How the sleep function works in smart watches. Sleep tracking and analysis app for Apple Watch. How the Apple Watch sleep tracking and analysis app works


Recent studies by Japanese scientists have shown that lack of sleep provokes cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and obesity. Therefore, it is important to monitor both the duration of sleep and its quality. The first point is clear, but what about the second? Owners of Apple smartwatches can breathe a sigh of relief, because an apple watch alarm clock has already been developed that monitors a person’s movements at night. Let's see how this is useful.

What data does a smartwatch collect?

Smart watches determine sleep quality based on the following indicators:

  • pulse frequency (with its help, phases are distinguished);
  • human activity;
  • pressure.

Observation will help determine at home how effective the rest was. Depending on the result, you can draw conclusions and improve your schedule in the future. The body will thank you with excellent health and high performance.

Popular apps

Smart Alarm is not installed by default on your apple watch, so you must download the app from the App Store. The most popular program is Sleep++. It is easy to use; to start analyzing your sleep, just put the smart watch on your hand and launch the application. Upon awakening, you will need to stop the process, after which the sleep phases and its quality will be displayed on the screen in the form of graphs.


Sleep ++ stores information not only up-to-date, but here you can find data for the past week, month and even year. Statistics are presented in charts, so it’s easy to see progress to understand whether the situation has improved or worsened compared to the previous period. There is a smart alarm clock for apple watch, if you install it, it will ring in the right phase, which will allow you to feel great even on Monday morning. Another useful feature is sleep tracking during flights; the smart application recognizes fluctuations associated with time zones.

In today's guide, you'll learn how to monitor your sleep in a simple and effective way from your Apple Watch. Since this feature is not enabled by default on Apple smartwatches, you must use a special method. We will discuss the best solutions here and explain why some solutions are not yet available. We invite you to our guide.


Apple Watch isn't just a tool designed to receive notifications from your iPhone. It is also modern equipment, thanks to which we can monitor our health, exercise or check our general condition. Thanks to solutions like these, the Apple Watch is a great tool to help you take control of our health. But that's not all, from the Apple Watch we can also monitor our sleep.

This feature is not automatically available on Apple smart models. Unfortunately, Tim Cook's programming team has not yet decided to implement such a solution, perhaps due to high battery consumption or inaccurate measurements. This doesn't mean, however, that we don't have another way to track our sleep from the Apple Watch level. This option, yes, is possible, but from the level of external applications available in the App Store. We find paid and completely free solutions there. Below we will discuss the most interesting tools, in our opinion.

Basic sleep control on Apple Watch

One of the most interesting tools offered by Apple's Smartwatch sleep monitoring is the free Sleep++ app, which offers basic functions for collecting data about us. The application, if we enable the appropriate option, allows us to export our data to the Health tool. Thanks to this, even after its removal, we will have access to our data.

But more importantly, Sleep++ allows you to accurately (as far as possible) track our sleep states. When you fall asleep, launch the application on your phone or from the Apple Watch level, determine that we are just going to bed. Likewise, after waking up, sleep monitoring++ should be turned off. The completed data collected from the night will be displayed as a histogram. We will find there information about sleep states (deep, shallow), sleep duration, possible awakenings or heart rate during sleep.

However, you should fully charge your Apple Watch before going to bed. The Sleep++ app (like other tools) uses a lot of batteries while monitoring our rest. Of course, in order for it to work correctly, we must have a clock during sleep.

Another solution worth testing is SleepTrack, a free app that focuses on tracking sleep quality. The app will tell us if we haven't slept as much as we should recently or have woken up too often during the night. The simple appearance of the tool means that we can quickly access basic data such as sleep interval, deep sleep and shallow sleep, heart rate monitoring, etc.

Data from SleepTrack can also be automatically transferred to the Health app. All you need to do is enable information transfer from the settings of this tool. Of course, as with other tools, you will also need to wear a wristwatch here.

Another solution we want to introduce is the Heart Analyzer app. This is a free tool whose job is to track your heart rate. This way we can also control our sleep. Interestingly, from the tool level, you don't need to turn on the button for you to sleep or wake up. The app will determine it based on our heart rate. At night, data about our sleep will also be collected based on how our heart behaves. Similar to the competition, data is transferred to the Health app.

