You don’t have to be a scientist to know that a good night’s sleep is conducive to your overall wellbeing and health. On that note, a while ago we have screened the App Store for the best sleep trackers available on iPhone and Apple Watch so as to make it easy for you to pick and choose your new sleep companion.
While varying in looks and features, all of the apps listed serve the same purpose: record how you slept and explain possible discrepancies in perceived quality of sleep and your actual rest. With the hands-off roundup in mind, we decided to select the most requested and popular app featured – AutoSleep – and throw a complementary hands-on tutorial on sleep tracking into the mix. Want to learn more about how to track your sleep using your iPhone, Apple Watch, and theAutoSleep app? Then join us for the tour!
How to track your sleep on iPhone & Apple Watch with AutoSleep
As the name implies, AutoSleep operates entirely automatically in the background and, with the exception of a few settings you’ll want to revise once, does not require any care to get great results. So after grabbing the app on the App Store, these are the first steps you’ll want to take insideAutoSleep.
1) Launch AutoSleep.
2) If the AutoSleep Wizard does not open by itself on first launch, find the tab labelled Wizard in the bottom right corner and activate it.
3) Flick the switches to best describe your iPhone and Apple Watch situation. As we will discuss at a later point, you do not need to sleep wearing your watch, however it will of course make for the best results. Conversely, iPhone only measurements will work as well, though not as elaborate.
4) Confirm and set your night hour. The time set here will play a role in all visualizations and analytics as soon as you clock some nights.
5) Next, set your quiet time. The concept of quiet time works hand in hand with another feature called Lights Offon Apple Watch, which we’ll sideline for a bit. Basically, if you have a sturdy habit of reading in bed before switching the lights off, this will ensure AutoSleep does not even think about falsely recording it as sleepy times. That said, the app is usually perceptive enough to notice what’s what regardless, and there is also the alluded to Lights Off knack to prevent that scenario.
6) Following the quiet time slide, choose whether or not (and when) you want to be notified the next day about your sleep endeavors. Hit Ok.
7) Two more steps to go: on all accounts, activate the option registering iPhone movements as a sign of you waking. Unless your iPhone does not lie on a bedside table that is, select no if you tend to fall asleep with your iPhone in bed.
8) Finally, give AutoSleep an estimate on what you believe is your required hours of sleep each night. There’s a raft of studies on the topic but chances are you know yourself best. Done? Hit OK and we’re ready to go!
9) Go to bed and unwind. This is happening. It’s an actual step in ourtutorial.
10) Depending on whether or not you have fed AutoSleep with quiet time settings, you can double down on it or make sure to prevent misinterpretations (mistaking quiet time for sleep) by opening AutoSleep on your Apple Watch and activating Lights Off once you’re done reading or watching TV. That way, AutoSleep will retroactively wipe measurements if any have already occurred up until then. Note that this is not likely though and it is not a must to flick the switch every night. Detection is automatic and normally very accurate.
11) Throughout any night from here on, AutoSleep is going to draw data from the next best source or make inferences about your sleep quality from the devices available. In other words, if you wear your watch that’s perfect. If you decide to take it off at night, a combination of device charging times and iPhone movement will add up to guesstimate your nightly average.
One way or another, AutoSleep will plug away in the background and do its best to yield results you can rely on. For optimal results (including heart rate monitoring), do attempt to charge your watch before you go to bed and swiftly strap it on at night.
After your first night of using AutoSleep, you can always return to the AutoSleep Wizard tab to adjust the settings we ran through above, and more importantly to learn about how much information AutoSleep gets to glean from the watch’s sensors.
Visual breakdown and data
In regard to reading your archived data, with AutoSleep it can be hard to see the forest for all the trees. There’s just so much going on that is naturally going to take time browsing and getting a knack of all the analytics. Don’t worry though, you’ll get there. Start your observations at the bottom left Clock tab for an intuitive summary of your previous night. The Quality tab gets down to the details of it, disassembles the sleep into deep sleep, restlessness, heart rate progression et cetera. YourDay view entails incredibly detailed data on minute to minute movements, deep sleep phases, low heart rate spells and more.
If you fancy weekly or monthly comparisons, locate the calendar icon in the top left corner of AutoSleep (adjacent to the weekdays). You can delveinto that tab for a timeline view of various data points including sleep quality, sleep time, bedtime, deep sleep and heart rate comparisons.
How to finetune your data
If you’re dissatisfied with aspects of the measurements rolling in, there are copious options to tweak them. Three to be precise.
