Apple Watch Diary: Keeping my old Apple Watch as an overnight device

When I bought the S5 ceramic, I said that, for now at least, I would be keeping my old Apple Watch as a dedicated sleep tracker – but wasn’t sure whether I’d continue to do so.

I’m honestly not sure whether I’ll keep this up, but since the watch is worth only slightly more than the trade-in Apple would offer me, I’ll hang onto it for now …

Having done so for a little over a week, I’m now sold on the idea of having both a Day and a Night watch. There are a couple of personal factors which helped sell it to me, but beyond those, I think there are some decent arguments for a low-cost second watch.

Sleep tracking

Admittedly I do have a specific, temporary reason to have a particular interest in sleep-tracking. I got COVID just before Christmas, and my energy has been slow to return. For a time, pretty much all I was doing was working and sleeping, and for several weeks afterwards I was still going to bed in the early evening. Things are slowly improving, but my bedtimes – and actual sleep times – are still very variable, so it’s helpful to have actual data on how much sleep I’m getting.

But beyond that, many of us – perhaps even most – are not getting as much sleep as we ideally should, and without hard data, it’s easy to fool ourselves into thinking we are. So routine sleep-tracking is something I think has ongoing value.

As I found back in 2018, sleep tracking doesn’t necessarily require a second Watch. But it has to be said that it’s much more convenient with two Watches – and there are some affordable options now, discussed below.

I’ve tried a few different sleep trackers, and found that none are 100% reliable at distinguishing sleep from being awake-but-relatively-still. But NapBot, as recommended by my colleague Chance, has been the most reliable. There is an annual subscription, but at $10/year it’s worth it for the better performance.

Silent alarms

I am profoundly grateful for the fact that I don’t need to routinely use an alarm clock. My usual working hours are very civilised, and I work from home, so I can happily allow myself to wake naturally.

But many people do need one, and many need to wake at a different time than their significant other. The ability to silence your night Watch and then be woken by wrist vibrations is something that will be valuable to many.

Including me, temporarily. I’m going to be spending a month in Buenos Aires, and the time-zone difference means I’ll need to wake much earlier than usual – so the silent alarm will, I’m sure, be appreciated by my girlfriend!

Checking the time

I do like the nightstand feature the Apple Watch offers, where you can see the time at a glance – if you are facing that way. If you wake and want to know what time it is when you’re facing away from your bedside table, then it’s much more convenient, and less disturbing to your bedmate, to simply turn your wrist.

Custom complications

If using a single Watch for both day and night use, you can of course have two different faces, with different complications. But, like the disciplined charging regime required to make this work, it’s another bit of effort. Having two Watches let you have appropriate complications for day and night use – even if, as in my case, the only difference is that my night Watch has NapBot as one of them.

Is it worth the cost?

I would never have set out to buy a second Watch to use in this way. In my case, it was discovering from eBay sale prices that my S4 was worth only around £125 – which means that in practice I’d offer it to a friend for £100 ($135). That’s little enough that I decided I might as well keep it.

You can pick up a used older Watch for this kind of money. Or, if you want a new one, get a Series 3 (which we wouldn’t recommend as a primary Watch) for $199, or an SE for $279.

Whether any of these prices are worthwhile depends on how much you value the benefits I’ve described – or how willing you are to make the effort needed to manage your charging schedule to cover full-time use of a single Watch. But for me, I’m sold.

What are your thoughts and experiences of using an Apple Watch overnight? Please let us know in the comments.

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