When Apple first launched the Apple Watch in 2015, sleep tracking was not offered. It wasn’t until 2020 with the arrival of watchOS 7 that the feature appeared, although it was in a more basic form than rivals like Fitbit and Garmin.
With the arrival of watchOS 9, the Apple Watch finally offers a little more consistent sleep monitoring. There are now stages of sleep, with a breakdown of awake time, REM sleep time, deep sleep time, and deep sleep time.
In order to track your sleep with Apple Watch, you need to put your device in Sleep Focus. Then it’s a bit difficult to find the data once it’s collected, but don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Here’s how to read and find sleep data from your Apple Watch.
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The Apple Watch Series 8 has a great design, loads of sensors, and more features than you’ll probably know what to do with. Its battery life isn’t the best in the smartwatch market, but the fast charging makes everyday charging a breeze and the fitness features are superb.
How to View Apple Watch Sleep Data on iPhone
You can read and view sleep data from your Apple Watch on the watch itself or on your iPhone. For the latter, follow the steps below:
- Open the Health app on your iPhone
- Tap the Browse tab at the bottom right
- Scroll down to Sleep
- Press D, W, M or 6M to view your sleep data for the day, week, month or 6 months
- Tap “Show more sleep data” below the sleep graph to view the time at each stage
How to Check Sleep Data on Your Apple Watch
It’s possible to view your sleep data on your Apple Watch, but you won’t be able to see as much detail as possible with your iPhone. You will only be able to see data from the previous night rather than an entire week or month for example.
To read your sleep data on Apple Watch, follow these instructions:
- Open the Sleep app on your Apple Watch
- Scroll down to Analysis
- You will see a graph, as well as sleep time and time in sleep stages
- Scroll down to see a bar graph of the last 14 days with a line showing the average sleep time
How accurate is Apple Watch sleep data?
In our testing, we found the Apple Watch Series 8 sleep data to be about what we expected in terms of sleep time and waking times.
Understandably it’s hard to pin down the exactness of the steps, although REM sleep has been known to be when you’re dreaming and we found that the data presented seemed to correlate with what we’d experienced if we’d woken up after a dream.
We have full functionality on sleep tracking and what the data means. In a nutshell, your body goes in and out of four stages throughout the night: Awake, Light, Deep, and REM.
Your body needs a combination of all of these stages to recover, rebuild, and wake up feeling rested. The light is said to enhance memory and learning, while the depth aids in physical recovery and REM aids in strategic thinking and creativity.
Which Apple Watch models offer sleep tracking?
All Series 3 and later Apple Watch models offer basic sleep tracking, but you’ll need an Apple Watch Series 4 or later to take advantage of the more advanced sleep tracking on Apple Watch because you’ll need watchOS 9 and Watch Series 3 is not compatible with watchOS 9.
For sleep tracking with sleep stages, you will need one of these models:
- Apple Watch Series 4
- Apple Watch Series 5
- Apple Watch Series 6
- Apple Watch Series 7
- Apple Watch Series 8
- Apple Watch SE (2020)
- Apple Watch SE (2022)
- Apple Watch Ultra
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Apple’s entry-level Watch is an absolute star, with great features and top-notch fitness tracking at a very reasonable price.
