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watchOS 11 Supports Automatic Nap Detection

My experience with Apple's sleep tracking is that it is accurate when I have a good night's sleep.

On terrible nights it doesn't acknowledge me being awake for long periods of the night.
 
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MacRumors said:


watchOS 11 appears to include a new feature that allows an Apple Watch to automatically detect and record when you're taking a nap. As shared on Reddit, an Apple Watch owner took a nap and was able to see the sleep data recorded in the Health app, despite not putting the device in Sleep Mode.

watchOS-11-Thumb-2-1.jpg

Right now, the Apple Watch only tracks and records sleep when it is in Sleep Mode, and there is no support for tracking naps.

The change should allow an Apple Watch running watchOS 11 to record and include a nap in the Sleep section of the Health app, and it may also support automatic sleep tracking even when Sleep Mode isn't activated. Nap tracking has long felt like a missing feature from the Apple Watch, and this will be a welcome feature for those who supplement sleep with naps.

apple-watch-nap-tracking-watchos-11.jpg


Image via Reddit​

Apple did not mention a change to the Sleep app in its preview information for watchOS 11, and the only mention of sleep is related to the new Vitals app, which collects data for your health metrics during sleep in order to populate a typical range feature.

Article Link: watchOS 11 Supports Automatic Nap Detection
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Lol, my watch recorded my sleeping even when I was not wearing it. The nap detection will only add to the mess.
 
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This will be a boon for companies as they will distribute Apple Watch to all their employees and reprimand them for taking a nap.
 
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I use AutoSleep app on my Apple Watch and it always has recorded details of naps. This is nothing 🤦🏾‍♂️
 
stiligFox said:
I only hope that it doesn’t give false positives - back in the day my Pebble watch would think I was sleeping or taking a nap whenever I’d game for a couple hours or so - it relied on the accelerometer moving occasionally to tell whether a user was awake, and I often keep my wrist still for a long time while gaming.
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Pebble watch… what a deep cut memory, wow…

I wanted one, but I ended up getting (I think it was?) a Samsung Galaxy Gear since I had a Galaxy S5 at the time.

Then I got my first Apple Watch (a Series 0) in open-box, a year and a half after release, in October 2016, for about $180. I used that thing with the iPhone SE I bought in April that year (rose gold my beloved), and the iPhone 7 Plus I got in December of that year after switching carriers.

Wow, that’s almost 10 years ago. Time truly flies…
 
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Good news if this is correct. I've been putting through a lot of simple suggestions to the watchOS feedback portal and this was one of them. Perhaps they do listen to user feedback if submitted via the correct pathways. If there are no battery issues I might update to the beta to try it out.
 
I track my sleep every night, which I only get about 5 hours typically. I usually take an afternoon nap everyday after work. I've been tracking these naps with the new update, it seems like it works pretty reliably. It's nice to know that I'm actually getting enough sleep every day.
 
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Kevin2055 said:
Lol, my watch recorded my sleeping even when I was not wearing it. The nap detection will only add to the mess.
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Your comment makes me question whether you have an Apple Watch at all.
Sleep recording is a lot more than logging the time you were asleep (or the watch being in sleep mode), including sleep cycles, so how would the watch do that if you are not wearing it?

That being said, my AW9 records pretty much exactly the time I was asleep, no matter the sleep mode being on or off. I usually don't take naps in the afternoon, so I wouldn't know if those are recorded or not.
 
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victorvictoria said:
So if you use the watch for sleep tracking, nap tracking, workout tracking, alarms, timers, fall detection, and whatnot else, when do you charge it?
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When I go to bed I put my S8 on the charger and use my old S3 to track my sleep automatically with the Pillow app. Works beautifully.
 
Apple_Robert said:
I have that app as well and I agree it is a great app. I used to be all about third party apps because Apple apps were often lacking. That scenario has slowly been turning around where I have been leaning back towards using Apple apps more and more and ditching third party as well as subs whenever possible. I think that this new feature is definitely a step in the right direction. I will continue to use HeartWatch so long as it doesn't go sub. I also bought AutoSleep years ago and have used it but, not as much over the last 2 years since Apple made some gains with their sleep app integration.
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Yes, if I can get out of Apple Health & associated Apple apps I would be happy to ditch 3rd party programs. Heartwatch does it for me b/c I like the coorelations I can easy draw between my sleeping SP02 levels and how recently I’ve taken my Aranest (a synthetic hormone designed to stimulate red blood cell production > Heme > O2 capacity). Also easy to tie in heartrate to my dialysis treatments.

Although I’ve been Apple since 1984, I’ve only had an Apple Watch since Dec/2023 - and this because every single nurse that I’ve interacted with in the dialysis portion of small town hospital had one and kept telling me that I should get one. So I ordered one and then just started scanning the AW portion of the MacRumors forums for ‘respected’ software and started purchasing.

This led to Airpods Pro 2 purchase (again, one nurse specifically mentioned them), which I’ve actually been using (in comparison to Sony/no name/Crusher ANC over-ears which felt uncomfortable and didn’t sound as good (opinion only 😀)

And on and on….

Tom
 
This is great news. I personally wear both and Apple Watch Ultra and a Whoop 4.0. Find the Whoop more comfortable to wear to bed and it syncs perfectly with the Apple Health app. Sleep has improved greatly since focussing on and tracking it more. If Apple would still sell bed tracking hardware that does the same thing that would require wearing no device to bed which would be my preference.
 
Apparently, my ancient 1st gen SE can´t handle this state of the art features.
 
Yet to have this happen and i nap most lunch times at work and have had the beta installed since release on my Ultra 2.

Sleep Focus obviously does as it should though.
 
Eldar Gezalov said:
This is not accurate. I have been using Apple Watch to track my sleep for more than a year now, and even though I do switch to Sleep Mode (primarily to turn the screen off) when I go to sleep, when I forget to do that, it perfectly records everything. So, it is not a new feature.
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This is not accurate.

The Apple watches i've had have never tracked sleep when i've not set the sleep focus to on.
 
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