My new favorite Apple Watch and Apple Health metrics have been working quietly in the background for years. Specifically, it’s a little Apple Watch hidden feature for tracking great healthy habits: Time in Daylight.
Apple Health automatically tracks your time during the day using your Apple Watch
Daylight saving time was introduced as a metric for healthcare apps as part of iOS 17 in 2023. Starting with watchOS 10, Apple Watch automatically tracks daylight saving time just by wearing it.
This feature works by measuring the brightness of your environment using the watch’s ambient light sensor. There are no apps to install or tracking modes to enable (though you can optionally disable them).
“Daylight hours is an estimate of the amount of time you spend in sunlight,” Apple explains in the Health app. “If there are no obstructions, Apple Watch can automatically record healthy hours of estimated sunlight.”
How to find daylight savings data in Apple Health
This metric can go back to June 2023, so it has years of daylight saving time data. If you’re wearing an Apple Watch, daylight savings data is only entered into the Apple Health app.
Check it out in just a few steps.
- Open the Health app on your iPhone or iPad.
- Tap the magnifying glass icon to search.
- Type “daylight” in the search field.
You can also find daytime hours in the “Mental Health” section of the search page or in the “Other Data” section of the “Health” category.
It was interesting to rediscover this data after years of tracking Daylight Saving Time minutes and hours.
Reinventing the way Apple Watch tracks healthy habits
Spending time in the sun promotes physical and mental health, so the biggest insight is quantifying healthy habits that aren’t strictly about exercise.
For example, my best daylight hours last week weren’t spent walking to the beach or riding my bike over the weekend. Outdoor activities on Sunday came in second place.
However, my highest and third highest days last week were days when I was able to take my MacBook Air outside and write for a few hours, and the daylight hours were longer.
Especially as someone who consistently tries to optimize for a positive mood, quantifying my daytime hours on my Apple Watch has been a bit of a relief, and I’m so grateful for it right now.
This is a way to reward yourself for making healthy choices in a way that doesn’t just reflect in your exercise time.
More information about Apple Watch and Apple Health:
The new Apple Watch Series 11 is available now on Amazon for just $299.
