{"id":418638,"date":"2026-01-19T04:10:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T04:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/418638\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T04:10:19","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T04:10:19","slug":"apple-watch-sleep-tracking-needs-an-iphone-backup-alarm-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/418638\/","title":{"rendered":"Apple Watch Sleep Tracking Needs an iPhone Backup Alarm Too"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\" title=\"apple watch sleep score.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/apple-watch-sleep-score.jpg\" alt=\"apple watch sleep score\" width=\"707\" height=\"574\" border=\"0\"\/><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3NhGXmk\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">For many Apple Watch users<\/a>, the promise of a gentle haptic vibration on the wrist is a welcome alternative to a blaring bedside alarm when using the wearable\u2019s Sleep Tracking feature. However, some users are discovering a frustrating downside: it is too easy to turn off the alarm while still asleep.<\/p>\n<p>The Problem: Silent Oversleeping<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\" title=\"apple watch wake up.png\" alt=\"Apple watch wake up.\" width=\"440\" height=\"488\" border=\"0\" class=\"perfmatters-lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/apple-watch-wake-up.png\"\/><\/p>\n<p>When you set a Sleep Schedule in the Health app on iPhone, the system defaults to waking you up via your Apple Watch when it\u2019s worn during sleep. The watch uses quiet \u201ctaps\u201d on your wrist (haptics).<\/p>\n<p>While this is designed to be a peaceful start to the day, some users find they are subconsciously tapping the watch face to silence the alarm without ever fully waking up. Because the iPhone remains silent when the watch is worn, there is no secondary backup to ensure you actually get out of bed. Have an important meeting or an exam first thing? Yeah, you might want to set up a backup alarm.<\/p>\n<p>A History of Sleep Tracking<\/p>\n<p>Apple officially introduced native Sleep Tracking with watchOS 7 in 2020. Before this, users had to rely on third-party apps to monitor their rest.<\/p>\n<p>To get the new Sleep Score in watchOS 26?<\/p>\n<p>You need an Apple Watch Series 6 or later, Apple Watch SE (2nd generation or later), and all Apple Watch Ultra<br \/>\nThe watch must be worn to bed with at least 30% battery life (or you will receive a reminder to charge it before sleep).<\/p>\n<p>The Workaround: How to Ensure You Wake Up<\/p>\n<p>Until Apple adds a feature to trigger both devices simultaneously, there is a simple manual fix. You can bypass the Sleep Schedule\u2019s \u201csilent\u201d alarm by creating a traditional one.<\/p>\n<p>Open the Clock app on your iPhone.<br \/>\nTap Alarms and create a new, independent alarm.<br \/>\nSet your desired days and a loud ringtone.<br \/>\nThe Trick: Set this alarm for one minute before your Sleep Schedule wake-up time.<\/p>\n<p>This ensures your phone will make noise regardless of what you do with your watch in your sleep.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\" title=\"apple watch sleep schedule.png\" alt=\"Apple watch sleep schedule.\" width=\"440\" height=\"488\" border=\"0\" class=\"perfmatters-lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/apple-watch-sleep-schedule.png\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\u201cSubconsciously in my sleep, I just tap this to turn it off. That has caused me to oversleep,\u201d said one annoyed iPhone in Canada reader who recently started sleep tracking with his Apple Watch. \u201cApple should add an option for the iPhone alarm\u2026to go off at the same time as the Apple Watch.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Many Apple Watch users agree that sleep tracking should trigger a backup alarm on the iPhone. However, with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.iphoneincanada.ca\/2026\/01\/12\/apple-confirms-google-gemini-will-power-the-next-ai-siri\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Apple currently focused on integrating Google\u2019s Gemini just to make Siri actually smart<\/a>, a fix for this specific alarm flaw likely isn\u2019t at the top of their priority list. For now, the best course of action is for frustrated users to submit feedback directly to Apple and hope for a future software update.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For many Apple Watch users, the promise of a gentle haptic vibration on the wrist is a welcome&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418639,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[49,48,195,61],"class_list":{"0":"post-418638","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-gadgets","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-gadgets","11":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}