Sleep Tracking with Apple Watch for Abnormal Sleep Patterns

[smirking]

Anyone here with a sleep disorder or who does shift work and uses an Apple Watch for sleep tracking? I'm interested in hearing how well it works for you.

I currently have a Fitbit Sense that doesn't have much life left. It's very good at sleep tracking and adapts well to my abnormal sleep patterns. There are some things I don't like about Fitbit watches so I've been looking at other options. Right now I'm trying out a Garmin Forerunner 265. It's a great fitness watch, but it's absolutely abysmal as a sleep tracker. I'm probably going to be returning it.

I'm also considering an Apple Watch. I'd most likely opt for an Ultra 2 because I want a watch that's suitable for sleep tracking first and foremost. The additional battery life of an Ultra will make it a better sleep tracker for me, but I'm not familiar with the user experience of Apple's sleep tracking. Does it pick up naps and sleep times well? Does it only work if you follow a strict schedule?

The biggest failing of the Garmin watches as sleep trackers is that you need to give it times for it to expect you to be asleep. If you fall asleep within the window you set for yourself, it'll pick up your sleep. If you don't, it frequently fails completely and won't even detect that you were asleep at all.

 

[Pixels7]

I had a Garmin up until yesterday. Now I have an Apple Watch 10 And I have health problems and sleep problems when my diseases flare up.

I had so many problems with my Garmin. It was constantly tracking naps, while I never nap. So I had to delete them before midnight and it was stressful. (Deleting after midnight is not possible) The moment i went to sit on my couch it would track a nap. So the falsely detected naps would mess up literally everything, from the sleep coach to the body battery to recovery scores etc. Every morning I got greeted in the sleep score with : “you slept so short because you napped too long and too late in the day.” Also when I manually deleted the naps before midnight.

Then the sleep tracking.. Yesterday I was up earlier than normal, because my new watch came ;-) So my sleep schedule was unchanged and I got up earlier than normal and literally every 5 minutes it started the sleep mode again.

And it didn’t track sleep at all in nights I was tossing and turning. Or when I had to use the bathroom a lot. Even with my sleep schedule set, it didn’t track sleep then.

Also I had a lot of evenings where I would be greeted by the morning report, while I was walking around doing the dishes or laundry, so I was very active and still the wat h thought I had slept. After a morning report in the evening, sleep tracking didn’t work at night.

Also when exercising, it got a cadence lock constantly. So the watch was useless for HR tracking during walks and runs.

It had so many bugs. My screen for example was way too sensitive, so my blanket, jacket etc all opened my watch settings and messed up everything constantly. Garmin knows about the bugs, their forum is filled with complaints. But they just don’t fix any of them.

It’s such a huge relieve with the Apple Watch on my wrist. And sleep tracking last night went well, while I was tossing and turning and I constantly had to go down the stairs to the bathroom.

My Garmin falsely tracked naps since the first day I had the watch. The Apple Watch didn’t track a nap yet. (I never nap, I’m just sitting on the couch at night and then I’m reading and my HR gets very low)

You can just enable the sleep focus on the Apple Watch and then it will track your sleep. I didn’t set a sleep schedule (only enabled sleep focus) it worked just fine on my first night. And I heard that since watchOS 11 it tracks naps as well. I even think that since watchOS 11 it tracks sleep automatically, but for the wrist temperature etc you need to enable sleep focus (correct me if I’m wrong please!).

So long story short, I would recommend an Apple Watch over a Garmin watch any day. Especially when sleep tracking is important to you.

Oh and my Apple Watch 10 has great battery life! But I only have the watch since yesterday morning you only have to charge it once a day for sleep tracking. And fast charging is only 30 minutes. I’ve read that charging the watch for 8 minutes is good for 8 hours sleep tracking, but I haven’t tried that yet.

 

[smirking]

I had a Garmin up until yesterday. Now I have an Apple Watch 10 And I have health problems and sleep problems when my diseases flare up.

Thanks for the detailed response! I know you haven't yet had the Apple Watch for a week at this point, but has the sleep tracking held up to your initial expectations? Also given that you're using it for sleep tracking and also everyday use, how's the battery life holding up?

I tried a few different things with my Garmin Forerunner 265 to determine if I wanted to keep giving it more chances and I think my answer now is a firm no. I wasn't following the sleep schedule because mine is abnormal, but I decided to humor it one week. I tediously set it up to match exactly when I expected to be asleep. It performed just as abysmally.

I really don't understand this Garmin device at all. I've slept like a log all night long for 8 hours during expected sleep hours and it still picked up nothing. Then at other times, I sleep fitfully for a few hours and it picks it up. Sometimes it's amazingly accurate at capturing short naps and then it'll miss longer ones.

