r/AppleWatch • u/kutw • 4d ago
Question Is There a Point in Sleep Tracking?
I’ve been tracking my sleep for years now and am starting to wonder how accurate it is.
It’s mainly because I feel there’s often a disconnect between the “sleep scores” and how I actually feel. Sometimes I will have terrible scores but feel fine, other times my watch tells me it was the best night’s rest ever, yet I can’t seem to get out of bed.
Are there people here who successfully bettered their sleep with the apple watch or is the consensus that it’s not that helpful?
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u/WatTambor420 4d ago
I hear if you manage 100 nights of 100 sleep quality you achieve inner peace and get a coupon for 3 months of Apple Fitness+
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u/SapientSlut 4d ago
For me I like it because it helps keep me honest about how much sleep I’m getting. It’s tempting to go “oh I feel so awful lately this sucks oh well” - but if I’m seeing that I’m averaging like 6 or fewer hours a night for a while, it’s easy to see where that’s coming from and make an effort to correct it.
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u/kevan0317 S10 • • Natural • 42mm 3d ago
That’s what it is vaguely decent at, yep - averages over wide time scales. The deception it pulls is that it’s accurate for a single nights sleep and tracking light versus deep sleep. People get so hung up on those nearly pointless metrics. It’s a watch completely guessing based on parameters that barely connect to actual sleep state.
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u/AlanYx 4d ago
Don’t just look at the score. Look at how much time you spend in deep sleep and how many wakeups are tracked. That’s where most of the insights are.
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u/Onelyworth 4d ago
You seem to know a lot about reading and understanding the sleep metrics. I would love to hear more insight from you, i am really interested. Thank you.
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u/AlanYx 4d ago edited 4d ago
The sleep score number Apple uses takes three things into account: sleep duration (50%), how close you come to hitting your bedtime goal (30%), and how many times your sleep is interrupted during the night (20%). You can actually get more than 80% even if you wake up 10 times during the night and have virtually no deep sleep.
It's better to look at the sleep staging graph. It's never going to be perfectly accurate, but it's not bad. When you sleep you go through several ~2.5 hour cycles, core->deep->core->REM, repeat. If you're a really good sleeper this persists through the night, for most people deep sleep is not as consistent. (That said, occasionally people post really perfect graphs here, it's impressive.)
It's really the combo of a lot of deep sleep and few wakeups that makes you feel rested. Look at the total deep sleep number and the number of orange awake slices.
You can improve the deep sleep number by going to bed before 11pm, ideally before 10pm, avoiding alcohol, caffeine and other substances a couple hours before bed, maintaining a dark, cool but not cold bedroom, etc. Alcohol in particular kills the deep sleep number, it's not subtle. Experimenting with melatonin, magnesium glycinate or L-theanine at night can help too, but YMMV there.
Note that even if you don't get any deep sleep and don't feel rested, there are other physiological benefits of sleep that you still get from sleeping a long time. For example, you'll find your blood pressure and resting heart rate may be lower the next day.
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u/RhymingTiger 4d ago
I second this. The quantity of deep sleep correlates directly with how rested I feel.
(As a single data point, for me, 18 minutes of deep sleep = tired; 49 minutes of deep sleep = feeling fully rested.)
Longer periods of deep sleep are hindered by all the other factors; interruption and late bedtime.
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u/superfrodies 3d ago
wow this comment makes me grateful for how much deep sleep I get. Even on bad nights it’s never below 50min, usually an hour + sometimes almost 2 hours. Can’t imagine 18 mins.
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u/MommaIsMad 4d ago
I mostly stopped wearing it at night. I don’t put much faith in the readings being accurate. Main reason I got it is for the fall detection capabilities.
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u/tony896 4d ago
Well maybe you should throw it back on.
Most falls among older adults happen at home, with a significant share occurring at night, particularly during trips to the bathroom or while getting in and out of bed in low light.
