Garmin’s sleep tracking powers are about to be considerably bolstered with a new software tool, according to the latest rumors – and this is something the purportedly imminent Garmin Venu 3 watch may also benefit from.
As spotted by Android Central, this speculation comes from The5KRunner (who credits leaker @JohnW for the revelations), and the contention is that Garmin has a new ‘Sleep Coaching’ system in the pipeline.
The idea is to offer tailored feedback on your sleep quality, working off a personal baseline (based on past sleep data). We’re told there will be an emphasis on HRV insights (heart rate variability, used to detect stress levels) to provide recommendations to improve your overall health and wellness.
For active types, workout and exercise data will apparently be incorporated into this overall picture, and will factor into sleep recommendations going forward. Broadly, as the name suggests, the feature will be about coaching you into better sleep habits, and will also apparently appear in the very handy Morning Report.
The new system will also facilitate nap tracking, and be able to cope with tracking your sleep in the day, if you have an irregular sleep schedule for whatever reason – allowing body battery data to be updated based on those daytime rest periods, too. That's a feature that many Garmin fans have been crying out for.
Speaking of irregular sleep, the leaker also suggests that Garmin’s coach will be underlining the importance of keeping a consistent sleep pattern wherever possible, as this is “scientifically shown” to lead to a better quality of sleep. We certainly wouldn’t argue with that.
Analysis: A promising feature – if it comes to older watches
Building out sleep functionality seems like a great move to us. I have a Garmin Venu 2S and find the sleep ratings pretty handy, though I take them with a serious pinch of seasoning, being aware that it’s not always that accurate (in my experience). Just looking at sleep evaluations relative to my past records, though, is a useful practice.
And, of course, this is pretty much what Garmin is doing here – getting a virtual sleep coach to do that for you, and perform a much more in-depth job, integrating fully with your workout and daily activity details.
Will this sleep coach be AI powered? It's possible, but we don’t know and AI isn’t actually mentioned anywhere in the leak. Still, you can’t have anything new these days without putting AI into it, right?
With this feature seemingly imminent, and the Garmin Venu 3 theoretically turning up next month, it makes sense to put two and two together and conclude that the Venu 3 will likely have this functionality. There’s no guarantee of that, of course, and given the reliance on heart-rate variance insights, it may be limited to relatively recent Garmin watches.
Still, whenever it arrives, the hope is that this Sleep Coach will be retroactively applied to Garmin watches that can theoretically support it, like the Garmin Venu 2 (which tops the list of the best Garmin watches) and my Venu 2S, of course. Time will tell...
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