Will Apple Finally Bring a ‘Sleep Score’ to the Apple Watch?
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If you’ve used a third-party sleep tracker on your Apple Watch, you’re likely already familiar with “sleep scores,” which provide a numerical indicator of how well you slept during the night based on your sleep stages and other data. Now, code found in iOS 26 suggests that Apple may be working on bringing that feature to the Apple Watch, according to MacRumors.
While Apple added native sleep tracking capabilities to the Apple Watch with the release of watchOS 7, the feature doesn’t provide an actual sleep score.
The evidence of the new feature includes an image found in the Health app that shows an Apple Watch with an “84” on it. There are three bars surrounding the number, featuring the same colors as some of the sleep stages that can be tracked with an Apple Watch. In line with how the colors are used for tracking, the orange color could represent the time the user has spent awake, the lighter blue could be used to show REM sleep, and a darker blue shade would represent deep sleep.
The watch graphic also includes sleep-related icons used by Apple in various locations in iOS. These include a “zzz,” a bed, moon and stars, an alarm clock, sleep stages, and a thermometer.
The temperature icon indicates that any future Apple Watch sleep score could consider multiple health metrics, similar to the Vitals feature that debuted as a part of watchOS 11.
The image itself carries the name “Watch Focus Score,” indicating that the watch will provide a type of sleep-related score. One possibility for such a score would be a prediction of sorts as to how well you’ll be able to function during the day, according to the amount of rest you got during the previous night.
Apple has yet to officially announce such a feature for iOS 26 and watchOS 26, so currently we do not know if this is a first-party sleep score system Apple is working on, or whether it will be used to display data from third-party sleep tracking apps.
While many other health tracking devices, including rival smartwatches and smart rings, provide a sleep score based on vitals tracked during the night, Apple hasn’t yet publicly released such a feature for its Apple Watch.
A sleep score generally measures your sleep on multiple levels. A tracking device monitors and analyzes your total sleep duration, how long it takes for you to fall asleep, the time you spend in light sleep, deep sleep, and REM sleep, how often you wake during the night, and the amount of time spent awake each night. That information is then measured against averages for your age and gender. All of the sleep data is used to create a personal sleep score.
Currently, the Apple Watch tracks sleep, categorizing the user’s sleep into REM, core, and deep levels, while also providing a breakdown of the user’s time spent in bed, including the amount of time spent awake.
It should be said that additional signs of any sleep score features have not yet been revealed, so the graphic discovered by the publication could be used for another function. However, it’s certainly possible that Apple is planning to roll out the feature in a future update to the as-yet-unreleased watchOS 26 operating system, and is simply laying the groundwork for when that happens.
[The information provided in this article has NOT been confirmed by Apple and may be speculation. Provided details may not be factual. Take all rumors, tech or otherwise, with a grain of salt.]
