Apple may have accidentally revealed a Sleep app for the Apple Watch

Since the Apple Watch first came out, Apple has positioned it as a health and fitness tracker. But one thing it still can’t do natively is track your sleep. Right now, if you want to track your sleep, you’ll have to download a third-party app. That might change soon, though, as an App Store listing for Apple’s Alarms app for Apple Watch references an unreleased Sleep app:

Based on the short description in the screenshot, it sounds as if you’ll be able to set your bedtime and wake-up time in the Sleep app, similar to how you can currently set those times in the iPhone’s Clock app. It seems likely that the Sleep app would take this a step further, though, presumably by tracking your sleep patterns to gently wake you up at the most optimal time before your designated alarm, like other apps do.

For years, it’s been rumored that Apple is adding sleep tracking to the Apple Watch, and in 2017, Apple signaled an increased interest in it by acquiring sleep-tracking hardware maker Beddit. Apple has treated Beddit similar to Beats, though, keeping the brand name alive since the acquisition. Beddit even released a new sleep tracker in December 2018.

In early September, we got a hint that sleep tracking might finally show up on the Apple Watch soon, based on “sources inside Apple” who spoke with 9to5Mac. The feature, apparently called “Time in Bed tracking,” may track your quality of sleep based on information picked up by the Apple Watch’s many sensors. The feature didn’t materialize at Apple’s September 2019 event, but perhaps, given the mention of a “Sleep” app in an official Apple screenshot, we might see it in a watchOS update sometime soon.