Is the Apple Watch good at sleep tracking?

[vapourtrails]

I know there are some watch capeable
Sleep apps and I’m interested in getting the watch for this purpose. Is anyone using it for this function? How well does it work?

 

[madeirabhoy]

I think autosleep is pretty good. does what its supposed to, and certainly in terms of interrupted sleep its pretty accurate in telling me when I woke up in the middle of the night. also tells me how much good deep sleep I had.

 

[honglong1976]

They are all useless except Sleepwatch and Autosleep. (Which automatically track sleep). All the others are manual start and stop.

 

[Achilles75]

I know there are some watch capeable
Sleep apps and I’m interested in getting the watch for this purpose. Is anyone using it for this function? How well does it work?

Yes, I use AW3 as a sleep tracker and find it works very well. I use the Sleep Watch app. I have also tried AutoSleep. Both apps seemed accurate. I prefer Sleep Watch, personally. AutoSleep is a solid app, very well developed, but for me, it was unnecessarily complex and I get the data I want in a glance with Sleep Watch. I would suggest trying both out and seeing which interface suits you best.

 

[honglong1976]

Yes, I use AW3 as a sleep tracker and find it works very well. I use the Sleep Watch app. I have also tried AutoSleep. Both apps seemed accurate. I prefer Sleep Watch, personally. AutoSleep is a solid app, very well developed, but for me, it was unnecessarily complex and I get the data I want in a glance with Sleep Watch. I would suggest trying both out and seeing which interface suits you best.

Yes, I agree. Auto Sleep is overly complicated. Sleepwatch is easy to use and see to be the app kept the most up to date (iPhone-X support) for example. And autosleep has that annoying splash screen when you open it.

But, both of these are not as good as a proper Apple solution. That's why I have an Apple Watch and Fitbit Charge 2 for sleep tracking.

I wish Apple would release a really light weight sleep/activity tracker that works with the health app. In fact, I wish they would go back to the original health app. Really designed well and substituted for the pile of crud it is today.

 

[cdcastillo]

No, it is not GOOD. It might suffice, or it might be reasonable useful, but it is not GOOD at sleep tracking. If that is what you want, get a fitbit or some other actigraph bands. The apple watch excels at lots of other things, but at sleep tracking it is mediocre at best.

 

[Volusia]

I use Autosleep on my Watch and have been satisfied. It is adjustable somewhat if you believe it being too generous or not generous enough with your sleep. It provides me with a baseline so I can tell if I have had a good or poor night's sleep.

 

[warburg]

Where and how do you get these sleep tracking apps?

 

[honglong1976]

Where and how do you get these sleep tracking apps?

App Store

 

[TylerDurden130]

So I have AutoSleep and am wondering what the benefit of tracking my sleep really is? I know if I slept well, and if not what can I do about it? How are you using the information?

 

[brian3uk]

Might be a dumb sleep question but how do you stop the watch from waking up, or activating apps and stuff while you're sleeping? I thought it use to have a lock button but now I only see the water lock option, but that doesn't stop the screen from waking whenever i roll over.

 

[Nell]

I find my watch to be rather better than my Fitbit Charge HR which tends to think I hardly sleep at all.

Given that the apps just interpret the data the watch gathers, I use SleepWatch and AutoSleep. In terms of how the data is presented, I think I like SleepWatch more.

 

[Seamaster]

Might be a dumb sleep question but how do you stop the watch from waking up, or activating apps and stuff while you're sleeping? I thought it use to have a lock button but now I only see the water lock option, but that doesn't stop the screen from waking whenever i roll over.

Theatre mode.

 

[Jinkst]

So I have AutoSleep and am wondering what the benefit of tracking my sleep really is? I know if I slept well, and if not what can I do about it? How are you using the information?

Like any device that does it, if you can track your sleep duration, how deep of a sleep you’re getting, and any repeating breaks in that or irregular patterns then that can help identify health risks, or perhaps needing supplements such as magnesium to achieve a better sleep.

