Will My Older Apple Watch Model Give me a Sleep Score?
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Apple marked another milestone during this week’s “Awe Dropping” event when it launched not just one or two, but three new Apple Watch models, marking only the second time this has happened in the wearable’s eleven-year history.
The debut of the Apple Watch Series 11, Apple Watch Ultra 3, and Apple Watch SE 3 once again brings the entire lineup onto equal footing, just as it was in 2022 when the more extreme Ultra first launched. All three are now powered by the same chip, allowing even the Apple Watch SE 3 to take advantage of the latest features in watchOS 26, at least so far as its more limited health sensors allow.
While Apple showed off quite a few new features for this year’s Apple Watch lineup, you may be surprised by how few of these actually require the latest models. That’s mainly because all three still use the same S10 chip as last year’s Series 10, which in turn was just a repackaged version of the S9 from 2023.
That means the new hypertension notifications that Apple showed off on Tuesday will work on models as old as the Series 9 and Ultra 2 — once this is approved by the FDA, that is. The Apple Watch SE 3 is being left out, presumably because it still uses the second-generation optical heart sensor — a sensor that hasn’t been used in a mainstream Apple Watch model since the 2019 Series 5.
However, some of the new features Apple touted were more about watchOS 26 and iOS 26, and had nothing directly to do with its latest hardware. Chief among these was the new Sleep Score, which provides a numerical representation of your sleep quality, along with recommendations for improvement.
Like nearly everything else it showed us during its September event, Apple presented this as a feature of this year’s Apple Watch models, which could easily lead some to believe that it’s exclusive to the 2025 lineup. However, nothing could be further from the truth.
The new Sleep Score feature will be available on any Apple Watch running watchOS 26 that’s paired with an iPhone running iOS 26. That’s the 2020 Apple Watch Series 6 or later and 2019 iPhone 11 or later — a pretty low bar.
That shouldn’t be too surprising. Apple added sleep tracking in watchOS 7, which came out at the same time as the Apple Watch Series 6, and the Sleep Score is nothing more than a calculation based on the data that these Apple Watch models are already collecting.
Although the calculation is based on comprehensive research to develop the correct formulas and algorithms, including over 5 million nights of sleep data from the Apple Heart and Movement Study, it’s still ultimately just a mathematical formula. If Apple needs a modern Neural Engine to work out this formula, then it’s holding its numbers wrong.
It turns out you don’t even need an Apple Watch to get a Sleep Score. Since this is just a formula being run against the sleep data that’s already stored on your iPhone, the iOS 26 Health app will generate a Sleep Score for any stored sleep data, regardless of its source, as discovered by Rudrank Riyam on X.
Along the same lines, you don’t technically even need an Apple Watch that can run watchOS 26. Since the Sleep Score is calculated from aggregate sleep data, you could be using an Apple Watch Series 3 with watchOS 7 installed, and you’d still be able to get a Sleep Score on your iPhone, as long as it’s running iOS 26. An Apple Watch Series 6 or later with watchOS 26 is necessary only to calculate and see the Sleep Score on your wrist.
This also means that you can see your Sleep Score retroactively. My sleep scores date back to July 24, 2020, which would have been the first night I wore my watch to bed after installing the watchOS 7 beta on my Apple Watch Series 5.
Of all the features that Apple introduced this week, Sleep Score is easily the most broadly supported. Its availability on older devices could make you think twice about rushing out to buy a new Apple Watch this year. In fact, the only thing the Apple Watch Series 11 really has over the prior models is 5G support (in some countries), plus longer battery life and greater durability thanks to new Ion-X and sapphire crystal glass formulations.