In conclusion, we would like to inform you that if you have any questions about the operation of health monitoring tools, please send us your comments. This way we can improve our guide, add new options or update the tools discussed here.

Many users are wondering what to do with their old smart watches. The first generations of Apple Watch are unlikely to be sold at a high price, and you don’t want to give away the device for next to nothing.

But for everyday use they are frankly too weak. Applications take too long to launch, constant freezes and reboots.

It makes more sense to use an old watch as a sleep tracker. This way you will be able to justify the once desired and long-awaited purchase.

Given that Apple uses a single platform for exchanging user physiological data, HealthKit, you will receive all the information from the new Apple Watch, and data on the night spent and quality of sleep from the old one.

And all this in one application.

The best sleep trackers for Apple Watch

The App Store has many different programs that turn sleep tracking into a fascinating statistical summary.

Here are some of them:

A few words about each application.

In May 2017, Apple acquired the developer of the Beddit app. Since then, no updates or updates. It seems that in the future Apple developers will integrate Beddit algorithms into the standard set of iOS functions. In the meantime, you have to download a separate application.

Sleep Cycle is a very popular tracker with a separate application for Apple Watch. Requires you to manually start and stop sleep sessions.

AutoSleep, Pillow, Slepp++ - trackers from the “put it on and forget it” category. They monitor your sleep themselves and provide detailed information about the past night.

Don't forget to create a sleep routine

Step 1. Before using your old Apple Watch as a tracker, put it into sleep mode. This way you will protect yourself from notifications, calls and constantly turning on the display.

Step 2. In the Watch app, open the My Watch tab and activate the automatic switching feature so that you don’t have to tell your iPhone which watch you’re wearing every time.

Step 3. If your older Apple Watch supports watchOS 5 and you've already updated, turn off the automatic heart rate alert feature.

This is necessary for the reason that during sleep your heart rate will be significantly lower than when awake. Turn off such notifications (about a decrease or increase in heart rate) on your iPhone as well.

Step 4. In the Control Center on Apple Watch (swipe from top to bottom), activate the icons of masks, moon and crossed out bell.

Now the old Apple Watch is ready to work as a sleep tracker. [

Already from the first version, the Apple Watch helped you wake up on time using the smart alarm clock built into the Apple Watch interface.

Settings

The procedure for setting the required wake-up time takes exactly ten seconds and consists of three steps:

  1. Call the main menu, find the “Alarm Clock” application (no need to link to iPhone);
  2. Then click “add” and indicate the appropriate time (to select hours and minutes, you need to click on the required square with information, and then scroll the Digital Crown to get the exact “hit”);
  3. To save, click “Select” and exit the menu. By the way, when you return to the “Alarm Clock” with ready-made settings, additional options for editing will appear - repetition frequency, design, music played and even days for “playing alerts”.

The procedure described above is the same for all Apple Watch series and will definitely not be a problem for either beginners or professionals. But what to do in situations when you want to wake up not to the boring sounds of a chosen melody and at a predetermined hour, but at the right moment for awakening, when you have to tear yourself away from the pillow not in a bad mood, but with a feeling of pleasure?

Third party alarm apps

Third-party developers specifically for the WatchOS operating system offer a whole series of “smart alarm clocks” that adapt to the rhythm of each watch owner and allow you to wake up in the “REM” phase with “minimal losses”, and even to the sounds of randomly selected melodies that depict the morning in forest, and awakening near the ocean. The only question is which assistants to pay attention to first, and therefore a short excursion to the App Store:

