Galaxy Watch: Sleep Tracking And Your Privacy

The Samsung Galaxy Watch is a great sleep tracker. It can monitor your sleep patterns, including the quality and length of your sleep and the factors contributing to a good or bad night's sleep. The watch uses a multi-sensor approach to collect data, including an optical heart rate monitor, gyroscope, and accelerometer to detect restless movements, changes in heart rate, blood oxygen levels, and other metrics that indicate how well you are sleeping. The data is then sent to the Samsung Health app, which provides visual representations of your sleep patterns and a sleep coaching function to help you improve your sleep.

How to set up sleep tracking

The Samsung Galaxy Watch is a great sleep tracker. It can monitor your sleep, including the quality and length of your sleep and the factors contributing to a good or bad night's sleep. To set up sleep tracking on your Samsung Galaxy Watch, follow these steps:

Firstly, ensure that your watch is connected to your phone via the Galaxy Wearable app. This is important for features like Snore detection to work.

Next, open the Samsung Health app on your watch. You can do this by swiping left on the watch home screen until you see the Sleep tile, and then tapping it. In the Samsung Health app, navigate to Settings by swiping and tapping, and then tap the switch next to Blood oxygen during sleep to turn it on. Enabling this feature will allow you to monitor your blood oxygen saturation levels while you sleep, which can be helpful to understand your sleep quality.

Additionally, if you want to use the Snore detection feature, you will need to allow Samsung Health to record audio. You can do this by tapping "While using the app" from the prompt that appears. You can also choose to have your watch track your snoring for the entire night or just once per "sleep session".

Before you go to bed, remember to wear your watch. The watch uses its onboard accelerometer to detect movement and combines this with user data from its sensor array to determine when you fall asleep. Devices with built-in thermometers will also sample your body temperature throughout the night, which is used in several other metrics.

Finally, when you wake up in the morning, you can check your sleep data by opening the Samsung Health app on your watch or phone. You can view your sleep score, sleep time, sleep stages, blood oxygen levels, and snoring data. You can also view historical data by tapping the small graph icon at the top-right of the Sleep page.

It is important to note that while the Galaxy Watch is a great tool for tracking your sleep, no fitness tracker is perfectly accurate. Therefore, the sleep data should be used for insight into your fitness and wellness rather than for self-diagnosis. If you have concerns about your sleep or health, it is best to seek advice from a medical professional.

Sleep tracking accuracy

The Samsung Galaxy Watch series can monitor your sleep patterns, including the quality and length of your sleep, and the factors contributing to a good or bad night's sleep. It uses the onboard accelerometer to detect movement and combines this with user data acquired from its sensor array. The watch can also sample your body temperature throughout the night, which is used in several other metrics.

The watch provides a sleep score, showing how long you spent sleeping, as well as your sleep time in hours and minutes, and the calories burned. It also shows how long you spent in various sleep stages, including Awake, REM, Light, and Deep sleep cycles. The watch also tracks your sleep consistency and how it affects your overall health and sleep health. It displays the bedtime and wake-up times of the previous seven days compared to the set targets.

The watch also monitors snoring spells and, when connected to a smartphone, can record audio snippets to help determine how intense the snoring was. The watch can also track your blood oxygen saturation during sleep, providing the minimum saturation percentage and the total time blood oxygen saturation was under 90% during the night. This value is subject to external factors like temperature and the fit of the watch on your wrist, and should not be used for diagnosis but rather an insight into fitness and wellness.

While the watch provides a lot of data, it does not attach a descriptor to the number provided, making it tough to decipher if your score is good, average, or terrible. This changed with the launch of the Galaxy Watch 6 and One UI 5 Watch, which introduced a word-based score to accompany the numeric sleep scores, along with sleep symbols.

User reviews of the sleep tracking accuracy are mixed. Some users have stated that the data matches their experience, with the watch accurately reflecting good and bad nights. One user compared the data to a professional sleep study, finding that the results were extremely accurate. However, other users have found issues, with the watch not registering the time spent in bed before and after sleep, leading to higher sleep numbers than expected. Inaccurate data can be due to the way the watch is worn, with the blood oxygen saturation data being influenced by factors such as temperature and the fit of the watch. Samsung provides troubleshooting steps for users experiencing inaccurate sleep tracking data, including clearing the app cache and reinstalling the app.

Sleep tracking data

The Samsung Galaxy Watch series offers sleep tracking and coaching features to help you understand your sleep patterns and develop healthier sleeping habits. The watch automatically detects when you fall asleep and wakes up, recording your sleep cycles and providing insights into the quality and length of your sleep.

