C. Scott Brown / Android Authority
TL;DR
- The latest March Pixel Drop is bringing a beloved Pixel Watch 3 feature to the Pixel Watch 2.
- Auto-bedtime will let your Pixel Watch 2 automatically detect when your body is resting and switch on bedtime mode.
- This will save your battery life, stop unnecessary notifications, and turn off your watch display.
When the Pixel Watch 3 landed in my hands, one of the first features I discovered was a new toggle to turn on Auto-bedtime. I immediately enabled it and hoped it would work as expected, and when it did, I was happy to see how much it improved my smartwatch experience. It made my naps a lot more peaceful and it helped save my battery from unnecessary use. Now, with the March Pixel Drop, this same feature is trickling down to Pixel Watch 2 units, so you, too, can benefit even if you didn’t upgrade your watch.
So what’s Auto-bedtime? Well, it’s a setting under Settings > Apps & notifications > Do Not Disturb. When you enable Auto-bedtime on that screen, your watch will start automatically detecting whether you’ve fallen asleep and switch into bedtime mode by itself. This essentially puts the watch in Do Not Disturb mode; it saves battery life, stops unnecessary notifications, and turns the display completely off, all while tracking your sleep. You get some peaceful ZZZs without your watch disturbing you with random sounds or a bright display light while you snooze and dream. Then, when you wake up, everything goes back to normal.
Without the “auto” part of Auto-bedtime, I had to remember to manually put the watch to sleep every time I planned on snoozing a bit. That was completely impractical, and I found myself forgetting it about 20-30% of the time. I’d only notice it when I tossed and my watch display lit up for no reason or when I got an unexpected notification buzz in the middle of my sleep. I also had to manually disable the mode, which I forgot more times than I care to remember, only to notice my blank watch screen several hours later and curse forgetful nature.
Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
Sure, there’s a workaround for Pixel phone owners that lets them synchronize Bedtime mode between the phone and the watch, all while setting the phone to automatically switch to bedtime when charging. It’s a series of settings I had enabled on both the original Pixel Watch and the Pixel Watch 2, so each time I plugged in my phone at night, it went into Bedtime mode, which carried over to my watch. The problem with that is that it requires a Pixel phone; I don’t charge my phone during my rare mid-day naps; and there are nights when my phone is full and doesn’t need topping off. So it wasn’t ideal all the time.
With Auto-bedtime enabled, all of these issues are circumvented. It just works by itself — no Pixel or plugging necessary — and it should save your battery life and keep your sleep uninterrupted. I love it for that. And soon, if you have a Pixel Watch 2, this option should show up for you, too, once your watch gets the March Pixel Drop. I’m not sure why Google hasn’t lumped in the original Pixel Watch as well, but I hope we see this trickle down further. It’s an essential quality of life improvement all smartwatches should have.
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