Head to head
AutoSleep vs Pillow
Two Apple Watch sleep apps with the same input and completely different opinions about how much you should be shown.
In short
AutoSleep suits the person who wants every number and no recurring bill. Pillow suits the person who wants the night caught automatically and presented calmly, then written properly into Apple Health.
Both of these want the Watch on your wrist, so start with your charging habit
AutoSleep needs an Apple Watch and Pillow needs one for the tracking people recommend it for. Neither has anything to say about a night you spent with the Watch on a charger.
If you can't reliably wear it overnight, this whole comparison is the wrong one and you should be looking at apps that read the room instead.
AutoSleep hands you everything and trusts you to sort it out
It's genuinely hands-off: wear the Watch, get the night, do nothing else. What arrives in the morning is a famously dense set of readouts, with Watch-derived heart rate and readiness detail a phone on a nightstand could never produce.
It's also a one-time purchase rather than a subscription, which is a real argument if recurring bills are the thing you resent.
Pillow bets that you want to do nothing at all
Pillow detects when you fell asleep without you starting anything, ships a real Apple Watch app, and round-trips deeply into Apple Health in both directions. Nights don't go missing because you forgot a button.
It's the calmer room of the two, and it runs on iPad as well as iPhone and Watch.
Which side you land on comes down to appetite
The density that makes AutoSleep beloved is the same density that makes people quit it. If a wall of readouts makes you curious, you'll enjoy every morning. If it makes you tired, you'll stop opening it inside a fortnight.
Pillow shows you less and asks less. Neither of those is the better product, they're just aimed at different people.
| What we compared | AutoSleep | Pillow |
|---|---|---|
| Effort each night | Wear the Watch, nothing else (about the same) | Detected automatically (about the same) |
| How much you are shown | Famously dense (stronger here) | Shaped and calmer |
| Heart rate and readiness | A whole language of it (stronger here) | Not what it leads with |
| Apple Health round-tripping | Reads your Watch data | Deep, in both directions (stronger here) |
| Devices | iPhone and Apple Watch | iPhone, Watch and iPad (stronger here) |
| Waking you up | Not an alarm clock (about the same) | Tracking comes first (about the same) |
| Your first week | A lot to take in | Quieter to settle into (stronger here) |
| A night without the Watch | Nothing to show (about the same) | Nothing to show (about the same) |
Which one to actually install
Pick AutoSleep if
AutoSleep is for people who like numbers and dislike subscriptions. Hands-off, deep on Watch-derived heart rate and readiness, and a one-time purchase rather than another monthly line.
Pick Pillow if
Pillow is for people who want the night handled. It detects when you drifted off without you starting anything, it has a real Watch app, and it round-trips into Apple Health more thoroughly than most.
Questions people ask
Can I use either without an Apple Watch?
Not in the way they're meant to be used. The Watch is the sensor in both cases, and without it there's very little for either app to read.
Which is better if my partner snores?
Neither is sold as a snore recorder. Both read your wrist rather than the room, so if snoring is the question, you're in the wrong category of app.
Do they conflict if I install both?
They'll both be reading the same Watch data, and both may want to write a night into Apple Health. Pick one to be the writer and you'll avoid a confusing chart.
Is AutoSleep's density a problem?
It's the whole reason to buy it and the whole reason people uninstall it. Curiosity says stay, fatigue says go. Pillow is the quieter option if you're unsure.
Where Tock sits against each of them
These pages are written the same way as this one, which means they state what AutoSleep and Pillow each do better than we do.
Related matchups
Other pairings involving one of these two.
- Alarmy vs PillowThese two aren't really competing. Choose Alarmy if the problem is that you stay in bed. Choose Pillow if you own an Apple Watch and the problem is that you have no idea what your nights look like.
- Apple Health Sleep vs AutoSleepIf you wear your Apple Watch to bed and want to know how long you slept, Apple's own tracking is free and already doing it. AutoSleep is for the person who wants that night pulled apart into far more detail than Apple would ever ship.
- Apple Health Sleep vs PillowApple's built-in tracking is enough if you want hours and stages and nothing more. Pillow is for the Watch wearer who finds Apple's presentation too thin and wants the night detected and shaped for them without pressing anything.
- AutoSleep vs RiseAutoSleep is for the Apple Watch owner who wants the night in detail. Rise is for the person who has seen enough charts and wants to know why the afternoon keeps falling apart.
- AutoSleep vs Sleep CycleIf you already wear an Apple Watch to bed, AutoSleep reads a night that Sleep Cycle can only estimate from the room. If you don't own a Watch and don't want one, Sleep Cycle is the only one of the two that works, and it's your alarm as well.
- AutoSleep vs SleepScoreIf an Apple Watch is already on your wrist at night, AutoSleep is the better tracker and it asks nothing of you. If you sleep bare-wristed and want to keep it that way, SleepScore is the only one of the two that can track you at all.
- Pillow vs Sleep CycleIf you wear an Apple Watch to bed, Pillow gives you measured stage data and starts itself. If you do not own a Watch, or half the house is on Android, Sleep Cycle is the sensible pick.
- Pillow vs SleepScoreIf an Apple Watch is already part of your night, Pillow gets far more out of it than SleepScore can from across the room. If buying a wearable is off the table for you, SleepScore was made for exactly that person.
Elsewhere on the site
A different corner of the same problem.
- Tock for youStudentsYou go to bed at a different time every night, set an alarm you already know you will sleep through, and you cannot just turn the volume up because there is someone asleep two metres away.
- AlternativesTock vs Apple Health SleepIf you wear an Apple Watch and you only want to see how long you slept, Apple Health already does it for free and does it better than any phone estimate. Tock adds the room: sound, snoring, a score, an alarm that can move earlier, and a coach that can explain what it found.
- RoundupsThe best sleep apps for studentsFor most students the best answer is free: the iPhone Clock app, a wake time you keep at weekends, and Alarmy's free tier if you sleep through things. Tock is the paid pick worth the money once you have tried that and still miss 9am lectures.
- Wake timesWaking up at 4:30amBedtimes by sleep cycle for a 4:30am alarm.
- BedtimesGoing to bed at 11:00pmWhere to put the alarm after a 11:00pm lights-out.
- Sleep by ageHow much sleep preschoolers needThe American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends that children aged 3 to 5 years sleep 10 to 13 hours per 24 hours, including naps, on a regular basis. This is the final band where daytime sleep counts toward the total; from age 6 the figures are given per night.
If neither of them is quite the alarm you wanted
Tock is built on Apple AlarmKit, so it rings on silent and through a Focus, moves earlier when it finds a lighter moment, and keeps ringing until you solve something.