For sleep tracking, this thing almost seems like it just randomly decides to work without any rhyme or reason.

Fortunately, I got my Garmin from REI so I have a very generous return window. I'll be returning it soon. I still have a Fitbit Sense that works great for sleep tracking so I'm not under any pressure to find something immediately. I'll likely give the Apple Watch a shot soon if Google doesn't release any improved Fitbit devices of interest.

 

[BigDO]

Sleep tracking works great on AW. I recommend Auto Sleep, but the native Health app is plenty good too.

 

[Pixels7]

Thanks for the detailed response! I know you haven't yet had the Apple Watch for a week at this point, but has the sleep tracking held up to your initial expectations? Also given that you're using it for sleep tracking and also everyday use, how's the battery life holding up?

I tried a few different things with my Garmin Forerunner 265 to determine if I wanted to keep giving it more chances and I think my answer now is a firm no. I don't follow the sleep schedule because mine is abnormal, but I humored it and went through the tedium of setting it up so that it would coincide with when I was sleeping. It performed just as abysmally.

I really don't get this Garmin device at all. I've slept like a log all night long for 8 hours during expected sleep hours and it still picked up nothing. Then at other times, I sleep fitfully for a few hours and it picks it up. Sometimes it's amazingly accurate at capturing short naps and then it'll miss longer ones.

For sleep tracking, this thing almost seems like it just randomly decides to work without any rhyme or reason.

Fortunately, I got my Garmin from REI so I have a very generous return window. I'll be returning it soon. I still have a Fitbit Sense that works great for sleep tracking so I'm not under any pressure to find something immediately. I'll likely give the Apple Watch a shot soon if Google doesn't release any improved Fitbit devices of interest.

Yes it is! For example last night I was awake for 2.5 hours and the Apple Watch recorded that awake time and I’ve slept 45 minutes after that and it tracked that as well! Sleep stages included. (I don’t know how accurate those are though)

As far as I can tell, it notices when I fall asleep and wake up very well. I’m very impressed! I do use the sleep focus though, so when I was awake for so long last night, but I did know I wanted to try to get more sleep, I’ve kept my watch in the sleep focus.

And my Garmin display constantly woke me up because the screen was too sensitive. Luckily the Apple Watch screen just stays dark, unless I press the Digital Crown.

I’m very happy with the battery life. I’m charging it once a day from 35-40% to 85-90%. I use a slow charger (an old usb a charger with a 5 watt adapter), so it takes an hour or so to charge it like I did the last days. If I would use the fast charging cable (the usb c one) and my 20 watt adapter that would be much faster. It gets hot then though, so that’s why I prefer the ‘slow’ charger when I’m not in a hurry.

I use it for sleep tracking and 1 - 2 work outs a day. I’m wearing it 22.5 hours or 23 hours a day 😄 I’m very happy with it! It’s a much better experience than I had with the Garmin watch.

 

[Pixels7]

Sleep tracking works great on AW. I recommend Auto Sleep, but the native Health app is plenty good too.

I use AutoSleep as well. But it isn’t tracking my awake times well and it is tracking sleep while I’m walking around in my house. So I hope it will work better after using the ‘calibrate’ feature a few times.

I find the app very complicated though. I do love HeartWatch (it’s from the same developer), but also, that app is very complicated.

I do use AutoSleep because there you can add tags to your nights. I missed that in the health app.

 

[azhava]

Anyone here with a sleep disorder or who does shift work and uses an Apple Watch for sleep tracking? I'm interested in hearing how well it works for you.

I currently have a Fitbit Sense that doesn't have much life left. It's very good at sleep tracking and adapts well to my abnormal sleep patterns. There are some things I don't like about Fitbit watches so I've been looking at other options. Right now I'm trying out a Garmin Forerunner 265. It's a great fitness watch, but it's absolutely abysmal as a sleep tracker. I'm probably going to be returning it.

I'm also considering an Apple Watch. I'd most likely opt for an Ultra 2 because I want a watch that's suitable for sleep tracking first and foremost. The additional battery life of an Ultra will make it a better sleep tracker for me, but I'm not familiar with the user experience of Apple's sleep tracking. Does it pick up naps and sleep times well? Does it only work if you follow a strict schedule?

The biggest failing of the Garmin watches as sleep trackers is that you need to give it times for it to expect you to be asleep. If you fall asleep within the window you set for yourself, it'll pick up your sleep. If you don't, it frequently fails completely and won't even detect that you were asleep at all.

