all day and went to bed with 62% and got up with 55% after 8 hours, for 7% battery usage over 8 hours.

I did force quit all apps, set theater mode, mute and do not disturb as usual

I didn't launch AutoSleep, and it seems to consume a little less battery while being at least as accurate if not more.

I'm not going to charge the watch today so I can compare the 3 nights in a row from before I calibrated the battery meter to after.

[Update] Sunday Night

Haven't charged the watch since Friday. Went to bed with 26% and after 7 hours had 16% for 10% usage over 7 hours.

After last night, I've come to the conclusion that the battery meter will drop more quickly the further away it is from 100% In other words, 100%-95% is the same amount of battery consumption as 25%-15%.

This past week, two times there were 3 consecutive nights where I did not charge the battery. Each night I used progressively more battery.

Full charge
Tuesday 7%
Wednesday 9%
Thursday 12%

Full charge
Friday 5%
Saturday 7%
Sunday 10%

It's not a completely scientific conclusion, the battery meter dropping more quickly the further it is from 100%, but all conditions and settings were the same for all 6 nights.

 

[brentc133]

92% seems about right after using Autosleep overnight. I uninstalled Autosleep from my watch and it still uses ~8% overnight and seems to use watch movement and heart rate for Autosleep stats.

 

[Absrnd]

Yep, experienced the same thing with Pillow
and I don't even turn off apps running in the background

I also only charge before bed, and use the AW night and day, and still have plenty left for the evening.

 

[tromboneaholic]

Yep, experienced the same thing with Pillow
and I don't even turn off apps running in the background

Interesting. I'll try again tonight without force quitting any of the apps.
[doublepost=1540298935][/doublepost]

92% seems about right after using Autosleep overnight. I uninstalled Autosleep from my watch and it still uses ~8% overnight and seems to use watch movement and heart rate for Autosleep stats.

So after uninstalling the app from the watch, AutoSleep on the phone can still read the data from Health like when you had the watch app installed?

 

[brentc133]

Interesting. I'll try again tonight without force quitting any of the apps.
[doublepost=1540298935][/doublepost]
So after uninstalling the app from the watch, AutoSleep on the phone can still read the data from Health like when you had the watch app installed?

Exactly. I was actually trying to see if i could save battery by uninstalling and was surprised that it still recorded heart rate and movement. I’m thinking the app on the watch is just to allow to check stats from the watch.

 

[RedlegsFan]

I use Pillow and get about the same battery life. Last night I crashed out very early for me 8:20PM and woke up at almost 5AM. I charged it up to 100 percent and then took it off to sleep with. Woke up to 95 percent charge in the morning. I only had Theater Mode on. That's it.

 

[tromboneaholic]

Exactly. I was actually trying to see if i could save battery by uninstalling and was surprised that it still recorded heart rate and movement. I’m thinking the app on the watch is just to allow to check stats from the watch.

The watch app does have that "lights off" button that I could use to turn off my nano leaf lights in the bedroom, but I usually just tell Siri to set our nighttime scene that dims it like a night light.
I could delete the app, but it sounds like it's not really using much battery anyway.
[doublepost=1540305332][/doublepost]

I only had Theater Mode on. That's it.

When I first got my Series 1 a couple of years ago, I would get stand reminders while wearing at night (waking me up while I was sleeping), so I just got into the habit of putting the watch into DND.

I always keep it muted because the little bell alert was confusing my coworkers. We had an actual bell at the receptionist desk where I used to work, so I got into the habit of keeping the watch on Mute all the time and just relying on the haptic notifications.

 

[staggerlee41]

Interesting topic and good choice for a new thread on it for some of us to compare notes. I'm using AW 4 44mm.

I also am finding 92% after 8 hours of sleep with a watch fully charged before going to bed. I also don't force quit apps and am running an infographic face, with detect gym equipment disabled. I also have background refresh set to minimum apps and will change those settings to when I need them. I do not have DND enabled and always keep sounds disabled, using only the haptic feedback.

I'm using both AutoSleep and SleepWatch (I like features/data points of both and find the comparison interesting) I can't recall which one of these apps it was, but seem to remember there being an option when setup if you wanted to use phone or watch as the source of data.

 

[tromboneaholic]

Interesting topic and good choice for a new thread on it for some of us to compare notes.

I also am finding 92% after 8 hours of sleep with a watch fully charged before going to bed. I also don't force quit apps and am running an infographic face, with detect gym equipment disabled. I also have background refresh set to minimum apps and will change those settings to when I need them. I do not have DND enabled and always keep sounds disabled, using only the haptic feedback.

I'm using both AutoSleep and SleepWatch (I like features/data points of both and find the comparison interesting) I can't recall which one of these apps it was, but seem to remember there being an option when setup if you wanted to use phone or watch as the source of data.

I forgot to mention I'm also running infographic face, the analog version. Some people have claimed it's a battery hog, but I guess the watch screen doesn't light up that often (if at all) when I'm sleeping to make a difference.

You were the one who mentioned turning off detect gym equipment. I turned it off, and I don't know if it's helping anything – but since I don't need it, it can't hurt.

I do have background refresh turned on for everything, in hopes that my complications on the watch face will stay updated. So far weather has been behaving.

 

[staggerlee41]

I am not sure if Detect Gym Equipment has any impact, but I read an article that suggested it may have an impact so I disabled it since I don't use it.

