Best smartwatches for sleep tracking in 2024

Fitness trackers and smartwatches have come a long way in recent years, even tracking sleep and providing important details about the way our body rests. While fitness trackers have long offered activity tracking and heart rate metrics, multitasking sleep-tracking smartwatches are now entering the scene to provide nuanced nighttime stats.

Luckily, there are a good few companies that have managed to make great smartwatches that provide in-depth metrics on sleep cycles and stages, like the models on this list. For now that doesn’t include the Samsung Galaxy Watch 7, but we’re hard at work reviewing Samsung’s latest and will update this ranking once we know how its sleep tracking tech holds up to the competition in practice.

Rest easy with these smartwatches with sleep tracking

The Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 easily ranks above the pack when it comes to sleep tracking and overall performance in the smartwatch category. Building off the successful features of the Galaxy Watch 5 (which was previously highlighted on this list), the Galaxy Watch 6 performs just like its predecessor.

The hardware itself even looks similar to the last generation but with some minor differences. Its shape allows for more precise monitoring, something you’ll find great for tracking your sleep. And Samsung’s sleep-tracking function also activates automatically, so sleep can be tracked without pushing buttons.

The Galaxy Watch 6 will provide detailed sleep cycle data, including time spent in each sleep stage, including REM, light sleep, and deep sleep. The Samsung Health App also gives you a slew of other useful information to dig into, making it easy to reflect on just how well you slept the night before. If you’re looking for a great smartwatch that’s also fantastic at tracking your sleep, the Galaxy Watch 6 is the device you’ve been looking for.

Samsung has consistently found itself among the top echelon of smartwatch design. The 40mm Galaxy Watch 4 is a fantastic pick for sleep tracking as a result. The watch is very similar in function and build to the newer Galaxy Watch 6, but it utilizes a flatter sensor design that doesn’t fit quite as securely on the wrist. The 40mm offering weighs just 25.9 grams, making it one of the sleekest smartwatches on this list: Perfect for sleep tracking, especially if you’re someone who tosses and turns at night.

As with many other smartwatches, the Galaxy Watch 4 provides continuous heart rate monitoring and VO2 data. It’s a high-quality fitness tracker that can take readings while participating in gym sessions, road or treadmill runs, and swimming. As a sleep tracker, the smartwatch automatically detects your sleep and offers insight into the sleep stages you experience throughout the night alongside an overall sleep score for a transparent understanding of your results.

The Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 and 6 pack a few updates, including a Sapphire Crystal Glass display and boosted battery life, but the Galaxy Watch 4 is still a serious contender, and currently better value than the Watch 5. If you’re looking for a budget pick that still offers a wealth of health tracking data and sleep metrics, you might want to jump on this quickly before it’s removed from Samsung’s storefront for good.

In the same way that other Garmin watches offer unrivaled running and exercise tracking functionality paired with GPS systems that ensure you never get lost, the Epix Pro is a fabulous smartwatch for hikers and backpackers. The niche user profile and the Epix Pro’s high price tag ensure that this isn’t a purchase for the casual user. Still, this smartwatch is a fantastic sleep tracker for wearers who intend to utilize the deep catalog of tracking statistics and functions provided under the glass.

The Epix Pro offers a battery life of up to 16 days on a single charge; this makes it an excellent trail companion. It will go the distance and provide detailed information on both your progress toward an outdoor expeditionary goal and the sleep you’re getting along the way. Wearers gain constant health metric monitoring, including endurance tracking, training readiness, and heart rate calculations.

The watch also tracks stress and altitude exposure effects and offers insight into sleep and rest regimens aimed at defeating jet lag. The sleep monitoring features provide recovery details, a sleep score, sleep stage breakdowns, and blood oxygen saturation.

The watch is water-resistant to 10 atmospheres of pressure, placing it as a leader in this category. However, the 78-gram weight and 14.6mm depth of the watch (in its middle, 47mm build) make the Epix Pro a hefty wear for those chasing nighttime comfort.

Garmin makes great smartwatches, but not all of them are necessarily built the same way, which is a good way to describe the Venu 3, a high-end model with a vibrant display and plenty of tech underneath. It’s an ideal mix of design and functionality in that it doesn’t come in too big a size, yet still offers the same kind of tracking Garmin is known for, of which sleep is an integral part.

The Venu series has long been focused on meeting lifestyle with training, and this watch finds a way to bring the best of both together into an effective tracker to keep tabs on all activity. That includes a wide array of exercises when you want to stay active, giving you detailed breakdowns in the Garmin Connect app, along with options to start workout and training regimens straight from the app as well. Sleep tracking isn’t just for overnight because the Venu 3 will also know when you’re napping, adding to the deeper sleep coaching insights in the device.

The beauty of all this is you won’t have to reach for a charger all the time. Garmin delivers outstanding battery life with this watch, going up to two weeks before you need to recharge it. Part of the reason for that is because the Venu 3 lacks tighter integration with third-party apps — and there’s no LTE variant — but it’s hard to find a smartwatch that can last that long anywhere else.

Like its predecessor proved, the Google Pixel Watch 2 stands out as another solid choice for sleep tracking. It’s pricier than its predecessor was, so you have to consider that, but the advantages can make this a good value proposition. It’s still lightweight and feathery to wear, owing partly to its one 41mm size and svelte body relative to some of the other larger watches available.

