Kaitlyn Cimino / Android Authority
TL;DR
- The Apple Watch may soon display a comprehensive score based on your sleep.
- The purported feature, which could be a basic sleep score or a readiness score, is already available on a host of Wear OS watches, including the Galaxy Watch and Pixel Watch.
- The sleep-related score could fill the gap created by the removal of SpO2 monitoring from the Apple Watch.
Smartwatches across the board bill sleep tracking as one of the vital features, and the number of metrics used to gauge it typically increases with price. Certain Wear OS smartwatches, such as the Galaxy Watch and OnePlus Watch series, also display a daily sleep score to recap the metrics without requiring a detailed review. And now, it appears that the Apple Watch may be catching up with these watches and gaining similar functionality.
Under piles of code in the iOS 26 beta, MacRumors has spotted an image and some references that hint at a sleep score functionality. The picture shows the outline of an Apple Watch with the number “84” displayed on the screen, while the Watch is surrounded by symbols that directly point to a feature associated with sleep.
Inside the image, the number is surrounded by a ring with arcs made from different colors. These colors are identical to those used by the Apple Watch to display the stages of sleep, including different shades of purple for light and deep sleep, blue for REM sleep, and a warm red to show the duration of moments when you were awake at night. The different colors used for the ring suggest it could display portions for these different sleep phases similar to a pie chart.
The feature is currently labelled as “Watch Focus Score,” which also suggests Apple might be looking beyond a basic sleep score and instead integrating the equivalent of the readiness score shown on Samsung or Fitbit watches. The Apple Watch already displays health and recovery-related data through its Vitals app and its 28-day training load, and a readiness score could make the package more comprehensive.
The inclusion is also pertinent for the US, where Apple has been forced to disable its blood oxygen (SpO2) monitoring sensor on the Apple Watch, as another tech company, Masimo, claims a patent on the underlying technology. Since Apple Watch models already offer comprehensive sleep tracking, we can expect older watches to receive support, as well. However, we cannot completely overrule the possibility that Apple is only testing the feature and may not release it for the Apple Watch until a few more generations.