by Sleep tracking with Apple Watch is a great way to get new insights into your sleep patterns and trends over time. There are a number of different sleep tracking apps available for Apple Watch, including native options from Apple itself.
Read on as we round up the best sleep tracking apps for Apple Watch, comparing Apple’s proprietary solution with the competition.
Native Apple Watch sleep tracking
With the release of watchOS 7 in 2020, Apple Watch added official support for sleep tracking without the need for a third-party app.
We went ahead with the experience when it was released, explaining that Apple combines Apple Watch’s sleep-tracking capabilities with new iPhone features like Wind Down and Wake Up for a multi-tasking experience. devices transparent.
There’s a new Sleep app on the Apple Watch, as well as a Sleep mode that hides your usual watch face and instead shows the current time, along with the time your alarm is set. It also disables features like wake-up so your watch face won’t light up in the middle of the night.
To view sleep data tracked by your Apple Watch, you can go to the Sleep app on Apple Watch or the Health app on iPhone. The actual data here is limited. Apple just shows you your sleep time, along with a range for your heart rate. This is where third-party apps always come in handy. They can offer a lot more data than Apple’s native implementation, and you don’t have to wait until fall to get started.
What about battery life?
Before you start tracking your sleep with Apple Watch, you need to plan when you’ll charge your watch. There are two main options here: before bed or after you wake up in the morning. A key change for me was putting an extra Apple Watch charger on my desk instead of my nightstand.
For me, it’s much easier to recharge before bed every night. If I put my Apple Watch on the charger around 8 p.m., after I’ve already hit my stand goal for that day, it’s usually fully charged by the time I go to bed at 9:30 p.m. And when I wake up in the morning, I’m left with almost always over 90% battery – more than enough to get you through the day.
Plus, on days when I need a mid-day charge, having the extra Apple Watch charger on my desk makes that much easier.
It works perfectly for me, but your routine is probably different from mine. The key is to come up with a plan that you can replicate every day. Whether it’s charging in the morning or evening, or a combination of the two, changing your Apple Watch charging habits is much easier than you might think.
Of course, there’s also always the option of reusing an old Apple Watch as your dedicated “sleep watch”. 9to5Mac’s Zac Hall previously explained how to do this. You can also get a used or refurbished older Apple Watch model to do this.
Once you’ve established a charging routine for your Apple Watch, it’s time to choose a sleep tracking app. There are different options.
Auto Standby
AutoSleep is probably the most popular Apple Watch sleep tracking app on the App Store, and for good reason. It provides some of the most detailed data, including detailed insight into sleep, sleep quality, heart rate, deep sleep and more.
AutoSleep uses a ring system to help you monitor these key stats. The main interface shows you ringtones for sleep, sleep quality, deep sleep and bpm. All of this data comes at a cost, however, and AutoSleep’s interface can feel a bit overwhelming once you dive into all the available data. Still, recent changes to the app have made it much easier to see a breakdown of all that data.
AutoSleep also has a great Apple Watch app that makes it easy to get a quick overview of the current day’s sleep data. There’s also a “readiness” score that attempts to predict how ready you are for the day based on your sleep for that night.
Learn more about AutoSleep:
AutoSleep is available on the App Store for $4.99 as a one-time purchase.
Sleep++
Sleep++ is another popular sleep tracking app for Apple Watch with support for automatic sleep detection, bedtime reminders, sleep goals, and more. In the Sleep++ app, the main interface provides a detailed overview of your sleep habits over the past few days.
Like its competitors, Sleep++ also offers a lot of data on sleep trends, cycles, stages, and more. You can also see a detailed timeline of your sleep, including when you were rested, restless and awake, with a particularly neat look at when your “best sleep” occurred.
Sleep++ also recently added a helpful new “Readiness Score,” making it easy to know when you should relax and recharge for the next day.
One of the best things about Sleep++ is that it’s completely free, with an optional in-app purchase to remove ads. If you are looking for data-rich Apple Watch automatic sleep tracking, you download Sleep++ from the App Store.
