Is the Apple Watch good at sleep tracking?

[honglong1976]

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.

The Charge and Charge HR, same as the Surge were utter garbage. Bubbling bands, poor quality. Just bad! I mean, really bad! The Alta, Charge 2 are very high quality and built well. Same for the Flex 2, well designed, well made. So, they have improved a lot.

For sleep tracking though, honest, if you have an Apple Watch buy a Xiaomi miband. £5 now and it syncs to health. Super light, HR sensor, 30 days+ battery life. Feels like an apple product and is better than all the apple watch apps.

https://www.gearbest.com/smart-wristband/pp_263275.html

 

[ayobonus]

I use Pillow for sleep tracking. It's been great so far, and I bought the "full" version via in-app purchase. I don't mind having to manually start/stop it. I prefer it, actually.

I've debated on trying Auto Sleep, as many people swear by it. Anyone have both Pillow and Auto Sleep?

 

[Mad Mac Maniac]

I use Pillow for sleep tracking. It's been great so far, and I bought the "full" version via in-app purchase. I don't mind having to manually start/stop it. I prefer it, actually.

I've debated on trying Auto Sleep, as many people swear by it. Anyone have both Pillow and Auto Sleep?

I’ve never tried pillow, but just a note on AutoSleep. It has a “Lights off” button (can be activated via iPhone widget or watch app) which initiates a sleep. But instead of immediately starting a sleep (cause really who falls asleep the instant they lay down) it puts it in “in bed” mode and then calculates how long it takes you to fall asleep. Also I have mine set to know you’re awake when your iPhone moves, and grabbing my iPhone is usually something I do even if I stay in bed a little longer. Additionally you can adjust in the AutoSleep app if it incorrectly thinks you were asleep or not.

 

[ayobonus]

I’ve never tried pillow, but just a note on AutoSleep. It has a “Lights off” button (can be activated via iPhone widget or watch app) which initiates a sleep. But instead of immediately starting a sleep (cause really who falls asleep the instant they lay down) it puts it in “in bed” mode and then calculates how long it takes you to fall asleep. Also I have mine set to know you’re awake when your iPhone moves, and grabbing my iPhone is usually something I do even if I stay in bed a little longer. Additionally you can adjust in the AutoSleep app if it incorrectly thinks you were asleep or not.

Interesting. Pillow does the same thing. Once you initiate "Sleep" it brings you to a screen on your watch that just shows you the time you've been in bed. Once you wake up, you stop it, and it sends the data to your phone. Once on your phone, it will show you how long you were in bed, how long it took you to fall asleep, REM, deep sleep, light sleep, and awake. It also has the ability to do audio recordings to hear snoring patterns, etc. I'm intrigued by Auto Sleep, but unsure if I want to spend the extra few dollars since I already bought Pillow.

 

[Mad Mac Maniac]

Interesting. Pillow does the same thing. Once you initiate "Sleep" it brings you to a screen on your watch that just shows you the time you've been in bed. Once you wake up, you stop it, and it sends the data to your phone. Once on your phone, it will show you how long you were in bed, how long it took you to fall asleep, REM, deep sleep, light sleep, and awake. It also has the ability to do audio recordings to hear snoring patterns, etc. I'm intrigued by Auto Sleep, but unsure if I want to spend the extra few dollars since I already bought Pillow.

Yeah that's always a tough call, especially since you seem to be satisfied with Pillow. For me it was a no-brainer cause I already owned and loved HeartWatch (made by the same dev).

Heads up that AutoSleep doesn't (currently) provide REM or audio recordings. It gives you overall "sleep quality" and how much of it was deep sleep. I know the dev is working on an update for it right now, but I'm not really sure if there will be any new features (based on an image on twitter looks like it's mostly consolidating/simplifying screens).

Also, I stopped using the "lights off" feature a while ago. I find the app is really accurate without it, I usually fall asleep pretty quickly, and it's just one less thing to have to think about. Just go to bed and wake up.

 

[Nhott]

I've debated on trying Auto Sleep, as many people swear by it. Anyone have both Pillow and Auto Sleep?

I use both. Pillow has been very accurate for me and I like having the smart alarm features and sound recording. There are times that I don’t start it (weekends mostly) or times where I turn my alarm off and go back to sleep. Currently there’s no auto-sleep detection built in so Auto Sleep picks up the slack.

Auto Sleep is also very accurate with its wizardry but there are times that I’m in bed, can’t fall asleep right away and Auto Sleep thinks I am asleep. The lack of audio recording and smart alarm is a real bummer.

I’m not particularly found of either apps UI design. I really prefer Sleep Cycles UI, Philips Hue support, snore detection, and trends but that app doesn’t support Apple Watch. I’m sure I’m not alone in saying that I wish there were a perfect sleep tracking app. I believe that combining features from the three I listed above would hit the mark or come really close but for now I’ll keep on using the combination of Pillow and Auto Sleep.

 

[sean000]

I use the Pillow app and it’s fantastic!

 

[verdejt]

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.

Theater mode will keep the watch “quiet” while you sleep.

