Apple Watch sleep tracking needs an overhaul, with added naps

Apple Watch sleep tracking is the reason I decided to hold onto my old Series 4 model when I bought a Series 5. It was worth so little that I figured I’d hang onto it and simply swap watches when I got into bed to use the S4 as a dedicated sleep tracker.

Monitoring my reported sleep patterns in the Health app, however, has revealed that the Apple Watch isn’t actually very good at the finer details – like telling when I’m in bed, when I’m asleep, and when I’m asleep in bed …

In principle, my usage patterns should make Apple’s task as easy as possible. I swap watches when I get into bed, so if I’m wearing my night watch, then I’m in bed. There also ought to be small ecosystem clues for sleep-detection, like if I’m actively using my iPhone, then I’m probably not asleep.

But no. My Watch frequently tells me I was asleep when I was chatting to someone on my phone; often insists I was in deep sleep at a time I got up to use the bathroom; and has on more than one occasion told me that I was asleep for longer than I was in bed (which is physically possible, of course, but not very likely in some of the circumstances in which it decided this).

All in all, sleep tracking on an Apple Watch is a very approximate business.

So it struck me as interesting that Garmin’s new Venu 3 series watches claim to not only offer improved sleep tracking at night, but even detect when you take a nap during the day.

It’s adding a proactive sleep coaching feature and nap detection. The latter is noteworthy, considering most modern smartwatches from companies like Apple, Samsung, and Google can track your sleep, but only at night. With the Venu 3 series, you’ll be able to rest easy knowing your daytime slumber can also be tracked, if that’s your kind of thing.

The company’s new sleep coach considers factors such as a user’s daily activity levels, sleep history, and heart rate variability (HRV) – which is a sleep metric new to the Venu series. The coach will provide recommendations on the amount of sleep you’ll need to make it through the next day. The naps that the Venu 3 detects will also go towards replenishing energy levels as tracked by the company’s “Body Battery” tool, which quantifies energy levels on a scale of 1-100 depending on activity expenditure.

Of course, we’ll need to wait for in-depth reviews to find out whether the watch actually delivers on these claims, but nap-detection is certainly a feature Apple could usefully add.

If you think that mention of napping is a commentary on my age, there may be some truth to this, but it’s actually a skill I acquired in rather energetic circumstances. During a stay in Buenos Aires, when I was working early in the mornings and dancing late in the afternoons, I found that going back to bed after work and then napping was a very effective way of not only having enough energy to dance for four or five hours later in the day, but also to be able to wake the next morning without feeling too much like my body needed Crash Detection more than it did sleep tracking.

However, my Watch had literally no clue what was going on. It didn’t know that I was in bed, and it couldn’t tell when I was and wasn’t sleeping. There was no way at all to get any kind of realistic – let alone holistic – view of my sleep patterns.

So more accurate sleep tracking is definitely something I’d like to see Apple focus on. It seems like the hardware already has all the necessary sensors to achieve this, so it shouldn’t even need us to upgrade to a new Watch. What’s needed is better algorithms, and for sure better integration with the Apple ecosystem.

That’s been my experience with Apple Watch sleep tracking – how about yours? Please take our poll, and share your experiences in the comments.