Your body gets immeasurable health benefits from sleep, so being able to analyze yours and then investigating ways to make it better can be very important.

 

[Mad Mac Maniac]

So I have AutoSleep and am wondering what the benefit of tracking my sleep really is? I know if I slept well, and if not what can I do about it? How are you using the information?

Duration of sleep: helps you notice if you are getting enough sleep, basically increasing your awareness. People often don’t realize how little sleep their getting or just how important it is.

Quality of sleep: If you notice you toss and turn a lot during the night you may have some sort of sleep disorder. You can try to experiment with different things (eating schedule, exercise schedule, supplements, etc) to see if your sleep quality improves.

Sleeping HR: Your resting to sleeping HR should drop about 10% in a health individual. You can detect any HR anomalies while you sleep which could lead to a sleep disorder diagnosis. For example, I noticed my sleeping HR is very high after drinking alcohol (even with just 1-2 drinks)

It can also help you detect if you’re a sleepwalker. Haha. Basically it can provide you a lot of data that could be very helpful

 

[solarmon]

This is actually one of the most important uses I have right now for the Garmin vivosmart HR+. Sleep app is very useful to me. But the Garmin (if you do not use th GPS, and I rarely do), will last 4 or 5 days on a charge. But the Apple watch alas still has to be charged almost daily, so I've held off on buying it. The Garmin is super ugly, but I don't really care, until Apple improves the duration one can go without a charge.

 

[Mad Mac Maniac]

This is actually one of the most important uses I have right now for the Garmin vivosmart HR+. Sleep app is very useful to me. But the Garmin (if you do not use th GPS, and I rarely do), will last 4 or 5 days on a charge. But the Apple watch alas still has to be charged almost daily, so I've held off on buying it. The Garmin is super ugly, but I don't really care, until Apple improves the duration one can go without a charge.

I just would like to note with you that the Apple Watch actually really works pretty well for this (and in a moment I’ll even argue that the worse battery life could be considered a positive against these longer lasting battery devices. I know, don’t get too antsy!)

So on my series 1, I’ve found I only require approx 60 minutes of daily charging, because it charges so quickly. So I generally split this up to about 30 minutes while getting ready for bed and again for about 30 minutes in the morning. Works really well for me. (Note: charging slows above 80% so I generally only charge up to 80. My watch almost always stays roughly in the 40-80% ballpark which is actually ideal for increasing battery longevity). Apparently series 2 and 3 have improved battery life, so it should require even less charging. So my point is it’s surprisingly do-able, and certainly not something I would worry too much about.

“But you said the worse battery life could be a positive! That’s nuts!” I agree it sounds weird, but follow me here. My gf has a Garmin Forerunner and only has to charge it every 5-7 days. What this results in is just forgetting to charge it altogether. Sure enough randomly every week there’s a “oh... my watch is dead” and then comes the search for the charger. Is it at my place or hers? Where did she put it exactly? And often it ends up staying drained for a few days as she just sets it aside and forgets about it. I’ve heard of similar stories from other people I know. The point is when it isn’t part of your daily routine you tend to forget about things and misplace things. If you just remember to charge your watch while getting ready for work/school in the morning you’ll never (or rarely) forget or misplace your charger. And I’ve found that the battery life is good enough that even if I forget to charge it once, there is enough battery left to get me to my next pre-determined charge time (like I said morning and night on a series 1)

 

[BlueMoon63]

Love AutoSleep and for the most part, I sleep the same so it doesn’t matter too much. However, I recently lost 15 pounds and it was nice to watch my heart rate while sleeping drop about 8bpm from before the weight loss to after the weight loss. That is one thing worth tracking.

 

[Pseudo-Fed]

Heartwatch if you don't mine manual start/stop. Or, Autosleep by the same developer. I like auto sleep--it's very accurate with starts and stops. It even catches my 30 min naps here and there in the middle of the day. If you want, you can analyze your auto sleep data in Heartwatch (same developer), which I prefer. Autosleep data in Heartwatch:

Untitled by Jeff H, on Flickr

Untitled by Jeff H, on Flickr

And here are some pics from Autosleep itself (different night of sleep):

Untitled by Jeff H, on Flickr

Untitled by Jeff H, on Flickr

Untitled by Jeff H, on Flickr

 

[edhchoe]

I use Pillow App. It works well.