Regarding Background Refresh settings, mine are set on for mostly the stuff that impacts my watch face. Weather, Activity, AutoSleep, SleepWatch, Slice, Workout, World Clock. Does enabling these have an impact on battery life similar to what we expect on iPhone or no since it gets information from iPhone?

 

[tromboneaholic]

Regarding Background Refresh settings, mine are set on for mostly the stuff that impacts my watch face. Weather, Activity, AutoSleep, SleepWatch, Slice, Workout, World Clock. Does enabling these have an impact on battery life similar to what we expect on iPhone or no since it gets information from iPhone?

I wonder how much savings I would get by disabling background refresh on unused apps. I may try it overnight to see if it has any noticeable effect.

 

[staggerlee41]

Based on your report earlier and how my background refresh setup, I'm not sure it has any impact. We both seem to be at 92% after 100% charge and 8 hours of sleep. Give it a shot and report back, please.

 

[ipaddaro]

I forgot to mention I'm also running infographic face, the analog version. Some people have claimed it's a battery hog, but I guess the watch screen doesn't light up that often (if at all) when I'm sleeping to make a difference.

You were the one who mentioned turning off detect gym equipment. I turned it off, and I don't know if it's helping anything – but since I don't need it, it can't hurt.

I do have background refresh turned on for everything, in hopes that my complications on the watch face will stay updated. So far weather has been behaving.

do you have rise to talk option on?

 

[tromboneaholic]

do you have rise to talk option on?

Nope. I turned that off because Siri kept trying to do stuff every time I was talking to someone and looked at my watch at the same time.

 

[CreepyAF]

I use pillow and have about 96% after sleeping 6-8 hours

 

[staggerlee41]

I also have rise to wake and rise to speak disabled.

 

[ipaddaro]

with autosleep and heartwatch the drop for me is approx 12-15% in 7-8 hours with flight mode... mmm...

 

[tromboneaholic]

with autosleep and heartwatch the drop for me is approx 12-15% in 7-8 hours with flight mode... mmm...

Seems a little bit high.
I'm also running HeartWatch as a complication on my watch face, but I don't know if it's doing much since the screen if off all night as far as I know. I'm not in airplane mode though.

 

[ipaddaro]

Seems a little bit high.
I'm also running HeartWatch as a complication on my watch face, but I don't know if it's doing much since the screen if off all night as far as I know. I'm not in airplane mode though.

thanks for your feedback... really don’t know what to do. i’ll keep monitoring this thing...

 

[Nekomichi]

The reason why AutoSleep doesn't add any battery burden is because it taps into motion data already being captured by your Apple Watch and iPhone, as opposed to running as a separate new process in the background. That's why when you look in the app you can scroll back and still find motion data available on dates before you even first installed AutoSleep.

 

[tromboneaholic]

thanks for your feedback... really don’t know what to do. i’ll keep monitoring this thing...

Just FYI. I set my watch up as new, since I was syncing activity and achievements through "Health" in iCloud on my phone.

 

[ipaddaro]

Just FYI. I set my watch up as new, since I was syncing activity and achievements through "Health" in iCloud on my phone.

tonight from 100% to 90% in 8 hours, airplane mode.

just a note: when i say that i use autosleep and heartwatch, i mean that i set the first on “light off” (that should have no impact) and for the second i start monitoring the heartrate of the sleep manually (i press “start” in the menu with the moon)

 

[DaveyVigs]

So I tried pillow to track my sleep which seemed effective as in it worked without me needing to turn it on like I did sanother sleep app and it tracked types of sleep pretty well...

but in 8 hours it went from full 100% charge to 80%. I only have the pillow app installed and turned off both raise to speak and display. New watch not sure why I dropped 20% in 8 hours of doing nothing.

For the last few days owning the S4 I wondered why my battery drained so quickly compared to my 3 year old S0 before it. I am thinking of returning it or bringing it to Apple for diagnostics asap.

My only other thought is it is so new it hasn’t had a chance to “break in the battery” or whatever like new devices/cars etc need.

 

[CreepyAF]

So I tried pillow to track my sleep which seemed effective as in it worked without me needing to turn it on like I did sanother sleep app and it tracked types of sleep pretty well...

but in 8 hours it went from full 100% charge to 80%. I only have the pillow app installed and turned off both raise to speak and display. New watch not sure why I dropped 20% in 8 hours of doing nothing.

For the last few days owning the S4 I wondered why my battery drained so quickly compared to my 3 year old S0 before it. I am thinking of returning it or bringing it to Apple for diagnostics asap.

My only other thought is it is so new it hasn’t had a chance to “break in the battery” or whatever like new devices/cars etc need.

yes, that seems high. you shouldn't go past 10%.

 

[tromboneaholic]

Last night I turned on airplane mode, and had 93% battery after 8 hours. The difference from 92% the night before is negligible, so I don't think airplane mode really has an effect in my case with DND and theater mode on.
[doublepost=1540379492][/doublepost]

tonight from 100% to 90% in 8 hours, airplane mode.

just a note: when i say that i use autosleep and heartwatch, i mean that i set the first on “light off” (that should have no impact) and for the second i start monitoring the heartrate of the sleep manually (i press “start” in the menu with the moon)

I have been triggering AutoSleep like that, but I haven't been using HeartWatch to take increased readings – just letting the watch do it at it's normal pace. That would definitely affect battery.