The thing that keeps me up at night is trying to understand Apple’s updated Sleep options that interact with Health and Focus in iOS/iPadOS 16 and watchOS 9, with some elements affecting macOS as well. This new relationship among features shouldn’t cause insomnia once you’ve figured out how they interact.
Apple offered an option to set a consistent time for bed and wake in the Alarm app. It also had a Sleep mode available in Focus. Now they’re more closely tied together, using the Health app in iOS as a fulcrum instead of the Alarm app. Health is the only place you can configure details of your intent to sleep certain hours, but you engage or disable the Sleep focus state from any of your devices—iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Watch—that are logged into the same iCloud account if you have Focus set to sync your statuses. Watches have their mode synced to the iPhone that they are paired with.
This is how you break it down between apps:
- Health app (iOS only). Set your bedtime and wake time as one or more schedules.
- Alarm: Adjust your Next scheduled alarm or make a change you apply to the entire schedule the alarm is part of.
- Focus: Schedule the Sleep focus to turn on automatically during your scheduled sleep periods.
Let’s dig in to each of these apps’ relationship to Sleep.
Create a Health Schedule
Instead of using Alarm to determine the time you should get to sleep and the length of your sleep, you can use the Health app on iPhone.
- Tap the BrowseYou will find the button in the lower right corner of the Health App.
- Swipe for the best SleepClick on the Health Categories tab and tap it.
- Tap ScheduleTap to enable, or tap AddIf an entry has already been scheduled.
- You can choose the start and end times that you would like to be in bed. Optionally, tap AlarmYou can also set volume, sound, haptics, volume and snooze.
- Tap Add.
You might want to set different times for weekends and weekdays, or other reasons depending on how you sleep. Perhaps you have to wake up early on Tuesdays or are able to sleep until noon on Thursday and Friday.
Apple automatically tracks certain behavior based on how you interact with the iPhone. Apple Watch tracks movement, heart rate and breathing and can also track noise and other characteristics, depending on the model of your phone. You can view sleep analysis in the Health app’s sleep view.
Alarm management
In the Alarm app, you see the upcoming alarm set by the schedule in Health under “Sleep | Wake Up”. The app displays the time and when it will occur (such as Tomorrow Morning) and has a Change button. You can tap it to adjust the settings for Bedtime, Wake Up, Disable the alarm, change the sounds and actions, as well as set the alarm’s sound and tone.
After making any changes, tap Done. Alarm will prompt you to choose whether you wish to Change Next Alarm only, which causes the changes to revert to the Health schedule, or Change This Schedule which means that your changes are applied back to the Health schedule. Tap to disable the alarm. This Schedule Can Be ModifiedIt will delete the Health schedule. You can tap Cancel.
Focus on your sleep
All Focus modes let you control overrides. The Sleep mode pairs with Health for sleep tracking, so you may want to ditch a Do Not Disturb mode you’ve been using and replace it with a Sleep one for a better understanding of your nighttime behavior. You may not need it if you are able to sleep well and wake up refreshed. Overrides can be set by people or apps, as well as filters.
You will need to go to the Health App if you wish to create a Health Schedule to automatically enable your Sleep Focus. Just tap “Health app” in the Sleep focus as a quick shortcut. You can enable Use Schedule to Sleep Focus in the schedule view of Health. This applies to all schedules.
You can also activate Sleep mode manually from any device. As mentioned earlier, you can activate or disable the Sleep mode from any device by using Focus on your iPhone or Watch. You must enable Share Across Devices for hardware. In iOS/iPadOS go to Settings > Focus. To access macOS 12 Monterey and earlier versions, click here Preferences for the System > Notifications & Focus > Focus. In macOS 13 Ventura, go to System Settings > Focus.
