Last updated Sunday, October 4, 2026. Every capability below is in the current build for iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch, with the mechanism that produces it.
| Capability | Mechanism | How to verify |
| Night selection by session clustering | Samples are grouped into sessions on gaps longer than 90 minutes; last night is the most recent session of 3 hours or more that ended within the last day. Shorter sessions are naps. | Take a 40-minute afternoon nap: it appears under Naps and last night's total is unchanged. |
| One recorder per night | When several sources wrote the same session to Apple Health, the source with the most staged sleep is used, then the most asleep time. The others are set aside and named in a footnote. | Run another sleep app that writes to Apple Health alongside the watch: last night's total matches the watch alone. |
| "Not recorded" instead of zero | Per-stage totals are shown only when at least 50% of asleep time carries a stage. Otherwise deep, REM and core read "not recorded". On a staged night, an absent stage is a measured zero and reads 0m. | A night recorded without Sleep Focus shows "not recorded" for deep and REM. |
| Efficiency and wakings | Efficiency is asleep time divided by time from sleep onset to final waking. A waking is an awake stretch of 5 minutes or more after onset. | Shown on the Last night card. |
| Hypnogram | Awake, REM, Core and Deep each on their own row across the night, drawn from the session's samples. | Tonight screen, "The shape of the night". |
| Verdict | Fires when | Action for tonight |
| Short night | Asleep 45 minutes or more under your own median | Be asleep earlier by the shortfall |
| Long night | Asleep 45 minutes or more over your median | None |
| Late bedtime | Sleep onset more than 1 hour after your circular median onset | Wind down at your usual hour |
| Broken night | 3 or more wakings of 5 minutes or more | Dark, cool room; no alcohol within 3 hours of bed |
| Low deep sleep | Deep under 10% of asleep time, staged nights only | Earlier bedtime |
| Breathing elevated | Apple's own breathing disturbances classification reads elevated | If it repeats, show your doctor |
| Stages missing or partial | No stage data, or under 50% staged | None needed |
| Steady | Nothing else fires | None |