1 – Changing the sensitivity level for sleep detection
Say you feel like AutoSleep in actuality robs you of some well earned sleep, simply because you’re prone to moving or twitching a lot when asleep. It could be to a degree where your sensors infer you have awoken, even though you haven’t. Conversely, if you don’t move notably but stare at the ceiling wide awake, you might want to consider turning up the sensitivity lever. To do so, open the Tweak tab in the bottom row of icons and slide the lever to the right to gain minutes asleep, to the left to decrease the stats.
2 – Change your profile for tailored sleep quality analysis
Your Quality tab predicates its analysis on the assumption that you’re the Normal kind of person. That is to say, scroll to the bottom of the view to find three profile choices comprising Athlete, Normal and High. If you agree with the appraisal it’s all good, however if you’re either pretty athletic (and have a dormant heart rate as a result) or find yourself on the opposite end of the scale, lock it in. This will affect your entire sleep quality analysis.
3 – Manually add or delete sleep minutes
Last of all, AutoSleep gives you the freedom to painstakingly add or remove blocks of sleep to and from any given night. Pop into the Day view and pick a day to dissect. If by way of example the app has noted a break between two purple blocks indicating sleep, but you’re convinced that you slept through it, tap the purple box reading Edit and mark the area unaccounted for yellow. Subsequently touch done and you have successfully added sleep to your bank. The same process functions vice versa for detracting sleep minutes.
Parting notes
If you came here thinking ‘what’s to learn about going to sleep with my watch on?’ you were partly right, yetdue to nature of AutoSleep it’s next to impossible to keep itshort and sweet. After digging through this tutorial, you should have learnt all there is to know about AutoSleep and sleep tracking. The ball is in your court now – if you want to give it a go, check outAutoSleep onthe App Storeat $2.99, or revert to our iDBsleep tracker roundupto find an alternative you see fit!
FAQs
How to track your sleep using AutoSleep? ›
If you wear your Apple Watch to bed*, AutoSleep will also analyse your sleep. You can see when you were in lighter or deeper sleep, what your heart rate was doing and how much time you were awake/in disrupted sleep. *Note. If you do not wear your Watch to bed, AutoSleep simply captures the amount of time sleeping.
How do I track sleep on AutoSleep? ›Open The Clock Tab
See your sleep duration, deep sleep, quality sleep and average heart rate for your sleep. The colours of the rings all relate to your goals (more on sleep goals below). Tap on any of the sleep rings and start to monitor your trends.
AutoSleep will track your sleep & quality and send you a notification in the morning. Even if you don't wear your Watch to bed, AutoSleep can track your time in bed. It's extremely simple. If you DON'T wear your Watch to bed, then simply take your Watch off before you go to sleep.
Is Apple Watch AutoSleep any good? ›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 in-depth data, including a detailed look at sleep, sleep quality, heart rate, deep sleep, and much more. AutoSleep uses a system of rings to help you monitor those key statistics.
How does AutoSleep know I'm in deep sleep? ›Deep Sleep – According to AutoSleep, if your heart rate is at least 10% lower than your average heart rate during the day time, it indicates you are in a deep sleep.
Does AutoSleep track REM sleep? ›As Sleep Stages uses slightly different classification names, AutoSleep will instantly adjust automatically with the following: REM sleep stage and Deep stage will be added if Sleep Stages is enabled (see above image)
Why is my AutoSleep app not tracking? ›Either you have not been wearing your Apple Watch, or there is a problem with health data not being sent from your Watch to your iPhone, or AutoSleep does not have permission to read your health data. If you genuinely haven't been wearing the Watch, just put the Watch on making sure that you have entered your passcode.
Can iPhone automatically track sleep? ›Based on your iPhone usage at night, Sleep on iPhone tracks and charts your Time In Bed. To receive sleep data from Apple Watch, sleep tracking must be enabled for at least 4 hours each night. To view your sleep history, open the Health app on your iPhone, tap Browse at bottom of the screen, then tap Sleep.
Does sleep tracking start automatically? ›Tracks sleep automatically, without the need to manually start it. On smartphones, sleep tracking was traditionally a process initiated by a button tap, or by a hard timed trigger. Sleep as Android is different.
Is AutoSleep or Apple sleep more accurate? ›Apple is more focused on preparing your bedtime schedule, whereas AutoSleep is more focused on accurately measuring your sleep metrics and trends. The good news is that together you can create the best of both worlds, using AutoSleep for accurate sleep metrics and the Apple Sleep app to assist you preparing for sleep.
