These are the best applications for sleep tracking with Apple Watch

Using Apple Watch to track your sleep is a terrific method to learn more about your sleeping patterns and trends over time. In reality, Apple initially introduced the native sleep-tracking capability to the Apple Watch with the introduction of watchOS 7 two years ago. Continue reading as we review the top Apple Watch sleep-tracking apps and contrast them with third-party alternatives.

AutoSleep

While there are many good apps available, like NapBot(opens in a new tab) (free, but with Pro features that require a subscription) and Sleep++(opens in a new tab) (which is free), we’d recommend an app called AutoSleep(opens in new tab) as our favorite. We’ve tried a whole bunch of third-party sleep trackers for Apple Watch and iPhone that promise to go further than Apple’s Health app sleep tracking. One of the few sleep monitors that come with an Apple Watch companion app allows you to view your sleep quality without having to glance at your phone.

It also employs a straightforward ring-based scoring system, very similar to Apple’s Move, Exercise, and Stand rings, along with a well-known color scheme of green, amber, and red. Green is better, amber is better, and red is horrible. To be honest, we still believed Apple’s Health app did the best job of properly predicting how long we had been sleeping. However, we did think it did a better job of doing so than the other applications.

Even while AutoSleep costs $4.99 on the App Store, it isn’t prohibitively expensive for a one-time purchase. And unlike many other sleep monitoring applications, you won’t need to worry about a monthly membership or any in-app purchases after making your initial purchase.

It is truly mind-boggling how many statistics AutoSleep can generate from a single night of sleep, and touching on any of them appears to expose even more layers of information. The information presented here will provide you with compelling evidence of what’s happening, which you may use to take to a doctor for a diagnostic, if you wish to determine whether you have any medical issues, such as, say, sleep apnea. However, there are also straightforward graphs that allow you to see at a glance how well you’re sleeping. In particular, we liked the Sleep Fuel Rating, which functions similarly to a car’s gas gauge by letting you know whether the quality of the sleep you’re getting is good enough to “fuel” your tank.

The companion app that is pre-installed on your Apple Watch is the best. This means that when you wake up in the morning, all you have to do is take a quick look at your wrist to get crucial information about how well you just slept. Your rings display your average heart rate, REM and Deep Sleep periods, and AutoSleep’s finest function, the Sleep Bank. You may check if you are getting the necessary amount of sleep here. The quantity of sleep you’re losing over the course of a week might be startling, which may cause you to reconsider your sleep habits and make a change for the better in your lifestyle. However, there are other ways that your Apple Watch and iPhone might help you get a better night’s sleep. Let’s examine a couple more apps that don’t only monitor your sleep.

What about battery life?

Make a schedule for when you’ll charge your Apple Watch before you start using it to track your sleep. Before going to bed or just as you get up in the morning are your two main possibilities. I’ve made several significant changes, like charging my Apple Watch a second time at my work rather than at my bedside.

For me, charging every night before bed is considerably simpler. Most mornings, I get up and work out first, so I need to make sure my Apple Watch has enough juice to log my workouts. My Apple Watch generally has a full charge by the time I go to bed at 9:30 p.m. if I put it on the charger around 8 p.m. after I’ve already accomplished my stand goal for the day. And I nearly always have more than 90% battery life remaining when I get up in the morning, which is more than enough to see me through the day.

Additionally, having a second Apple Watch charger on my desk makes it much simpler for me to recharge during the day when I need to.

While your schedule undoubtedly differs from mine, this works great for me. The secret is to create a strategy you can follow every day. It’s much simpler than you would imagine altering your Apple Watch charging habits, whether that means charging in the morning, at night, or a combination of the two.

Of course, you could also use an old Apple Watch as your sole “sleep watch” if you prefer. Zac Hall of 9to5Mac already detailed how to accomplish that. To achieve this, you might potentially purchase a pre-owned or reconditioned earlier Apple Watch model.

Choose a sleep monitoring app once you’ve created a charging schedule for your Apple Watch. There are several alternatives.

What do I use?

Despite the several new players in the Apple Watch sleep tracking market, AutoSleep continues to be the most effective choice in my opinion. You have a lot of information at your disposal with AutoSleep, and you may decide whether to take it too seriously.

Additionally, I combine the AutoSleep data with the iOS 14 and watchOS 7 features. You can still track data using external sources like AutoSleep and utilize features like Wind Down and Sleep Mode.

For me, NapBot is rapidly closing the gap and growing better with each new version. For instance, NapBot and AutoSleep both include home screen widgets and Apple Watch complications, which are not available with Apple’s Health information.

The important thing is to make sure there is some form of automated sleep detection mechanism, regardless of the program you use. By eliminating the need to manually start a sleep-tracking session every night before bed, friction is decreased. Instead, without your involvement, your Apple Watch can monitor your sleep in the background.

Additionally, because of its integration with Apple’s Health app, you can get a summary of your sleep information alongside everything else in the Health app. The Health app helps monitor long-term trends and averages, but you’ll need to switch to your preferred third-party app if you want comprehensive information.

Of course, there are also claims that the Apple Watch Series 8 will have upgraded hardware and even more sophisticated sleep monitoring features. It will be interesting to see what it implies and whether or if third-party apps can make use of such data.

Do you use Apple Watch to monitor your sleep? What app do you like best? Tell us in the comments section!