True. But change is hard when your used to certain way on different brands. Good news is, you can always chose to buy what suits the needs.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
So you have to pick between sleep tracking and flashlight access?
- Thread starter MBHockey
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I have one of these Eufy lights strategically placed next to the toilet. Can confirm, the battery lasts ages and it provides just the right amount of low, warm light for sleepy eyes. The sensor is quite sensitive and it's smart enough to not come on during the day.
I would suggest that if you are dealing with a baby waking 3x/night, there are much better ways to deal with that than futzing with an Apple Watch flashlight.
Last edited:
My Ultra 2 torch works from the Activity button in Sleep mode.
The difference here maybe that because my sleep hours are irregular I do not have a Sleep Focus schedule set. Last thing at night I turn on Sleep Mode manually from the Control Centre, and first thing in the morning I turn it off.
When I go to the bathroom during the night I just press the Activity Button and torch comes on. I do not take it out of Sleep Mode. Because I also put it in Theatre Mode at night the torch light is red.
My whole nights sleep is recorded in the usual full detail.
The difference here maybe that because my sleep hours are irregular I do not have a Sleep Focus schedule set. Last thing at night I turn on Sleep Mode manually from the Control Centre, and first thing in the morning I turn it off.
When I go to the bathroom during the night I just press the Activity Button and torch comes on. I do not take it out of Sleep Mode. Because I also put it in Theatre Mode at night the torch light is red.
My whole nights sleep is recorded in the usual full detail.
It also tracks naps by chance. For me with varying success. It often just shows that I slept, not how I slept in diagrams.
Get a smart bulb and switch, put the switch next to the bed? Or just use your phone?
Sounds very much a first world problem
Maybe the watch wouldn’t be the same as the phone because you don’t sleep with your phone literally strapped to your body?
I don’t have an Ultra so I don’t know how plausible an unintentional press would be during sleep, but it’s the same for the CC, previously the app switcher/dock, button.
OMG thank you for mentioning that the standard flash is red in theater mode! I wish there was a way to set it like that for a specific focus too but oh well.
Guess I’ll have to edit my automations and add an auto theater mode on/off, but thank you very much 👍🏻
good question and you can't according to Apple:
Track your nightly wrist temperature changes with Apple Watch - Apple Support
Apple Watch Series 8 or Apple Watch Ultra can gather wrist temperature data while you sleep to help give you insight into your overall well-being.
But there are some people who don't care about that, and that's fine
Possible— but one would think the default to the Action Button would be, well, action. Accidentally hitting it during sleep wouldn’t be an issue as long as you could customize it to turn it off. A flashlight function seems like a pretty desirable thing to have in the middle of the night.
Get a cheap pen light from your hardware store. Some are still incandescent. Nice dull light, great for nighttime.
Baby woke up for the third time but spinning the crown is incredibly annoying? It’s possible you’re redirecting your ire…😄
Tip from a frequent flashlight user: if theater mode is on, the light defaults to red which I find much better at night.
At least for me, I also found that sleep focus doesn't actually make sleep tracking any better. It simply turns off your notifications and other things that might interrupt your sleep.
I tried using it for a while and just found that I kept accidentally turning it on so I just mapped the action button to something else... and now I keep doing accidental workouts instead.
If you want sleep focus, but also want the flashlight button, you can always just turn on sleep focus on your phone and the watch will follow.
Apples and Oranges, just comparing battery life it’s like me saying a Casio is even more far ahead of Garmin, you don’t need to charge it.
AW is a smartwatch and Garmin is a fitness watch, if all I want is to track sleep and exercise, sure a Garmin would do, but Garmin is still lacking when it comes to smartwatch functions.
And judging by the fact that with a newer and smaller SoC, instead of taking the opportunity to keep the same size and add on a bigger battery, Apple opted to slim down the watch instead, this just tells you Apple understands their demographic have different priorities.
Garmin does make great watches, but I wouldn't say they're better than an Apple Watch. They're different. It seems to me the strategy of an Apple Watch is to be a jack of all trades that's average to above average at everything.
Where Garmin is good, it is great. Where it isn't, it's abysmal. If you want a watch for sleep tracking and your sleep patterns don't fit in a very tight box, you're in for a rough ride if you have a Garmin.
I had a Forerunner 265 for a while. I loved that watch and miss it, but it was just so bad at sleep tracking I had no choice but to move on. Also, the battery life on it isn't as amazing as advertised if you use it like you would use an Apple Watch. I'm on an Ultra 2 now and the battery life isn't that far behind my Forerunner 265.
Apple Watch is my 3rd watch platform. All of them have been flawed in their own ways.
Garmin is also a smart watch. You can get a smart watch version and it lasts weeks. The dedicated fitness trackers last months.
You’re right, the lack of quick flashlight access in Sleep Focus is frustrating, especially at night. Apple should allow remapping the long press for the siren to the flashlight in this mode. For now, the only workaround seems to be disabling Sleep Focus or manually unlocking the watch first—both of which aren’t ideal. Hopefully, Apple addresses this in a future update