What you need to know
- Apple is working on adding sleep tracking to the Apple Watch
- It may be announced as early as next week at Apple's September event
- When available, it will track sleep quality and report findings to the Health app
Apple has long been rumored to be adding sleep tracking to the Apple Watch, and those rumors only increased after the they acquired Beddit, a sleep monitor company back in 2017. It has been one of the most requested features since the launch of the original watch, and there is now a sliver of hope that we all may get to see a glimpse of what Apple's plans are for the feature at its September event.
Reported by 9to5Mac, sources inside of Apple have revealed that the company, as we have all expected, is in fact working on adding sleep tracking to the Apple Watch. Codenamed "Burrito", the project aims to create what is to be called "Time In Bed Tracking" and give users the ability to quantify their quality of sleep by tracking movement, heart rate, and noises using the Apple Watch's many sensors like the gyroscope, accelerometer, and microphone. All of the information that is gathered will be stored in Apple's Health app on the iPhone and a potentially new Sleep app on the Apple Watch.
One of the main concerns about using Apple Watch to track sleep is battery life, and Apple is reportedly adding a feature that will remind users to charge their watch before bedtime so they can rest assured it will last through the night. When going to bed, the Watch will automatically turn on Do Not Disturb mode. In the morning, if you wake and get up before your alarm goes off, the Apple Watch will turn off the alarm for you. If not, it will only vibrate or sound the alarm on your Apple Watch, using your iPhone as a backup.
The feature apparently does not require any new hardware, so when it does get released it should hopefully be available to older models of the Apple Watch as well, although there is no way to know just how far back compatibility will be just yet. New Apple Watches are expected to be announced along with new iPhones at next week's September event, so if Apple is rolling out sleep tracking this year, this would the time for them to talk about it. Otherwise, we'll have to hit that snooze button and wait until WWDC 2020.
Joe Wituschek is a Contributor at iMore. With over ten years in the technology industry, one of them being at Apple, Joe now covers the company for the website. In addition to covering breaking news, Joe also writes editorials and reviews for a range of products. He fell in love with Apple products when he got an iPod nano for Christmas almost twenty years ago. Despite being considered a "heavy" user, he has always preferred the consumer-focused products like the MacBook Air, iPad mini, and iPhone 13 mini. He will fight to the death to keep a mini iPhone in the lineup. In his free time, Joe enjoys video games, movies, photography, running, and basically everything outdoors.