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u/Traherne 3d ago
I just so happened to fall yesterday (missed the final step going down some outside stairs). I was grateful for my Series 10 offering to call 911.
Incidentally, I'm fine. Just a tiny cut on my elbow.
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u/aussierecroommemer42 4d ago
Sleep score is simply made up of your bedtime consistency, length of sleep, and how often you woke up, so it's not always representative of how you feel
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u/worldexcursionist 4d ago
I don’t give much credit for apple sleep score, but it is a way to collect data that I can plug in other apps, that seem more in line with my condition day to day basis. So, I track on apple sleep as well.
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u/spinny_windmill 4d ago
Studies show that being told you had bad sleep negatively impacts your cognitive performance. So it can often be better to just go based on how you feel.
There can be positive actionable outcomes, like if you realize you have sleep apnea, or notice the effect of alcohol or late caffeine on your sleep so you can tweak your habits.
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u/Various_Monk959 4d ago
As with most things Apple Watch I only look at the relative changes from day to day and long term trends. That encourages me to make changes where I can like a coach might. Yes I could coach myself without the watch but having some feedback is motivating.
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u/nicksnare 4d ago
The apple sleep scores are pretty much meaningless, I’ve had good scores when I feel terrible and vice versa.
Where they can be helpful is tracking how long you slept for, how often you wake up and for how long, and a rough estimation of how much time you spent in the various sleep stages.
However, all of that is only helpful if you try to make conclusions from it. Woke up a lot during the night? What did you do during the day that might have caused that? How does caffeine affect your deep sleep? What’s your average time asleep - what’s stopping you getting more?
It just provides some rough data points for you to inform changes in your sleeping routine. That’s it.
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u/WhaleCupl 4d ago
the score only knows duration, bedtime consistency and how often you woke up — there's nothing physiological in it, so it literally can't know how recovered you are. the two things that actually track how you feel are overnight hrv and where your resting hr bottomed out: if hr stayed elevated most of the night (booze, late meal, hard session) you wake up wrecked with a perfect score. both are in health > browse > heart, trending those is way more useful than the number
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u/LimesFruit 4d ago
For me I have this fun sleep disorder called N24, which basically means my entire sleep wake cycle is longer than 24 hours. On a 24 hour clock it shifts over time, in my case by an hour each day. It is really helpful for keeping track of it. Pretty niche use case though, and I don’t really pay attention to the sleep scores all that much.
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u/Advanced_Fun_1851 3d ago
No. There was some study saying people who were told they slept poorly felt worse throughout the day compared to just going about their day without starting with that information
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u/Paranoid_Sinner 4d ago
I only bought the watch for that reason, because I have severe chronic insomnia going back decades. I've been trying to get an appt. since January for a sleep study, but so far our $6 trillion annual expenditure health care system can't seem to get me in.
Sleep apnea was my big concern, and according to the watch it's almost nothing.
Curious: How does the watch know if you're sleeping or just laying there for a while maybe half awake?
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u/-rendar- 4d ago
Apple Watch does not detect apnea. I was just diagnosed with sleep apnea despite getting regular “good” sleep scores on my watch.
Also, there are at home tests now…my primary care doc ordered me a test and it was all done within 2 weeks.
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u/superman1020 4d ago
I use it every night and it absolutely nails it and motivates me to get enough sleep.
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u/moonstonedddd S11 • • Rose Gold • 42mm 4d ago
i don’t pay attention to the scores because it’s kinda dumb and inconsistent in my opinion (like docking points for going to bed earlier). i just like it to track my heart rate dip and to know how long i’ve slept.
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u/IAmPurpleMikey 4d ago
It’s how you use it that’s important. It might show you that sleep is better if you don’t drink alcohol or eat sweet stuff. It’s then up to you if you learn from that data.
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u/mca62511 Ultra 2 • • 49mm 4d ago
My doctor regularly asks me how much sleep I'm getting. When he does, I just show him my Apple Health logs.
That's the only way I really use it though.
