Apple Watch Series 12 vs Garmin Cirqa for one week — sleep scores compared

I've been utilizing the Apple Watch Series 12 to monitor my sleep every night for a week, which allowed the revamped Vitals app to provide measurements such as heart rate variability, respiratory rate, blood oxygen, and more. The Vitals app calculated a Readiness Score based on these parameters, comparing them to my activity levels and assigning a score from 1 to 10. This is the first time Apple devices have included a Readiness metric, unlike Garmin, Samsung, Google, and other wearables.

To compare the two devices, I wore the Garmin Cirqa on my right wrist and the Apple Watch Series 12 on my left. I found that initially, the sleep scores from both devices were different, but they gradually converged towards the same general trend as the week progressed. The main outlier was night 6, where the scores varied significantly. The Garmin device scored as high as 87, while the Apple Watch gave me a score of 68. Below is a table listing all the sleep scores for each day of the week.

After a week of tracking, I received my first Readiness score from Apple, which was a 7/10, suggesting I was ready for the day, but not fully prepared for an intense workout. The Garmin Connect app showed a Readiness score of 70/100, indicating similar conclusions after a week of constant use. In conclusion, although there were some discrepancies in the individual data points, both Garmin and Apple provided similar results in terms of Readiness and sleep scores, indicating their internal consistency and overall accuracy.

I am comfortable wearing either device to track my sleep, Readiness, and overall fitness, but I should remember that these devices are not perfect and should rely on my body's signals over the scores provided by the wearable.