Can Apple Watch really detect REM sleep? ›
Wear your watch to bed, and Apple Watch can estimate the time you spent in each sleep stage—REM, Core, and Deep—as well as when you might have woken up.
Does AutoSleep wake you up? ›Light Sleep - If you enable this option, if AutoSleep detects you are in a lighter sleep phase according to your AutoSleep calibration settings, then it will wake you up early. Medium Sleep - If you enable this option, if AutoSleep detects you are not in a deep sleep phase then it will wake you up early.
Can Apple Watch detect sleep apnea? ›Can an Apple Watch Detect Sleep Apnea? Like Fitbit and other wearables, the Apple Watch can detect certain parameters like heart rate and blood oxygen saturation that may indicate sleep apnea, but it cannot comprehensively detect or diagnose sleep apnea.
What is REM sleep in AutoSleep app? ›Unlock the secrets of a good night's sleep with Rem, the smart autosleep tracker. With its advanced AI-Machine Learning technology, Rem provides an in-depth analysis of your sleep patterns and helps you understand the impact of your habits and routines on your sleep quality.
How many hours of deep sleep do I get? ›How much deep sleep should you get? In healthy adults, about 70% of sleep is deep sleep and around 25% of your sleeping time is your deepest sleep. So, if you sleep for 7–8 hours, the time spent in your deepest sleep should be around 105–120 minutes or one and three quarters to 2 hours.
Does AutoSleep track respiratory rate? ›From the Today or Clock tab, tap on the Sleep Session to drill into the Sleep Session details, showing a graph and reports including sleep analysis, sleep stages, sleep efficiency, health report, SpO2, respiratory rate and environmental noise reports.
Which is best REM or deep sleep? ›While all types of sleep appear to be essential, deep wave sleep could be considered the most essential. If your sleep is restless and non-restorative, you may lack sufficient deep sleep. REM sleep assists memory differently than deep sleep, focusing on social-emotional memories and even salvaging forgotten memories.
How accurate is Apple's sleep tracker? ›Deep sleep and REM are defined by certain types of brainwaves and physiological states and these devices can estimate these states with about 80% accuracy.
Should I use AutoSleep for naps? ›AutoSleep is the best. I'll take a nap but first set a 30 minute timer and AutoSleep will usually record like the 25 minutes of actual nap time I get.
How do sleep tracker apps know when you fall asleep? ›Accelerometers. Most sleep trackers measure sleep quantity and quality by using accelerometers, small motion detectors. Accelerometers measure how much movement you're making while you sleep. This data is then analyzed using an algorithm to estimate sleep time and quality.
Why does my sleep tracker say I was awake? ›
If you reset your device and it “seems to be ok” it perhaps because your not in fact getting a detailed sleep analysis because it takes a few nights sleep to record more accurate data. So it's normal to be “awake” even while your asleep.
How many hours of REM sleep do you need? ›For healthy adults, spending 20-25% of your time asleep in the REM stage is a good goal. If you get 7-8 hours of sleep, around 90 minutes of that should be REM.
What app on the iPhone tracks your sleep? ›SLEEP TRACKER is your free personal sleep cycles monitor, snore recorder, and sleep sounds provider. With it, you can find whatever you wish to know about your sleep patterns, check out your snoring and dream talks, and customize the smart alarm to relieve sleep issues and aid your sleep.
Do you need to be in sleep mode to track sleep? ›-You will need to activate the Sleep mode, or enable automatic sleep schedule to track your sleep.
Why didn't my Apple Watch record my sleep? ›If your watch battery dies, it won't track your sleep data. Make sure that you're wearing your Apple Watch at a comfortable fit. If your watch is too loose, the accelerometer might register too much movement during your natural sleep.
How much deep sleep do you need by age? ›If you're under age 30, you may get two hours of deep sleep each night. If you're over age 65, on the other hand, you may only get a half hour of deep sleep each night, or none at all. There's no specific requirement for deep sleep, but younger people may need more because it promotes growth and development.
Does AutoSleep drain battery? ›Yes it does. Both AutoSleep and HeartWatch needs Background App Refresh to be enabled, and I consistently see both apps in my Battery stats eating away 1-2% of battery in the background in a 24-hour timeframe.
What is an alternative to AutoSleep? ›The best alternatives to AutoSleep are Rise Science, UA HealthBox™, and Up by Jawbone. If these 3 options don't work for you, we've listed a few more alternatives below. What do you think of AutoSleep? Rise helps you overcome sleep challenges, sleep more, feel better, and be more productive.
