Apps Does the Sleep app have bug or did I just not sleep long enough?

[ApplesAreSweet&Sour]

I use Apple's native Sleep app to track my sleep every night. And it works great except for some scenarios that seem to result in the Sleep app deleting the sleep session for no obvious reason:

The sleep goal and sleep schedule I've set usually fits the actual time I sleep.

I either wake up around 30 minutes or less before the alarm goes off, or the wake-up alarm wakes me. It records everything just fine.

However, on the occasional "off schedule" day, where I go to bed or wake up outside my regular schedule, an issue arises: If I wake up 1 or more hours before my scheduled wake-up alarm goes off, Sleep will seemingly delete the sleep session that I just recorded.

If I wake much earlier than the scheduled wake-up alarm I will unlock the watch from the locked Sleep Focus Mode, then disable the Sleep Focus Mode from the Control Center.

Disabling Sleep from the Control Center usually leads to the Sleep app giving me a notification with a prompt asking me if I want to turn off the scheduled wake-up alarm sans prompt, pressing the "skip alarm" button. It also works just fine.

But on my "off schedule" days, where I wake earlier than the wake-up alarm, I will not get this "disable wake-up alarm?" prompt and am forced to go into Sleep and disable the alarm.

For some reason this sequence of sleeping outside my schedule and disabling Sleep before the alarm will delete the sleep session that I just recorded.

Is this a bug, or is perhaps an issue with my Sleep Goal being set incorrectly?

My best guess is that Sleep won't save the sleep session if it's too short by comparison to my average sleep length or the Sleep Goal I've set up in Health?

I'm asking because Sleep doesn't tell me why the session(s) got deleted or even that it got deleted. There's just no data for that day and night.

• Would the fix be to set my Sleep Goal to something much shorter to ensure even the shortest sleep sessions get recorded? Or is the length of a valid sleep session something Sleep calculates automatically and therefore out of my control?
• But if I set it much shorter then Sleep would auto disable too soon on most nights where I do hit my Sleep Goal?

Does anyone have experience with this, or know a video or document that gives a detailed explanation on this?

*Yes, battery is always charged way beyond 30% every night. And it's also not an issue caused by the Watch slipping off and locking during sleep.

 

[Night Spring]

It's not a bug, it's more a limitation of the way Apple set up its sleep tracking function. Apple's sleep tracking is very finicky -- if you sleep outside the pre-set sleep times, or if your sleep time is shorter than usual, it won't record your sleep. I don't think it deletes your sleep data, it's more like it doesn't recognize that you slept.

My "solution" is to use a third-party sleep tracking app as a backup. I use one called Sleep++, which has its own quirks but it records my sleep and naps whatever the time. There are other apps that you can find in the App Store. Pick one that works for you, and hope Apple improves the sleep tracking in the next OS update!

 

[HDFan]

I use auto sleep. Integrates with homekit to do things like turn off lights when you go to sleep and turn them on when you wake up.

 

[dockgaze]

I had the same problems as OP and eventually just turned off ‘sleep time’ etc and went with Autosleep app as it seems to just pick up when I sleep and wake all on it’s own pretty well. It even records my naps without any fuss. Mostly reliable but as previous comments point out . . . . still a few misfires.