Head to head
AutoSleep vs SleepScore
Hardware decides this one before anything else does. AutoSleep is built around the Watch on your wrist. SleepScore was made for people who own no wearable and have no plans to buy one, and every other difference follows from that.
In short
If 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.
AutoSleep starts on your wrist, not on your phone
AutoSleep is built around the Apple Watch. You wear it to bed and in the morning the night is already there: no button, no session to start, nothing to remember at midnight when you are half asleep. That hands-off quality is why people who bought it years ago still recommend it.
It also goes deeper than most people expect. Heart rate through the night and readiness detail come off the wrist, and a phone on a nightstand cannot produce that kind of signal. The readouts are famously dense, which is either the appeal or the problem depending on who you are.
No Watch, no AutoSleep. That is not a criticism, it is the design.
SleepScore was built for people who will not wear anything
SleepScore takes the opposite position. It sends out sound you cannot hear, listens for what comes back off your body, and reads your movement and breathing from that. Nothing on your wrist, nothing on the bed, and the phone stays roughly where it already was.
It also explains itself more than most sleep apps bother to. If you want to know how a number was produced before you trust it, that presentation is a real part of what you are buying.
The deciding question is what is on your wrist at 2am
Everything else here is downstream of one fact. If you sleep with a Watch on, AutoSleep gets more out of your night than SleepScore can from across the room, and it gets it without you doing anything. If you do not, AutoSleep is not really on the table and SleepScore still works.
Money follows the same line. AutoSleep is a one-time purchase, which suits people who resent recurring bills, but that only counts if you already own the hardware it depends on.
Neither of these two will get you out of bed
Worth saying plainly, because it catches people out. AutoSleep is a tracker, and SleepScore sits alongside whatever alarm you already use. Both of them measure a night that something else has to end.
Tock works the other way round. It is an alarm first, built on Apple's AlarmKit so it rings on silent, through a Focus and with the app closed, and it watches the last half hour before your set time so it can ring a little early while you are in a lighter moment. It tracks from the phone on the nightstand, so stages are estimates rather than measurements, and if you do own a Watch it reads that data through Apple Health. iPhone only, with a 3-day trial and then from $39.99 a year.
| What we compared | AutoSleep | SleepScore |
|---|---|---|
| What you have to own | An Apple Watch, worn nightly | Only the phone by the bed (stronger here) |
| Effort at bedtime | None, it starts itself (stronger here) | You set the phone up |
| Heart rate through the night | Read from the wrist (stronger here) | Not what sonar reads |
| How it senses you | Watch sensors on skin (about the same) | Inaudible sound, bounced back (about the same) |
| Showing its working | Dense readouts, little teaching | Research-led, method explained (stronger here) |
| A household on two platforms | iPhone and Watch only | iPhone or Android (stronger here) |
| Ringing you awake | Not an alarm clock (about the same) | Sits beside your alarm (about the same) |
| Readiness detail | Its whole reputation (stronger here) | Not the point of it |
Which one to actually install
Pick AutoSleep if
Buy AutoSleep if the Watch is already on your wrist overnight and you want the night recorded without lifting a finger. It is the more detailed of the two and you pay for it once.
Pick SleepScore if
Buy SleepScore if you will not wear a tracker and do not want anything on the bed. It reads breathing and movement from the nightstand and it tells you how it got there.
Pick neither if
If what you actually wanted was a better morning rather than a better readout, neither of these rings. Tock is an alarm on AlarmKit that waits for a lighter moment in the half hour before your set time, tracks the night from the phone, and lets you play back the snoring or sleep talking it heard. iPhone only.
Questions people ask
Can I use AutoSleep without an Apple Watch?
No. AutoSleep reads the night from the Watch, so the Watch is the product. Without one, SleepScore is the sensible starting point because it needs nothing but the phone.
Does SleepScore need anything under the mattress?
No, and that is the point of it. It bounces inaudible sound off you from the phone and reads what returns, so there is nothing on your wrist and nothing on the bed.
Which one wakes me up?
Neither. AutoSleep is a tracker and SleepScore sits beside the alarm you already have. If you want the tracking and the alarm in one app, you are shopping in a different category.
Do either of them run on Android?
SleepScore does. AutoSleep is iPhone and Apple Watch only.
Where Tock sits against each of them
These pages are written the same way as this one, which means they state what AutoSleep and SleepScore each do better than we do.
Related matchups
Other pairings involving one of these two.
- 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.
- AutoSleep vs PillowAutoSleep 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Rise vs SleepScoreIf you will genuinely change your bedtime because an app asked you to, Rise is the more useful of the two. If you want the night measured properly without wearing anything, SleepScore.
- Sleep Cycle vs SleepScoreIf you want one app that watches the night and also rings in the morning, Sleep Cycle. If you only want the measurement, and you want the method explained rather than asserted, SleepScore.
- SleepScore vs SnoreLabIf snoring is the complaint and you want to find out whether the mouthguard made a difference, SnoreLab. If you want the whole night measured without wearing anything, SleepScore.
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 white noise apps, and when a fan beats all of themIf you want one sound forever, a hardware noise machine or a cheap fan beats every app here and costs less over two years. If you want to change what you sleep to, layer sounds together and have the same app wake you up in the morning, Tock is the better pick.
- Wake timesWaking up at 6:30amBedtimes by sleep cycle for a 6:30am alarm.
- BedtimesGoing to bed at 12:00amWhere to put the alarm after a 12:00am lights-out.
- Sleep by ageHow much sleep babies needThe American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends that infants aged 4 to 12 months sleep 12 to 16 hours per 24 hours, including naps, on a regular basis. Sleep at this age is spread across the day rather than consolidated into one block, and the total is what the recommendation is about.
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.