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Now smartwatches do a whole lot more whether at the gym, in the bedroom, on a mountaintop hike or under the water. Lately I found myself checking out the duration and quality of my sleep more than my exercise, which on some days can be shamefully lacking. The addition of sleep score to Apple Watch has produced some real surprises for me. Unlike running, I’ve always thought of myself as top of the class when it comes to sleep. I’ve never really had trouble getting to sleep and until recently generally sleep through the night. With my job starting at 5am, I like to get to bed early so I can aim for eight hours of sleep. On a good day, I might manage 7. But according to my Apple Watch, my average over the past month has been less than six hours. What is most surprising is my average deep sleep is just 25 minutes, which is a lot lower than I would have thought it would be. Working in the news business, helping to manage digital news coverage from Cairns to the Gold Coast, I have a pretty busy and sometimes stressful job. Some days, you can start at 5am and go flat out for hours. At the end of most days, I try to take the dogs for a decent walk around the neighbourhood or on the beach. I call it my sanity stroll. But even as you hit the pillow, there can be a lot of things still going through your head and lately I find myself waking more at 2am, 3am or 4am. Experts say managing stress is one of the keys to getting good sleep. Sleeping in a darkened room, having a shower or bath before bed, and avoiding large meals or caffeine close to bedtime is also important, as well as leaving distractions such as phones outside the room. For me, getting more exercise, certainly needs to be more of a priority. Using the new Apple Watch Ultra 3, which has an incredible battery life, stunning display, great underwater features for divers, I really have no excuse. Even the Apple Watch Series 11 offers up to 24 hours of battery life, better scratch resistance, and a super comfortable design. The Apple Watch SE 3 also offers health, fitness and safety features including sleep score, wrist temperature sending, and sleep apnoea notifications. The S10 chip allows for always on display, double tap and wrist flick gestures, on device Siri and fast charging. The bigger Apple Watch Ultra 3 has a much better battery life (up to 42 hours of normal or 72 hours in low power mode) meaning you only need to charge it every couple of days. It has built-in satellite communication so you can text to emergency services or share a location when off the grip as well as super accurate GPS. Like the Ultra 2, it has great features for swimming and diving, including showing water temperature, tides and how long you’ve been underwater and at what depth. I’ve also used the Samsung Watch8 Classic for sleep tracking and found its reporting to be super comprehensive. Personally I prefer the look of the Samsung watch but found it is not as good on things like direction notifications when driving. I’ve also found Siri to be more responsive and more reliable in delivering what I want when using the Apple Watch, compared to Google Gemini on the Samsung. The Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 Classic also tracks sleep stages, duration, heart rate and blood oxygen levels. It also can detect snoring and sleep apnoea symptoms. Samsung Health also offers better sleep coaching which analyses a week of your sleep to identify what type of sleeper you are (represented by an animal) before providing a coaching program to help improve your habits. The level of data you can get via such monitoring is pretty incredible. You can see your heart rate, respiratory rate, and even average wrist temperature. Samsung’s watch even helps you check on whether you are eating enough fruit and vegetables, which I am not. (Sorry mum) Apple’s sleep app also includes some good articles on the importance of sleep in helping memory, your immune system, improving your brain’s ability to learn and the different levels of sleep needed. Children, for example, need 9 to 13 hours of sleep, while infants need 12 to 15 hours. If you go into the health app of your phone, you can see all the types of data an Apple Watch can help track, including time in daylight. Children, for example, should have 80 to 120 minutes outside to reduce the risk of myopia or short-sightedness, while for adults even 20 minutes outdoors can have physical and mental health benefits. My average has been 62 minutes a day over the past month and 39 minutes over the past six months. My average for exercise is 34 minutes over the past six months but move total is lower than my goal, so there’s clearly an area for improvement, which may help me getting better quality sleep. One of the new features on Apple Watch Ultra 3 is Workout Buddy, which provides encouragement based on your workout data and fitness history. Using Apple Intelligence and bluetooth headphones or earbuds you can use Workout Buddy with running, walking cycling, hiking, elliptical training, a step stepper, high intensity interval training (HIIT) or functional and traditional strength training. With watchOS 26 and Apple Watch Ultra 3, the new layout of the Workout app makes it easier to use your favourite features. You just tap the icons in the four corners for access to metrics and views as well as experiences like Custom Workout and Pacer, media, Workout Buddy, and alerts. For runners, or those into more serious workouts, you can also track your training load to see how the intensity of your workouts may impact your body over time. One of Apple’s latest videos shows the profound impact of having a watch for fitness, and even saving your life in an emergency situation. My son, who is into marathon running, uses his watch quite a bit to know when to push and when to rest. Apple Watch Ultra 3 also pairs with the popular Strava app, allowing you to see your real-time progress against your personal best. In low power mode you can get p to 72 hours of battery life while for continuous outdoor workout tracking, like multi-day hikes, the premium watch offers 20 hours of battery life with full GPS and heart rate readings. When turning on lower power mode you now can choose for 1, 2 or three days, which is a great option if you are on a trek. For Android users who want a rugged, top-tier watch comparable to the Apple Watch Ultra 3, Samsung offers the Galaxy Watch Ultra. It offers 100 ATM water resistance, though it is not rated for diving like the Apple Watch Ultra, but provides up to 100 hours of battery life, beating Apple’s. Both companies offer really good watches which continue to do more, while offering brighter displays and better battery life. Which one you should get will depend probably more on your phone preference at the time than the watch. Apple Watch Series 11 starts in price from $679, while those on a tighter budget should consider the SE3 which starts at $399. The ‘beast’ Watch Ultra 3 starts at $1399. Samsung’s Galaxy Watch8 starts at $649, Watch8 Classic, which I have been loving, is $899 while Galaxy Watch Ultra retails from $1299. ***The journalist received these watches on loan