 

[eagleglen]

I’ve tried several of the sleep tracking apps and have not found one that works to my satisfaction. They all seem overly flashy and don’t provide the basic information I’m looking for, or allow me to change the data when I know it’s incorrect. I’m hoping Apple introduces their own method beyond the Bedtime feature in the Alarm app, but this probably won’t occur until the battery is able to consistently last more than several days.

 

[honglong1976]

I’ve tried several of the sleep tracking apps and have not found one that works to my satisfaction. They all seem overly flashy and don’t provide the basic information I’m looking for, or allow me to change the data when I know it’s incorrect. I’m hoping Apple introduces their own method beyond the Bedtime feature in the Alarm app, but this probably won’t occur until the battery is able to consistently last more than several days.

Agreed! We need a better Apple solution! The bedtime app sucks!
[doublepost=1510910250][/doublepost]

This is actually one of the most important uses I have right now for the Garmin vivosmart HR+. Sleep app is very useful to me. But the Garmin (if you do not use th GPS, and I rarely do), will last 4 or 5 days on a charge. But the Apple watch alas still has to be charged almost daily, so I've held off on buying it. The Garmin is super ugly, but I don't really care, until Apple improves the duration one can go without a charge.

I have a series 0 and i can go two days and nights of sleep tracking before it needs charging.

 

[Nell]

But you said the worse battery life could be a positive! That’s nuts!” I agree it sounds weird, but follow me here. My gf has a Garmin Forerunner and only has to charge it every 5-7 days. What this results in is just forgetting to charge it altogether. Sure enough randomly every week there’s a “oh... my watch is dead” and then comes the search for the charger. Is it at my place or hers? Where did she put it exactly? And often it ends up staying drained for a few days as she just sets it aside and forgets about it. I’ve heard of similar stories from other people I know. The point is when it isn’t part of your daily routine you tend to forget about things and misplace things. If you just remember to charge your watch while getting ready for work/school in the morning you’ll never (or rarely) forget or misplace your charger. And I’ve found that the battery life is good enough that even if I forget to charge it once, there is enough battery left to get me to my next pre-determined charge time (like I said morning and night on a series 1)

I agree. I’ve had Fitbits for years and the battery life is a few days but not a week. The result is that I regularly don’t charge them in time. Daily is fine, weekly would probably be okay too; anything in between is trickier.

My AW3 can easily go two days on a charge but I tend to charge it overnight and use my old watch for sleep tracking so I don’t find myself forgetting. I only took my AW3 with me when I went away last week; putting it on charge while I showered and pottered about getting ready for bed was plenty.

 

[honglong1976]

I agree. I’ve had Fitbits for years and the battery life is a few days but not a week. The result is that I regularly don’t charge them in time. Daily is fine, weekly would probably be okay too; anything in between is trickier.

My AW3 can easily go two days on a charge but I tend to charge it overnight and use my old watch for sleep tracking so I don’t find myself forgetting. I only took my AW3 with me when I went away last week; putting it on charge while I showered and pottered about getting ready for bed was plenty.

The problem with Fitbit's is the battery indicator. I have had lots and they always last minimum of 4 days. I have the Charge 2 and finally, it shows the battery percentage so you know how much battery is left. I get 7 days plus. When it's on 10% I charge it up again.

 

[Nell]

I’ve had a few Fitbit Ones (they’re easy to lose) and they do last about 3-4 days between charges. I’ve also had three Charges and a Charge HR (I was given the first Charge and the rest were warranty replacements as there was a fairly serious design flaw so they only last a few months) and the battery life on all has been very random (1-4 days, battery warning only when it really needs to be on charge). As a result, ive never run out of charge on my Apple Watch but frequently have done with Fitbits.