  1. – a fully automated tool for monitoring and analyzing sleep, which helps you lead a “healthy lifestyle” literally without getting out of bed. The main idea of ​​AutoSleep is the chance to completely avoid settings. The alarm clock does not even have buttons - rare adjustments are made from the iPhone, statistics are also collected and studied there, which the developers present in the form of informative graphs, diagrams and even text conclusions (sorry in English), carefully retelling what the lack of sleep will lead to and how healthy sleep will help. The asking price is $3. Additional advantages: no advertising;
  2. – a freely distributed sleep tracker, combined with an alarm clock and capable of both recording data about the current rest and displaying statistics for the week, month and even year. As in the case of AutoSleep, the developers from Cross Forward Consulting, LLC have provided a portion of advice for everyone. Although the information is focused around some common truths, it can sometimes shed light on some of the nuances of sleep (when to fall asleep, how to wake up, and why it is important not to immediately grab gadgets in your hands and do the obligatory morning routine);
  3. . A smart “pillow” analyzes your sleep, allows you to set an alarm for the required time, and easily helps you set up various methods for waking up (standard vibration, sounds). The interface is intuitive and informative; even beginners will not have any problems. An additional advantage is free distribution without advertising or subscriptions (you don’t even have to pay for music, which is extremely atmospheric). By the way, the developers offer to study statistics (for a day, month or even a year) both on a watch using a special widget, and on a smartphone through detailed statistics with graphs and tips. If there is a strong desire, the developers offer to expand the starting powers of the tracker with the help of a paid subscription, which stores the data for eternity on the servers, and even allows songs from Apple Music to be installed as wake-up ringtones;
  4. – a free tool for monitoring sleep, “proper rest” and lightning-fast access to all the energy in the world. Before you start monitoring dreams, the developers strongly recommend that you understand the settings and choose a measurement method (automatic or manual, when you press a button) and a place to upload statistics - internal memory, cloud storage. After mandatory preparation, the instrument will adapt to the activity of each watch owner and will help achieve the highest accuracy (inaccuracies will arise at first).

The main problem with “smart alarm clocks” for Apple Watch is the need to keep the watch on your wrist. And, while some owners cope with such a responsibility, others suffer inconvenience (especially if an iron strap weighs on their hand). If such a nuance does not spoil the mood and looks harmless, then the helpers described above will definitely help you finish what you started and finally get some sleep!

Recently released Apple Watch has become an indispensable gadget for many, combining the amazing capabilities of the world of high technology and, importantly, modest dimensions. This device remains with the owner even while sleeping, if he wants to have a broad understanding of this largely unconscious and therefore very mysterious process.

How the Apple Watch sleep tracking and analysis app works

Method for tracking and analyzing sleep using Apple Watch can be based on different indicators:

  • heart rate, which is known to vary depending on the phase;
  • movements of the sleeper.

There is no information about using the first option yet, although it is present on iWatch. It is used by romantics who exchange their heart indicators with their significant other. Another option is already used by programs available in the App Store.

Photo: Sleep analysis on Apple Watch

What is there today?

The most popular application in this segment is Sleep++. Sensors that record movements during sleep make it possible to determine how often the user tossed and turned and, accordingly, how deep his rest was. This sleep tracker for Apple Watch is simple:

  • you need to put the device on your wrist;
  • launch the application before going to bed;
  • then, when you wake up, stop tracking using a special button.

Smartwatches, thanks to Sleep++, can display sleep stages and their quality through graphs. It is very noteworthy that in a relatively recent update, the application changed not only its design, but also its analysis algorithm. Sleep++ now integrates with HealthKit, which is very welcome news for long-time users.

Sleep monitoring on iWatch can now be assessed in the form of detailed statistics that allow you to view trends and usage activity over different time periods, such as:

  • weeks;
  • months.

The program's capabilities don't end there; Sleep++ has even learned to recognize fluctuations in time zones in order to track sleep while traveling.

Forecasts

It must be said that 1.5 years ago, the Apple Watch development team was replenished with Roy Reiman, a specialist in the field of improving sleep quality without drugs. This step suggests that the company may intend not only to optimize devices for “sleepy” programs, but also to create its own, which will embody a user-friendly interface and the amazing capabilities of modern electronics.

It is likely that soon an application called “iSleeping” will win the hearts of millions of users around the world, giving everyone the opportunity track phases his sleep on Apple Watch, as well as providing a professional level of albeit shallow, but significant medical examination. Perhaps this will be another plus in favor of the eternal question.