Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 are the company's latest smartwatches
Apple Encourages You to Wear Its Watch to Bed
We learnt in an interview with Apple's VP of Health, Dr. Sumbul Desai, that wearing the Apple Watch while you sleep will be the key to utilizing the advantages of the company's upcoming Vitals app for Apple Watch. This may not seem natural for everyone.
Apple has always taken health very seriously. In addition to being the creator of the wildly successful Apple Watch and the Health app, a digital folder that houses all the data your gadgets gather, Apple also conducts continuous study into important health topics and societal trends.
Vitals, a daily summary of the health metrics the Apple Watch measures (heart rate, blood oxygen, skin temperature, sleep information, and respiration rate) when your body is at rest, is where it all comes together. These measurements may be the most informative.
Vitals will alert you if two or more of your health measurements, or "vitals," are a bit out from what is normal for you. According to Desai, Apple used clinical guidelines for messages or warnings to aberrations that may need further explanation, as well as data from its own Heart and Movement research, to build up this capability.
For Desai, "so much of your health is invisible," CNET said. "This daily health status is almost like a little bit of a snapshot of your health overnight."
Apple is attempting to become your go-to sleep partner by taking that photo, maybe in an effort to compete with the rise of smart rings and the simplicity with which they can be worn to bed as opposed to smartwatches. This is how it will operate.
Why Apple Encourages You to Wear Your Watch to Bed
Going to bed with Watch is the "biggest behavior change" that most users will need to make, according to Desai, to get the most out of Vitals. Residing securely away from the stresses, activities, and movements of the day that might affect health metrics like as heart rate or temperature, health data gathered throughout the night can provide you with a more comprehensive view of your "basal" condition, as Desai puts it.
"To make your Apple Watch data work for you, you'll need to sleep with it," Desai said.
If an Apple Watch is your preferred wearable for tracking sleep, then some individuals may already be sleeping with it, but for others, a less bulky wearable like the Oura Ring may be more tempting for sleep. With the recent release of the Galaxy Ring, the latter has taken the lead in the smart ring boom, which is only going to become bigger.
Vitals sounds a lot like the Oura's Readiness Score, which is designed to assist individuals get ready for the day ahead with recommendations based on their own health information. Those who are familiar with the Oura Ring may notice this. Another well-known sleep tracker that includes a comparable feature is Fitbit. According to Desai, the purpose of Apple's Vital app is to demonstrate "how you compare to baselines," not to offer a precise number or score. "We compare you against you."
The Vitals feature offers a quicker and more comprehensive method to access the data Apple has been gathering all along, in addition to focusing in on sleep and depending more on data gathered when at rest. According to Desai, it may also be useful for understanding training load, which is an additional capability Apple revealed along with WatchOS 11. Training load scores the sort of effort you're putting in using information like your heart rate, pace, and elevation.
"There's never been a better time to sleep with your Apple Watch," Desai stated.
How an Apple Notification a Day Can Boost Your Well-Being
You will receive a notification informing you if your health data exhibits two or more deviations, which are abnormalities when compared to your "normal" values. The notification will also provide some context for the potential causes of the deviations.
For example, if you are in the post-ovulation phase of your menstrual cycle and you drink alcohol, your body temperature may rise. As another example, cutting less on caffeine or taking medicine may have an impact on how long you sleep or how quickly your heart rate rises. Other frequent life events, like as being ill or going to a higher altitude, might also have an impact on the subtle data that the Apple Watch gathers.
All of this to suggest that, according to Desai, Vitals isn't supposed to be a feature that will send you to the doctor at random and that each person's health data and the unique elements that feed this data should be taken in context. Every alert is predicated on data gathered from users who must voluntarily enroll via the Research App as part of Apple's ongoing Heart and Movement Study, which is carried out in collaboration with the American Heart Association and Harvard's Brigham and Women's Hospital. Along with a layer of clinical knowledge, demographic data from Apple customers helps guide Vitals for "when these metrics are off and how often they're off," according to Desai.
"We don't use language like 'You need to go talk to a doctor,'" she clarified, referencing Vitals. "We take great care to avoid making you wait in line for medical attention."
Apple has two additional studies, both on public health topics that overlap with features the Apple Watch can partially track: reproductive health (the Apple Watch can retroactively identify ovulation because temperature rises very slightly in the second half of a menstrual cycle) and hearing health (the device has noise notifications for when things may be too loud). These studies are in addition to Apple's years-long initiative to study cardiovascular health and activity.
Although the Vitals feature is not a particularly novel idea in wearables, it is Apple's most recent attempt to place personalized data in a more comprehensive, quantitative health context.
Regarding the messaging system that powers Vitals, Desai remarked, "We really thought through when do we want to notify you and how do we want to notify you."
"We want to ensure that when we inform you, it's for a valid cause and that it's actionable."