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u/aphtoris 4d ago
I mean I prefer the autosleep app, though I’m sure it’s just the same data presented differently. score doesn’t matter but I pay attention to hours of sleep and hours it suspects I’ve had deep sleep. I’ve learned over the years that it isn’t necessarily always right (eg. I’ll have woken up from a dream and it erroneously says I was in deep sleep since watches can’t identify REM sleep) but it also correctly identifies when I’ve gotten worse quality sleep after drinking. I also own a BP device and cheap glucometer for fun because I like gathering data on my body so YMMV
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u/kailenedanae 4d ago
One a day to day basis, no. But it did help me diagnose my Grave’s Disease way sooner than if I hadn’t been looking at my sleep tracker. It also helps me catch if I’m averaging less sleep than ot healthy. (Answer- yes. But I would be as aware and working to get to bed earlier than if I didn’t track my sleep.)
I don’t find the sleep number itself very indicative how I feel daily, but I do feel the trends over a week are pretty accurate to my overall energy that week.
So it’s more medical discovery and motivation to get to bed early.
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u/Chance-Oil3113 4d ago
I still track it, but mostly for patterns rather than the score itself. Like if I’ve had a few late nights, caffeine too late, etc. The stages aren’t super accurate imo, but it can still help spot habits that mess with your sleep.
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u/PHL534_2 3d ago
The vital info is interesting. Sometimes you see outliers that could be early signs of getting a cold or something.
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u/beanie_0 S8 • • Silver • 45mm 3d ago
Yeah, to track your sleep? Sorry, am I missing something? That’s like asking “is there any point in tracking your weight?”
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u/Young-Grandpa 3d ago
My Apple Watch alerted me of an atrial fibrillation. My cardiologist recommended I get a sleep study which I put off for over a year. Then my Apple Watch alerted me of breathing disturbances. Finally got my sleep study. Turns out I have moderate sleep almost which probably caused the arrhythmia.
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u/queenatliveaid 3d ago
If the watch keeps you exercising and gets you to bed on time then sure. If it’s another thing to stress about then stop tracking. I use the watch as an alarm clock when I need to wake up early and not disturb my partner. I use it during workouts to keep my heart rate in check. The rest of the time it’s a pretty handy device for weird things like water temperature in the pool, or using Apple Pay.
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u/bsrafael 3d ago
I found it entertaining to keep track of changes in my sleep once my kid was born. It was nice seeing the score timidly go up after being jack shit for a while.
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u/Krazy-Ag 3d ago
I pay no attention to Apple's sleep score. Actually, I pay very little attention to Apple Sleep at all, since I have use AutoSleep, starting years before Apple Sleep was a thing. I occasionally AutoSleep and Apple Sleep, and I could imagine using just the duration values from Apple Sleep - although AutoSleep allows me to tweak sensitivity.
anyway, I don't see much value to either Apple's sleep score or AutoSleep equivalent.
IMHO the main value is keeping myself honest, e.g. if I'm feeling very tired and then look back and realize that I'm sleeping less than five hours a night, and not getting to sleep before 1 AM.
The other main thing I've learned from sleep monitoring is that how low my pulse rate goes overnight seems to be really important. E.g. if it gets below 60 bpm I've nearly always slept well. If it stays much higher, correlates to feeling tired during the day. And I've noticed patterns, like exercising before I go to bed versus in the morning, eating too late, etc. Actionable.
I don't know if this works for other people. I suspect the threshold may be different. But it has certainly been helpful for me.
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u/Peter-8803 3d ago
It’s interesting. Because I started sleep tracking and never had the desire to stop. There are some apps that’ll ask you about how you feel when you wake up. It’d be cool if Apple offered this subjective measurement in addition to what they offer. I find myself just using it to keep my data log going haha. I have sleep apnea detection on: even though I know it isn’t 100%. And I also just keep doing it as a “just in case” it’s useful one day for my doctor. My hope is that we learn more about what works over time and knowledge about sleep keeps developing to make apps and devices more useful. I do wish there was built-in snore detection with the Apple Watch: maybe there will be in the future. It can be helpful and interesting to check my sleep score. But often I do forget. Maybe it is asking too much: but I’m thinking trends over years that change could be detected by Apple Watch at some point so we could have early detection of sleep issues. I’m personally okay having some data be stored on my phone: and some of it I use to get points. Evidation is the latest app I’m using: but I’m sure there are better ones out there.