The sleep tracking data provided by the Galaxy Watch includes metrics such as sleep time, sleep score, sleep stages, blood oxygen levels, snoring data, and sleep consistency. The sleep time metric displays the duration of your sleep in hours and minutes, as well as the calories burned during sleep. The sleep stage metric breaks down the time spent in different sleep stages, including Awake, REM, Light, and Deep sleep cycles. The blood oxygen metric shows your blood oxygen saturation percentage, which can be influenced by factors such as temperature and watch fit. Snore detection records the amount of time spent snoring, with the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro also offering waveform diagrams and audio recordings of snoring sessions. Sleep consistency tracks the number of days you achieve your sleep goals within a week.

Historical sleep data can be accessed by tapping the graph icon on the Sleep page, allowing you to view trends over a week, 31 days, or 12 months. The sleep coaching feature provides tailored sleep missions and notifications based on your sleep data and a questionnaire. It aims to improve your nighttime routine by suggesting lifestyle and mindfulness changes over a four-week period.

While the Galaxy Watch provides valuable insights into your sleep patterns, it is important to note that the data should not be used for self-diagnosis. If you have concerns about your sleep or health, it is recommended to seek professional medical advice.

Sleep coaching

The Galaxy Watch is a great sleep tracker. Beyond tracking health metrics and exercises, the device can also monitor your sleep. This includes the quality and length of your sleep and the factors contributing to a good or bad night’s sleep. The watch uses the onboard accelerometer to detect movement and mates this with user data acquired from its sensor array. Devices with built-in thermometers also sample body temperature throughout the night, and this data is used in several other metrics.

The Sleep tile on the Galaxy Watch will detect and calculate your sleep patterns during the night. To use this feature, you’ll need to enable a few things in the Samsung Health app first. Then, wear your watch when it’s time to turn in for the night. Navigate to and open the Samsung Health app on your watch. Swipe to and tap Settings, and then tap the switch next to Blood oxygen during sleep to turn it on. The watch will monitor the type of sleep you’re getting, track your blood oxygen level, and count the calories your body naturally burns off.

The watch will also track your sleep consistency and how it affects your overall health and sleep health. Samsung Health displays the bedtime and wake-up times of the previous seven days compared to the set targets in this section. You can tap the small graph icon at the top right of the Sleep section’s page for a broader look at historical data. Select Sleep time in the drop-down arrow on the left-hand side. You can pick between a week, 31 days, and 12 months.

The sleep coaching settings on the Galaxy Watch can be used to guide you through healthier sleeping patterns and provide reports to help you track your progress. This includes your sleep time, score, stages, blood oxygen, and snoring data. To use the sleep coaching function, you will need to wear your watch for at least seven days and nights. The sleep coaching settings can only be adjusted from the phone, not the watch itself. You will need to answer some questions about your sleep to help determine how best to coach you.

Comparison to other sleep trackers

The Samsung Galaxy Watch is a great sleep tracker, but how does it compare to other sleep trackers on the market?

Firstly, it is important to note that there is no such thing as the best sleep tracker because everyone is different. However, the Galaxy Watch does have some unique features. It uses the onboard accelerometer to detect movement and combines this with user data from its sensor array. It also has a built-in thermometer to sample body temperature throughout the night, which is then used in several metrics. The watch also tracks your sleep consistency and how it affects your overall health and sleep health. It displays the bedtime and wake-up times of the previous seven days compared to set targets. The watch also monitors snoring spells, recording audio snippets and tracking the intensity of snoring.

The Galaxy Watch 6 provides a word-based score to accompany the numeric sleep scores, while also displaying sleep symbols. It also offers a sleep coaching section, which includes sleep stage data in chart and graph form.

Other sleep trackers, such as the Fitbit Inspire 3, provide reliable sleep data and are strong wearables with plenty of features. The Fitbit Sense 2 also performed well at measuring sleep stages in a joint study with Stanford and Seoul National University Bundang Hospital. The Fitbit Premium subscription service also provides deeper sleep insights and a Daily Readiness score. The Google Pixel Watch 2 is another strong competitor, with improved heart rate sensors and strong sleep tracking capabilities. The Apple Watch, although not the best for sleep tracking, performed well in the same study, particularly for measuring sleep efficiency and sleep latency. The Oura Ring 4 is also a competitive sleep tracker, providing a wealth of sleep data and insights, while being lightweight and comfortable.

Frequently asked questions