Hands-On With watchOS 7's Sleep Tracking, Watch Face Sharing and Handwashing Monitor

[Stuey3D]

Wow 30% battery drain when using sleep tracking seems very excessive, I charge my Series 3 right before bed and it only looses around 5% overnight. Granted I am not currently sleep tracking as of yet, but I'm sure others who currently use 3rd party apps to track sleep don't loose 30% overnight either, I'm pretty sure 10% is the ballpark figure I've seen people reporting. You'd have thought since its 1st party built directly into the OS it would be better optimised, lets hope its just an early beta issue and it get improved before public release.

Also does anybody know if this sleep tracking will be on the Series 3 or is it one of the newer watches only?

 

[spazzcat]

Exactly this. I don’t need my watch to tell me I haven’t had enough sleep!

People probably should realize that Apple spends millions of dollars a year on market research and they know what the most common request features...
[automerge]1593603510[/automerge]

The hand washing is not enabled yet correct...? I’ve never had it activate lol

You have to turn it on...
[automerge]1593603625[/automerge]

Sleep tracking is - meh
Hand wash reminder is -meh
Wach Face sharing is (you guessed) - meh.
There are other 'meh' on Watch OS 7 not worth mentioning.
Clearly, Apple's main focus this year has been iOS 14 and Mac OS 11.

The single biggest feature I am been waiting for is sleep tracking. And if they add more health/fitness hardware in the new watch it is an instant buy for me...Oh, and the wind on feature is pretty awesome and having to put my watch in theater mode every night when I got to sleep.

 

[Xoterin]

Sleep tracking battery drain isn't too bad, and in our experience it drained about 30 percent throughout the night, something that Apple may be able to improve over the beta testing period.

I haven’t had this same experience on the Series 4. I charge my watch to 100% and put it on right before bed. It drains 10-15%.

I haven’t gotten handwashing to work. My watch restarts every time it activates.

 

[HiVolt]

I have no real issues with the included faces. It keeps it more formal I feel too, than if they were to open it up to anyone.
Not to mention the issues we’d have like extra battery drainage and more bugs from third parties...

Nobody would be forcing you or anyone to use them that doesn't want to. A watch, whether a traditional or smart watch, is a way to express yourself. They provide pride faces and watch straps that only cater to a specific demographic, we all know why. What about others who would like something else to make it personal.

 

[Black Belt]

Do I have to be part of the developer program to be able to download watchOS?

You can develop, just download the software from Apple. You need to join the developer program to place on the App store.

 

[cliffster82]

What do people do with sleep tracking data?

If you pay attention to it you can learn all kinds of stuff about yourself. Patterns, habits, how you feel based on the night of sleep you had, and ultimately learn to be healthier. That's been my experience anyway. That's in addition to the most basic reason, encouraging me to get more of it.

 

[jsalda]

I want the sleep app to wake me at the optimal time.
I want my complications to be change automatically based on the time of day. I don't care what the stock market closed at after 5pm but do want to know when the sun will set.

If the Sleep app will interface with my Hue lights to turn them on, then I'll definitely start using it to wake up.

 

[ferretex]

The hand washing is not enabled yet correct...? I’ve never had it activate lol

You have to activate it yourself. Some people and reviewers have said that feature is off “standard”.

 

[arloarpo]

Looking for a bit of buyer's advice - apologies if this isn't the place but felt like those on here might have a better sense what might makes sense as this point. Unfortunately dropped my 2 year old s3 on the on kitchen tiles- smashed. Am gutted. Cost is a factor at the moment, but had been holding out and saving for either an S6 or a sale on S5. Found an S4 with cellular (though don't need the cell) at a reasonable price - and still $125 cheaper than an S5 (here in Canada at least) - we didn't get that amazing Amazon $299 deal here. Will S4 still have some legs in it after a couple years, or worth holding off until S6 releases, or getting a cheaper 5 when price drops in the autumn. Timing is not ideal I know. (FWIW, it bought a Versa 2 as it was a fraction of the price in father's day sales just to check it out while I waited for the s4 delivery- AOD, good sleep tracking, "relevant Sp02" (so not really useful but interesting) - but I do miss the integration of the apple ecosystem for things like reminders, and just.. overall UX can't be compared!) Thanks

 

[drumcat]

Can we add the seconds in more digital faces? And make the time a bit smaller?

Tired of the wasted space.

 

[Harvey Zoltan]

Has anyone else found this beta makes interactions on the watch super fast? They were fast enough before but now they are lightning fast on my S5.

 

[Dominicanyor]

You can develop, just download the software from Apple. You need to join the developer program to place on the App store.

Thanks.

 

[limebook]

[mention]drumcat [/mention]

Small seconds/digital time allowed in this info graph complication.

[mention]7149041 [/mention] the hybrid Nike on mine doesn’t display seconds like the solar complication.

[mention]CarlJ [/mention] I’ve been searching for alternative complications with digital seconds since series one.
I find It’s so handy to glance and see 20:45.30 then again at 20:45.45 and know you’ve elapsed 15 seconds.
I don’t seem to find this as easy using analog.

 

[Black Belt]

There aren’t watch faces on the App Store.

Do you not read? Or is all you do Is just make thousands of posts all day?

“Apple also plans to highlight useful watch faces in the App Store.”