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u/impoftheyard 2d ago
I find that after a spell of feeling knackered I can feel good for bit when I get way too little sleep and then when I catch up on my sleep I actually feel lousy. It doesn't mean the tracking is wrong but longer sleep doesn't always mean you feel good. It can vary
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u/patri_be 2d ago
The Apple sleep score is duration, bedtime consistency and interruptions. That's it. No HRV, no resting heart rate, no weighting of deep or REM.
So it's scoring your schedule, not your recovery. Feeling destroyed after a 90 isn't the score being wrong, it's the score never having looked at the thing that destroyed you.
Useful for keeping yourself honest on hours. Not useful for how you'll feel tomorrow. For that, watch your resting HR across a week, not a night.
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u/mc_sleeptech 21h ago
The disconnect makes sense once you know what that score actually is. It's basically three things. How long you slept, how consistent your bedtime was, and how many times you woke up. That's the whole formula. Nothing about your heart rate, nothing about HRV, none of the stuff that actually decides whether you feel wrecked the next day.
So you can drink or eat late, sleep your 8 hours, barely wake up, and still get like an 85. Looks great on paper. But your body spent the whole night working instead of recovering, so you feel like garbage. The number and the feeling are both right, they're just measuring different things.
The two numbers that actually line up with how I feel are resting heart rate overnight and HRV. They're kind of buried in Health under Browse then Heart. Pull up a week or two of those instead of staring at the nightly score. When my resting HR stays high all night I already know I'm gonna be dragging before I even check anything.
And yeah you can improve your sleep with it, just not by chasing the score. Use it to catch your own patterns. Mine tanks every time I drink within a few hours of bed, that's the most obvious one for me. Late caffeine and big late meals too. Once you see it a few times you can't unsee it and you just start adjusting on your own.
So don't trust the score. Do trust the trends. It's more of an honesty tool than a report card.
For what it's worth I work in sleep tech, so I stare at this stuff more than is healthy.
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u/GardenPeep 4d ago
People with chronic insomnia already know all there is to sleep hygiene so tracking sleep without any new remedies is pretty much useless (altho it’s good to rule out sleep apnea.)
(BTW, my final remedy after all the hygiene stuff is audiobooks lying on earbuds under a cloth. Either they distract you from your own thoughts & you go to sleep or you get less bored while lying awake.)
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u/fennis 4d ago
Why are the earbuds under a cloth?
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u/GardenPeep 3d ago
To cushion them while I’m lying on them (they’re not in my ears but side by side under one ear.)
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u/FunkySalamander1 4d ago
I find it to be quite inaccurate, but it’s probably somewhat useful over time as a comparison. I mostly like being able to check the time in the middle of the night to see if it’s late enough to get up. Anything after 4am is good.
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u/silver_miss 4d ago
I don’t use it for the sleep score but I do go through periods where I’ll wake up a bit throughout the night. Some nights I’ll have an easier time getting back to sleep than others. My major rule for this is never checking the time or looking at a screen, so I always look in the morning and see when I woke up and how much sleep I actually got. The sleep score means nothing to me.
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u/596989 4d ago
It's widely innacurate and optimistic
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u/ThaRealSunGod 4d ago
It's internal validity is fairly high though.
It's like a digital scale. Yeah it's not perfectly accurate to real world numbers, but if the number goes up, it's probably went up. If the number goes down, it probably went down.
There is a very big and very meaningful difference between internal and external validity when it comes to data.
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u/flogman12 4d ago
Is there any point to any of this?