Apple's iOS Update Broke Phone Sleep Tracking for Devs – We fixed it, made it better and grew our customerbase
When iOS 18 rolled out, it (for many) unexpectedly removed critical sleep timing estimates that countless developers depended on for their health and wellness apps. The result? A huge segment of iOS users lost access to the sleep-related insights they’d come to rely on, including Sahha Sleep Scores and biomarkers, which originally leveraged Apple’s Sleep Estimates via HealthKit.
Our Solution: We built the Sahha Sleep API for iOS—a scientifically validated, phone-only method that generates accurate sleep biomarkers and scores without requiring wearables. Essentially, we’ve replaced (and even improved upon) Apple’s removed features by tapping into phone sensor data. In late December (just before Christmas), we deployed our fix, ensuring that over 80% of our iOS user base—who rely solely on their phones—continued receiving reliable sleep scores without any extra effort on their part.
Why This Matters:
No Wearables Needed: 80%+ of our customer users never owned wearables like the Apple Watch, so we had to figure out a phone-based solution.
Scientifically Validated: We replicated Apple’s prior estimation techniques and enhanced them, leveraging our team’s expertise in data science and behavioral health.
Zero Extra Work for Developers: We seamlessly updated our customers’ apps. Once our fix was live, they immediately regained sleep timing data and enhanced sleep scores—no additional coding required.
Market Demand: Following a single LinkedIn post, 10 new projects signed up to integrate Sahha, especially those in mindfulness, sleep, and well-being verticals.
Who knew Apple’s push to highlight wearables would lead us to innovate a better phone-only sleep tracking system? If you’re building a health, fitness, wellness, mindfulness, or sleep app and need passively generated, research-backed sleep estimates and biomarkers—no watch required—check out the Sahha Sleep API for iOS - available simply by integrating Sahha! We’d love to help you restore and improve your users’ sleep insights.
Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think, or feel free to reach out if you have any questions about integrating Sahha’s phone-only sleep tracking in your app.
