Apple Watch is only recording sleep within a set sleep schedule

Summary

Study participants' sleep does not appear to get recorded outside of Sleep Schedules. In other words, the sleep-wake classifier is only deployed within the selected sleep schedule. This article details the issue and presents possible solutions.

Details

Problem

An Apple Support article indicates that sleep tracking "uses your motion to detect sleep when you wear Apple Watch to bed and the Sleep Focus is active." This means that Apple Watch will only detect and record sleep when "Sleep Focus" is turned on, which is normally activated during specific sleep schedule windows set by the participant. If the participant falls asleep outside the sleep window, then Sleep Focus is not activated automatically and sleep recording does not occur.

Solution

While University of Michigan researchers are actively engaged with Apple to find better, more automated solutions, the following workarounds are available:

1. Ask the participants to delete all sleep windows through Apple Health app, and manually turn on Sleep Focus on when they are ready to sleep, then turn it off when they wake up.  
    
2. Ask participants to manually enter their sleep times in the Apple Health app, including a sleep and wakeup time.
   
   
     
   
    
3. Participants can temporarily set the next sleep schedule on their watch or phone, or can change the sleep schedules altogether to match their sleep times.
    
     
    
4. Researchers can also skip Apple Watch's sleep tracking altogether and use validated algorithms to derive sleep from heart rate and activity data. Contact the Mobile Technologies Core for internal and external resources for this option.

Notes

• Note that sleep schedules have a half hour buffer, so sleep may still be captured within half hour of the sleep window start and end times.
• Although iOS has the ability to turn on custom focus modes automatically (based on location, time, or app launch), this does not appear to apply to Sleep Focus at the moment.

Resources

• Track your sleep with Apple Watch
• Track your sleep on Apple Watch and use Sleep on iPhone
• Contact the Mobile Technologies Core for more information

About the Author

Gabriel Mongefranco is a Mobile Data Architect at the University of Michigan Eisenberg Family Depression Center. Gabriel has over a decade of experience in data analytics, dashboard design, automation, back end software development, database design, middleware and API architecture, and technical writing.   |   |