 

[Freakonomics101]

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

Which one do you recommend more? I've been trying to find a good sleep app that doesn't require to be enabled manually. Can't decide between the two you recommended.

 

[sean000]

I use Pillow for sleep tracking. It's been great so far, and I bought the "full" version via in-app purchase. I don't mind having to manually start/stop it. I prefer it, actually.

I've debated on trying Auto Sleep, as many people swear by it. Anyone have both Pillow and Auto Sleep?

I actually prefer the manual start stop as well, because it is important to me to track how many times I get out of bed each night to go to the bathroom, let the dog out, or to check on a crying child. I tried others. I think AutoSleep and Sleep++ perhaps? It has been more than a year. At the time the apps I tried before Pillow could not track when I got out of bed. They would either end the sleep session or they wouldn’t show I had gotten out of bed when I knew that I had. Pillow tracks that flawlessly, and I never have a hard time remembering to start a sleep session. It’s just part of my bedtime and wake up routine. I also like that in the morning I can rate how I feel and select notes so I can track things that interefere with my sleep.... like my bad rotator cuff, heartburn, sinus pain, etc.

I used to track sleep with a Fitbit and the Pillow app reminds me of its sleep tracking a little. I don’t use the audio recording, but I like that Pillow shows me heart rate metrics along with the sleep metrics. The only issues I ever have with Pillow are that it sometimes doesn’t sync to the iPhone unless I restart the app on the watch, phone, or both. That doesn’t happen often though. I’ve been using it for probably a year and a half and it has been very useful. I have been successful at improving the duration and quality of my sleep, but I still need to start the bedtime routine earlier.

Sean

 

[BlueMoon63]

I use to swear by Pillow but it wasn’t very accurate and I didn’t like having to remember to start/stop. AutoSleep has been spot on and requires no thinking or remembering to start or stop. I took a 30 minute nap and it had me sleeping 25 minutes.

To me, there is no comparison between AutoSleep and any other, but pillow would have been the second best. I’ve tried 5 or 6 over the past few years.

 

[X5-452]

Do any of these sleep apps for your watch measure your level of sleep in order to be able to set a more natural alarm clock to wake you up? IE rather than setting an alarm at 7 AM have the app wake you up at 6:47 AM because it recognizes you are not in a deeper sleep cycle at that point?

 

[honglong1976]

Which one do you recommend more? I've been trying to find a good sleep app that doesn't require to be enabled manually. Can't decide between the two you recommended.

For £5 I would by a Miband by Xiaomi. High quality. Over 40 days battery life. Top three sellers of wearables are Apple, Xiaomi and Fitbit. It's super light, has a good vibration and syncs sleep the the apple health (awake, sleep, etc). Does a better job than any of the apps, and nearly costs the price of an app.

 

[ayobonus]

So Friday night, I decided to just download AutoSleep because my curiosity of the app wouldn't stop unless I give it a try. AutoSleep works fine so far - it's nice that you don't have to manually start/stop a sleeping session (but I never really cared for this feature, but it's nice to have it). And it's also nice that it'll catch a nap throughout the day.

The UI is 'meh' to me. I like the idea of the rings, the way Apple does it for Activity. But in my opinion, the app doesn't have a very good UI/UX feel to it. I just see a bunch of rings, and I'm not sure what I can tap on, and what I can't tap on. As far as sleep accuracy goes, I think it's pretty accurate. Pillow has light sleep, deep sleep, and REM tracking, while AutoSleep seems to only have deep sleep and awake.

I like Pillow's "Snooze Lab" section where it gives you tips and suggestions based on your sleeping habits and sleep quality. AutoSleep doesn't seem to have anything like that. I think I still need to use AutoSleep for a few more nights. Right now I'm still up in the air between Pillow and AutoSleep.

One last thing I do want to mention is the app HeartWatch which is linkable to AutoSleep. I was reading the reviews on the AppStore, and many people were saying how HeartWatch is amazing and it's even better when used with AutoSleep (and vice versa). So I decided to download HeartWatch last night. It has a lot of useful information regarding heart rate. It definitely dives much deeper than Apple's Heart Rate app. Again, I haven't had much time to play with it, but HeartWatch is looking very promising, and something that I will use a lot moving forward. Because of this, I'm kind of leaning towards AutoSleep as my sleep app.

 

[newellj]

Yeah that's always a tough call, especially since you seem to be satisfied with Pillow. For me it was a no-brainer cause I already owned and loved HeartWatch (made by the same dev).

Heads up that AutoSleep doesn't (currently) provide REM or audio recordings. It gives you overall "sleep quality" and how much of it was deep sleep. I know the dev is working on an update for it right now, but I'm not really sure if there will be any new features (based on an image on twitter looks like it's mostly consolidating/simplifying screens).

Also, I stopped using the "lights off" feature a while ago. I find the app is really accurate without it, I usually fall asleep pretty quickly, and it's just one less thing to have to think about. Just go to bed and wake up.

I agree with your experience in your posts in this thread. I've been very satisfied with AutoSleep and HeartWatch, which I think are about as good as the hardware permits.

I did use Beddit for a while. THB, though, the data it gave me wasn't really any more useful than what I get from the Watch.