For years, I took off my Apple Watch every night before bed.
I always slept with the battery charging so that I could start the next day with a full battery.
But if you want to get the most out of Apple’s new Vitals app, says Dr. Sumbal Desai, that needs to change.
“Physiologically, your body goes into a basal state during sleep,” Apple’s vice president of health explained in a call with 9news.com.au.
“This will generate your best baseline over a period of several weeks, and then when you see that two or more indicators are wrong, you will actually see the numbers change.”
A beta version of the app is now available for early adopters, but for most Apple Watch owners, the new Vitals app will appear later this year when watchOS 11 rolls out.
The update will add a suite of new features, including the ability to translate 20 languages on your wrist, double-pinch to scroll, and data that tracks your “training load” so you can better understand the intensity of a workout and how it affects your body and recovery.
By comparison, the new Vitals app is a new way to interact with the old data that the Apple Watch has been measuring for years, including a person’s heart rate, respiratory rate, wrist temperature, blood oxygen levels, and sleep quality.
The secret is to combine this data in one place.
“There’s never a better time to sleep with your Apple Watch,” says Dr. Desai.
“The idea is that by putting these metrics together, we can give you a daily health status and that will hopefully give you more actionable insights into how you’re living your daily life.”
“You will be alerted if two or more measurements are out of range. For example, if your heart rate and wrist temperature are elevated, this could be due to illness, alcohol consumption or your menstrual cycle.”
“We would then warn you and report these things.”
“We’re not telling you to go get treatment. What we’re saying is, ‘Hey, maybe this is weird.'”
Lexie Northcott ignored warnings about her slow heart rate for a year before the 16-year-old discovered she had complete heart block.
According to Dr. Sumbal Desai, stories like Lexie’s are what continue to motivate Apple to focus on health.
“We really feel this deep responsibility to impact people’s health because we have the honor of being with you all the time.”
“Apple never sees this data, it is encrypted on your device.”
“So the idea is that it’s a partner in your health and that it keeps you informed at all times so that you can make more concrete and more informed decisions.”