Pillow
When I wrote about sleep apps for the Apple Watch nearly three years ago, Pillow was an option I didn’t know about at the time, but several 9to5Mac readers suggested I give it a try. With features like automatic sleep detection and heart rate analysis, Pillow fits right in with the rest of the market.
One of the main features of Pillow is its support for recording important audio events throughout the night. This means the app can track data such as snoring, sleep apnea and sleep talk, but the biggest caveat here is that noise detection only works in manual mode.
There’s also support for viewing detailed sleep trends over time, personalized recommendations, and more. You can try Pillow for free on the App Store with in-app purchases.
NapBot
NapBot is a relative newcomer to the Apple Watch sleep tracking fun, and it’s quickly becoming one of the most powerful options out there. NapBot uses machine learning to automatically track sleep, letting you see details about stages, trends, and more.
NapBot offers an impressive amount of data in an incredibly easy to navigate interface. The “Calendar” tab in the app lets you get a detailed overview of your daily sleep, and you can choose a specific day to see more detailed information about heart rate and stages.
NapBot has also just launched its first completely independent Apple Watch application from the iPhone. It currently only lets you see sleep from the previous day, but hopefully it will add more features and historical data over time.
NapBot is the newest Apple Watch sleep tracking app, but it’s also quickly becoming my go-to. You can download it for free from the App Store with in-app purchases.
Sleep Watch
SleepWatch is one of the most popular sleep tracking apps on iPhone and Apple Watch. It has over 300,000 ratings on the App Store with an average of over 4.5 stars. The app offers a number of powerful data collection features, including:
- Total sleep time
- Sleep rhythm
- Decrease in HR
- HRV sleep
- 2-day sleep goal
- Restorative sleep
- Sleep disturbance
- Sleep Blood Oxygen
SleepWatch is available on the App Store as a free download with an in-app subscription of $4.99 per month to unlock all features.
sleep cycle
Finally, we have Sleep Cycle which offers apps for iPhone and Apple Watch. Sleep Cycle stands out with a number of unique features, such as Philips Hue integration, smart alarm clock, unique data and trends, and more.
- Sleep analysis with patented Sleep Cycle sound technology or accelerometer
- Repeat by shaking or lightly double tapping the phone
- Customizable wake-up window. Instant (regular alarm clock), up to 45 minutes
- Sounds and Patterns Recorder – Capture snoring, sleep conversations and other sounds and view your patterns
- Trends – gather long-term trends in your sleep habits
- Comparison Data – Compare your sleep patterns to global sleep statistics
- Weather and sleep – Find out how different types of weather affect the quality of your sleep
- Sleep Ratings – Find out how events like drinking coffee, stress, exercising or eating late affect your sleep quality
- Philips HUE bulb support – Simulate a natural sunrise to give you an even sweeter wake up call
Sleep Cycle is available on the App Store as a free download with in-app purchases to unlock the full set of premium features.
Which should you choose?
Despite all the new entrants into the Apple Watch sleep tracking industry, I still find AutoSleep to be the most powerful option. AutoSleep offers you a lot of data, and you can choose to read too much of it.
Additionally, I associate AutoSleep data with features introduced with watchOS 7 and iOS 14. You can still use features like Wind Down and Sleep Mode, and track data using third-party sources like AutoSleep.
The key, whichever app you choose, is to make sure there is some kind of automatic sleep detection feature. This reduces friction and means you don’t have to remember to manually start a sleep tracking session every night before bed. Instead, your Apple Watch can track your sleep in the background, without any interaction from you.
These apps also integrate with Apple’s Health app, which means you can get an overview of your sleep data along with everything else in the Health app. The Health app is useful for tracking long-term trends and averages, but if you want detailed data, you’ll need to switch to your third-party app of choice.
Of course, there are also rumors that the Apple Watch Series 8 will bring even more advanced sleep tracking capabilities with improved hardware. We’ll have to see what exactly this means and if any third-party apps can use this information.
Do you track your sleep with Apple Watch? Which app do you prefer? Let us know in the comments!
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