Apple Watch sleep score became more useful to me with these settings

Apple Watch includes a built-in sleep tracking feature. Just wear your Apple Watch to bed and it will work automatically. No need to install any apps or enter any special mode.

watchOS 26 takes sleep tracking even further with Apple’s Sleep Score feature. The Sleep Score is a great way to visualize your sleep quality from one night to the next. There is one setting in particular that made Sleep Score particularly useful for me.

You can receive sleep score notifications for specific ranges

Sleep Score has been a useful Apple Watch feature for me since it arrived in watchOS 26.

Shortly after launch, Apple further improved Sleep Score by updating its scoring approach based on customer feedback.

Apple Watch can notify you of your sleep score each morning with a notification displaying your data.

I liked getting daily alerts when the sleep score was brand new. This helped me understand how the feature worked and how it measured my sleep.

More recently, I’ve found Sleep Score’s granular notification controls to be a better fit. The sleep score includes five classifications:

• Very low: 0-40
• Weak: 41-60
• ALL RIGHT: 61-80
• High: 81-95
• Very high: 96+

For my part, I decided that I didn’t need notifications for high and very high levels. I think a good night’s sleep should be the norm and hopefully speak for itself.

Instead, I will only be notified of the sleep score if the result is OK, Poor, or Very Poor.

In these cases, I think it is very useful to have this signal in the morning. Then I can think about what may have caused the lower sleep score and hopefully not repeat it.

You can turn specific sleep score range notifications on or off from your iPhone or Apple Watch:

• On iPhone, go to the Watch app, swipe to the Sleep section, then tap Sleep Score Notifications to enable alerts for specific ranges.
• On Apple Watch, go to the Settings app, scroll down to the Sleep section, then tap Sleep Score Notifications to enable alerts for specific ranges.

How sleep score works on Apple Watch

As a reminder, here is how the Apple Watch measures sleep and determines your sleep score:

Your sleep score is calculated based on estimates of sleep duration (50 points), bedtime regularity (30 points), and interruptions (20 points).

Sleep Score requires watchOS 26, which works on Apple Watch Series 6 and later, Apple Watch Ultra and later, and Apple Watch SE 2 and later.

The Apple Watch Series 11 is currently priced at $299 on Amazon, down from the usual price of $399.

Learn more about sleep tracking with Apple Watch here.