Rumor mill: Apple may have found a way to provide Watch sleep tracking without a big penalty on battery life and is expected to showcase the feature at its upcoming event on September 10.
Apple will be adding sleep tracking to the Apple Watch lineup as soon as next week according to a new report from 9to5Mac. Ever since Apple bought sleep tracking company Beddit, there's been plenty of speculation that this would make its way into watches, especially since it's one of the areas where it lags behind even some low end wearables from competitors like Fitbit.
While you can already enable basic sleep tracking with third-party apps like AutoSleep Tracker and Pillow, the new feature – codenamed Burrito – is said to combine a number of factors like movement, heart rate, and noises to provide a more accurate assessment of your sleep quality. It will be found on the Apple Watch as "Time in Bed tracking" and will allow users with multiple Watches to set one as the preferred device for the feature.
Data about users' sleep quality will be available in the Health app as well as a new, dedicated Sleep app and a complication for quick glancing at the sleep stats. The latter will presumably remind users to charge their device before going to sleep as a way to ensure it will last through the night. Naturally, Apple will also add some fine details like stopping an alarm if you wake up before it goes off, as well as providing options for a more gentle wake-up by only vibrating the Watch.
The feature reportedly requires no special hardware like that found in the Watch Series 4, but we'll have to wait for the official announcement to see if it will be made available on older models. Even though Apple Watch is leading the smartwatch segment, sleep tracking will likely affect its already short battery life. In any case, Apple is expected to unveil new ceramic and titanium Watches next week along with watchOS 6.