Apple Watch’s New Vitals App: A Step Towards In-Depth Sleep Tracking
Apple’s upcoming watchOS 11 introduces the Vitals app, a significant addition to the Apple Watch’s health-tracking capabilities. Inspired by the popular Oura Ring, the Vitals app aims to provide users with valuable insights into their health by measuring key metrics during sleep: heart rate, respiratory rate, sleep duration, and blood oxygen levels.
When you wake up, the Vitals app presents all these data points together, providing a comprehensive status report on your sleep health. If any of the metrics fall outside the expected range, the app will alert you, prompting you to take a closer look and potentially consult with a healthcare professional.
The Vitals app leverages data from the Apple Heart and Movement Study, which collected real-world data from over 200,000 participants. This extensive dataset has allowed Apple to train the Vitals algorithm to recognize unusual patterns and provide meaningful insights.
Based on my experience with the Oura Ring, the data collected during sleep can be incredibly revealing. It can help you understand your immediate state of health, identify trends, and make informed decisions about your well-being. For example, if your heart rate is elevated and your respiratory rate is lower than usual, it could indicate stress or the onset of an illness.
While I’m excited about the Vitals app and Apple’s continued push into improved sleep tracking, I’m disappointed that one important metric is missing: heart rate variability (HRV). HRV is a measure of the time between each heartbeat, and it can provide valuable insights into your overall health and stress levels. Its absence means that the Vitals app may not be able to entirely replace the Oura Ring as the sleep-tracking champion.
Despite this omission, I’m eager to try out the Vitals app and see how it compares to the Oura Ring. Apple’s sleep tracking has improved significantly in recent years, and Vitals looks set to take it a step further. However, only time will tell if it can truly become a better sleep tracker than the Oura Ring. One thing is for sure: the Vitals app has the potential to empower Apple Watch users with a deeper understanding of their health and well-being, ultimately helping them make informed choices about their lifestyle.
