Garmin's nap tracking isn't perfect, but it's about to get a lot better

By Cat Ellis
published

You should soon be able to tweak naps once they've been recorded, and delete ones logged accidentally

Man asleep on exercise bike
(Image credit: Getty Images)

Garmin should soon be upgrading its nap tracking, giving you control over the way your daytime snoozes are logged. 

Naps are an important part of many athletes' training plans (Eliud Kipchoge says he regularly takes a two-hour nap during the day), but until recently, Garmin watches were unable to detect them. That all changed last year, when nap tracking arrived alongside Sleep Coaching as part of a new suite of recovery tools.

The new feature detects when you nod off for more than a few minutes outside your established sleep window (the period between which you normally go to bed and get up). This data is incorporated into your nightly 'sleep need' estimate, which gives you an idea of how long you should aim to rest to recover from your recent exertions.

It's a great idea in theory, and I've been impressed with how well it works with my Garmin Fenix 7S, but it's not perfect and some watch owners have found it too sensitive, logging naps that didn't actually happen. This was an issue I experienced while testing the new Garmin Forerunner 165, which had a tendency to detect naps when I was sitting still but definitely awake (including one when I was visiting the dentist).

It's not an enormous issue, but with no way to delete or edit logged naps, or turn off nap tracking, it can be frustrating and makes sleep coaching less useful than it could be.

Smarter napping

Garmin listened to its customers' concerns, and a spokesperson on the company's forums confirmed that automatic nap detection had been improved in Q1 software updates.

Now though, it looks like things will be getting even better. The author of sports tech blog the5krunner has received a tip-off that watch owners will soon be able to edit recorded naps, and even delete ones that they don't want to keep.

Details are scant so far, but it's likely that the improved feature will be rolled out to members of Garmin's public beta testing program first, so any bugs can be ironed out before general release. If you're interested in trying this and other updates first, take a look at our guide how to join Garmin's public beta testing program to find out how.

Cat Ellis
Cat Ellis
Editor

Cat is the editor of Advnture, She’s been a journalist for 15 years, and was fitness and wellbeing editor on TechRadar before joining the Advnture team in 2022. She’s a UK Athletics qualified run leader, and in her spare time enjoys nothing more than lacing up her shoes and hitting the roads and trails (the muddier, the better), usually wearing at least two sports watches.