How do I get accurate sleep analysis on my iPhone? ›Sleep data in the Health app provides insight into your sleep habits. To obtain sleep data, you can use a sleep tracker or monitor, set up a sleep schedule and let iPhone estimate your time in bed, or open the Sleep category, then tap Add Data to manually add the data. Tap Browse at the bottom right, then tap Sleep.
Which sleep stage is most important? ›“Many people wake up tired, even with adequate amounts of sleep. This is likely due to insufficient amounts of deep and REM sleep” shares Dr. Ghacibeh. “So while all stages of sleep are essential to overall well-being, deep sleep is considered the most important stage.”
Is it safe to wear Apple Watch 24 7? ›
Simply put, it's not unhealthy to wear your Apple Watch for a long period of time. Smart Watches are really great to have and use. Realistically, at some point you will have to take the watch off to charge it so count that as your wrist break 🙂. The biggest concern, however, is maintenance.
What does a healthy sleep cycle look like? ›An average sleep cycle lasts about 90 minutes. Ideally, you need four to six cycles of sleep every 24 hours to feel fresh and rested. Each cycle contains four individual stages: three that form non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep and one rapid eye movement (REM) sleep.
What Apple Watch app detects sleep apnea? ›NapBot is one of the best sleep apps for Apple Watch in 2022 because it can detect apnea via the respiratory rate measurement on your watch, which is enabled whenever the sleep focus mode is on.
Does waking up naturally mean you got enough sleep? ›When your body is well rested and you wake up on your own, it's a totally different feeling. If you wake up on your own before your alarm clock, and don't feel terrible, it's likely that you actually got enough sleep the night before.
Why is Apple Watch not tracking sleep? ›If your watch battery dies, it won't track your sleep data. Make sure that you're wearing your Apple Watch at a comfortable fit. If your watch is too loose, the accelerometer might register too much movement during your natural sleep.
Does Apple track sleep automatically? ›Sleep Tracking With AutoSleep
You're then able to adjust your sleep schedule and other factors. The AutoSleep app on your watch will start monitoring your sleep when you lie down at the specified time. You can set a smart alarm to wake you the next morning and manually tell the app that you're going to sleep.
Wear your Fitbit device to bed, and sync it in the morning. In the Fitbit app, tap the Today tab , then tap the sleep tile. See your score on the sleep log.
Why is iPhone not tracking sleep? ›Step 1: Open the Health app on your iPhone and scroll down and select Sleep. Step 2: Tap on 'Full Schedule and Options'. Step 3: Scroll down and turn the toggle bar off for 'Track Time in Bed With iPhone'. Step 4: Scroll down some more and select 'Manage Sleep in the Apple Watch App'.
How do I track my REM sleep with Apple Watch? ›Open the Sleep app on your Apple Watch. Scroll down to see the amount of sleep you got the night before, the time spent in each sleep stage, and your sleep average over the last 14 days.
Do you have to put Apple Watch in sleep mode to track sleep? ›Sadly, the Apple Watch still cannot track sleep on its own and it requires the user to put it into Sleep mode to do so.
Is The Apple Watch accurate for sleep tracking? ›
Some other anecdotal examples, like scientist's Rob ter Horst's sleep tests (video), also found the Apple Watch post-WatchOS 9 update to be the most accurate at tracking sleep cycles of the devices he's tested.
How good is Apple Watch sleep tracking? ›In terms of sleep tracking, however, the device is not nearly as advanced as other wearable trackers I've tested firsthand. If you don't mind a simpler sleep app with a customizable alarm, sleep mode, and basic data tracking, then the Apple Watch might be a great fit — especially if you are physically active.
Can Apple Watch tell if I have sleep apnea? ›Can an Apple Watch Detect Sleep Apnea? Like Fitbit and other wearables, the Apple Watch can detect certain parameters like heart rate and blood oxygen saturation that may indicate sleep apnea, but it cannot comprehensively detect or diagnose sleep apnea.
How do I get a 100% on my SleepScore? ›Time slept: The total amount of time you have slept over one 24-hour period. Time slept has the highest impact on your Sleep Fitness Score. Ideally, healthy adults should get 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night. Anything less or more than that will negatively impact your score.
Does SleepScore tell you if you snore? ›If you think you snore or grind at night, and want to find out for certain, this app is for you. You can keep this app in record mode and you can listen to the recording snoring/grinding sounds (if any) in the morning. After about 6 night so far it is good. I like being able to listen all of the results if I want to.