This watch comes with a 306 mAh battery that offers roughly the same uptime as the Galaxy Watch 6 but also has better storage capacity (2 GB RAM and 32 GB Flash memory) and a purer version of Wear OS. It’s the biggest reason why Google’s own apps and utilities blend in so seamlessly into the system, including with built-in NFC, notifications, and Google Assistant among Google’s suite of tools.

Technically speaking, the Pixel Watch 2 is already capable, but the key element in all the integrations here is how sleep tracking works directly with the health monitoring technology designed by Fitbit. You will need a Fitbit Premium subscription to get more of the sleep coaching and analytics involved with tracking your slumber, but the Fitbit app is easy to use and understand, helping guide you to improved sleep habits when you need them.

You’ll also need to ensure the watch is charged to at least 30% to monitor your sleep with the device. The Pixel Watch 2 will automatically detect your sleep, meaning there are no additional steps you have to take to monitor nightly tossing and turning once you set it all up.

The OnePlus Watch 2 holds up well among this group. The watch is a 47mm affair, meaning it’s larger on the wrist than many of the other smartwatches noted here. You’ll also notice it from the side profile of the device, yet OnePlus found ways to make it comfortable to wear over longer stretches.

Its biggest perk is the superb battery life that can last up to four days per charge, easily beating out all other Wear OS smartwatches. Moreover, it charges fast, hitting 100% from empty in less than an hour. Plus, the charger detaches, so it’s easy to take with you when you travel and just use any USB-C cable you have handy. This is great when you want to wear your watch throughout the day and keep it actively tracking sleep at night.

The Watch 2 delivers consistent sleep tracking with the OHealth displaying the details for falling asleep, waking up, and sleep stages. Sleep quality figures into an overall stress score out of 100 based on data from heart rate variability and what it considers “physiological parameters.” It may be hard to fully understand what the stress tracking metrics actually mean, but sleep data is easier to interpret, with OHealth offering a few suggestions on what can help improve poor sleep quality.

This is a pretty robust watch, generally, equipped with solid internal components and set to benefit from the best Wear OS 4 can offer. OnePlus chose to put its own flavor on the interface, which includes a different app launcher, but there are also ways to customize it to look closer to other Wear OS models. Health and fitness tracking features come with some inconsistencies that OnePlus could potentially address with software updates, including making the digital crown actually do something when rotating it. Despite the hiccups, the OnePlus Watch 2 is a slick device that works with any Android phone.

If you’re tired of the distracting massive displays found on other fitness trackers and smartwatches, the Withings ScanWatch 2 is exactly what you’re looking for. This smartwatch blends analog and digital design seamlessly, offering detailed sleep tracking and other fitness features without bogging you down with distracting and bright displays.

The smartwatch is designed to do everything that others do, and it’ll more than stand up to the Galaxy Watch 6 when it comes to how it tracks your sleep pattern and other health metrics. The battery here is also exceptional, lasting a full 30 days in between charges. So, if you’re looking for a great fitness tracker to monitor your sleeping patterns, and don’t want to worry about charging it a lot, the ScanWatch 2 is hard to ignore.

Finally, the Fitbit Sense 2 is a smartwatch from one of the pioneers of wrist-worn fitness tracking. Fitbit’s smartwatch option focuses on stress, well-being, and, of course, great sleep.

The Sense 2 offers sleep stage monitoring as well as automatic sleep tracking that provides a nightly sleep score and sleep profile for better insight into regular sleep habits and patterns. This Fitbit smartwatch is rounded out with a smart wake alarm that gently rouses you with a vibration-based wake-up call during the optimal sleep phase for the most refreshing result possible.

In addition to sleep metrics, the Fitbit Sense 2 offers stress tracking functions and, for premium subscription users, provides a stress management score (much like the sleep score that helps demystify achieving a great night’s sleep). Additional health tracking functions include a skin temperature sensor and heart rate variability (HRV) monitoring to identify potential over-training for peak rest, body and heart health, and mental harmony.

The watch’s slim profile makes it a great sleep-tracking option, and the battery offers both a 12-minute charge for a full day’s worth of use and a 6-day lifespan when replenished to full power. The watch’s dimensions measure out to a minuscule 38mm face by an 11.43mm depth. These are some of the smallest dimensions among sleep-tracking smartwatches to provide a comfortable night’s wear for all sleepers. When connected to your smartphone, the Sense 2 can be utilized for calls, the Find My Phone function, Alexa requests, and app notifications and messaging.

The best smartwatches for sleep tracking

To wear a smartwatch is to make your life a little easier every day. Stay in touch with friends and family, while also tracking your daily health through effective monitoring functions are only getting more sophisticated with these devices when they’re part of our daily routines. Ultimately, choosing the best smartwatch for sleep tracking will also depend on what else you need that smartwatch to do.

If you want expert-level sleep tracking in a sleek and powerful device, then Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 6 is the obvious choice, especially because of the various smartwatch and fitness tracking features that it offers — the only reason to skip it would be to buy the newer Watch 7, which we’re in the process of testing out. Meanwhile, those who don’t mind a more elaborate feature set might like the Garmin Venu 3 as a great option because it’s excellent at tracking all of your fitness needs, as well as your sleep patterns, with detailed reporting and in-depth information.

Finally, those looking for a good deal will find that the older, but still great Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 is a good choice. It’s reliable for tracking sleep, but it still looks great and continues to be considered one of the best smartwatches you can buy on the market right now.