I entered my "normal" sleep schedule in the Sleep settings, but my actual bedtime and wakeup times are pretty irregular. I turn on Sleep Focus when I go to bed, and the AW tracks my sleep very well. I have Sleep Focus set to turn off at 7:00 am, but if I sleep beyond that the watch will still track it. Also, my AW8 didn't do it, but the Ultra 2 also tracks my naps very accurately.

I owned 2 Garmins (FR935 and Fenix 6) and the sleep tracking on them was abysmal. It was so useless that I rarely even bothered looking at it. IMO the Apple Watch does a much better job of sleep tracking even without any third-party apps.

 

[smirking]

I entered my "normal" sleep schedule in the Sleep settings, but my actual bedtime and wakeup times are pretty irregular. I turn on Sleep Focus when I go to bed, and the AW tracks my sleep very well.

So are you saying that as long as you turn on sleep focus before going to bed, it doesn't really matter how far off your "normal" schedule you are? It performs reasonably?

I use AutoSleep as well.

Autosleep is an app that automatically detects sleep, right? I heard some mixed things about it. The things I was reading about it make it sound like it actually is an alternate sleep tracking tool on a parallel track and isn't an enhancer to the native sleep tracking in Apple Health? Is that accurate?

 

[azhava]

So are you saying that as long as you turn on sleep focus before going to bed, it doesn't really matter how far off your "normal" schedule you are? It performs reasonably?

It does for me, yes. I have my Sleep schedule set for 12:00M to 7:00 am; sometimes I go to bed at 10 pm, sometimes I go to bed at 2:30 am, and it's pretty rare that I sleep a full 7 hours. As long as I turn on the Sleep Focus when I go to bed, it tracks my sleep well. It shows me as awake when I get up to go to the bathroom or whatever, and tracks my sleep phases. I can't say how accurate the sleep phases are (REM, Core, Deep), but it shows them. If I wake up before 7:00 am, I manually turn off Sleep Focus on my phone when I get out of bed; if it's after 7:00 am when I get up, it will have already automatically turned itself off at 7:00 but continued to track my sleep anyways.

As an example, here's my sleep data from last night. I know for a fact that I went to bed and set my Sleep Focus at 11:55 pm, and my alarm went off at 5:30 am. I woke up a few minutes before my alarm and was just lying there in bed still half asleep when it went off. Sleep shows that I was asleep from 11:58 pm until 5:25 am. I'm not exactly sure what all the awake time around 3:00 am is - I got up to go to the bathroom, and I'm guessing maybe our cat came to snuggle me when I got back in bed (as he often does) and I spent a few minutes petting him, but I don't remember it.

Here's one from a few nights ago - I went to bed after 2:00 am, Sleep data says I slept from 2:13 am to 7:19 am. That starts well after my scheduled bedtime, and ends 19 minutes after the end of my scheduled wake time.

I'm sure the data isn't 100% accurate down to the minute and I can't vouch for the accuracy of the sleep phases, but it's within a few minutes, which is plenty close enough for me. I've been using the sleep tracking since I got my AW8 (2 years ago last week), and it's been my experience that the times are always pretty close.

Also, since I got the Ultra 2 and WatchOS 11, it now tracks naps also. It doesn't give the sleep phases, but just blocks across them all and shows that I was asleep from time x to time y. Here was yesterday, when I went to bed at 1:38 am, woke up at 7:05 am, and took a nap in the late afternoon:

 

[Pixels7]

Autosleep is an app that automatically detects sleep, right? I heard some mixed things about it. The things I was reading about it make it sound like it actually is an alternate sleep tracking tool on a parallel track and isn't an enhancer to the native sleep tracking in Apple Health? Is that accurate?

Yes I read people used it before Apple Watch tracked sleep. I was mostly interested in their other app, HeartWatch. So I bought the bundle, AutoSleep + HeartWatch, its a one time payment.

And since you can’t add notes to your sleep in the Apple health app, I was also interested in AutoSleep. There you can add notes, like “I slept bad due to noise from the bar” or “I was sick”.

It only took a few nights/days before it didn’t add sleep during the day. But now it didn’t happen for two days. Only the wake times are absolutely not correct with AutoSleep. Apple tracks wake times (all the times I woke up at night to go to the bathroom or just when I woke up from something) very well. AutoSleep doesnt notice the times I was walking down the stairs to go to the bathroom.

But in the AutoSleep app you can see the Apple Watch sleep stages too. You can toggle between AutoSleep sleep tracking and Apple Watch sleep stages. And you can overlay the sleep graph (either with Apple health sleep stages or with the AutoSleep data) with heart rate data and noise level data etc.