VITALWhat a recovery score is
A recovery score is a daily estimate of how ready your body seems for effort. Most are built from overnight heart rate variability (HRV), resting heart rate and sleep, compared with your own recent readings. There is no standard formula. Each company builds its own, so a score from one app cannot be compared with a score from another. What is readiness? covers the idea in more detail.
What Apple Watch has instead
Apple Watch has several features that cover parts of what a recovery score does:
- Readiness (Series 12 and Ultra 4 only): a score from 0 to 10 built from your recent activity and training load, your overnight and daytime vitals, and your sleep score. Apple labels it Recover (0 to 1), Pace yourself (2 to 4), Ready (5 to 7) and Go for it (8 to 10). Which Apple Watches get a readiness score? explains why it may not show.
- Vitals: overnight heart rate, respiratory rate, blood oxygen and wrist temperature where available, and sleep duration (HRV on Series 12 and Ultra 4), each against a typical range Apple sets after you wear the watch to sleep for 7 nights. If several readings are outside your range, you get a notification the next morning.
- Sleep Score: a score from 0 to 100 each morning, from how long you slept, how consistent your bedtime has been and how often you woke.
- Training Load: how the effort of your recent workouts compares with what you usually do.
Only Readiness combines these into one number, and only on two watches.
Why older watches don’t get one
Apple introduced Readiness with Apple Watch Series 12 and its new Health Sensing System in September 2026. watchOS 27 is also offered on some older watches, but the Readiness app is not part of that wider update. Installing watchOS 27 does not add it to Series 11, Series 10, Series 9, Apple Watch SE, Ultra 3 or Ultra 2.
How to get a recovery-style score on any Apple Watch
iPhone apps that read Apple Health can build their own daily score from what your watch already saves:
- Athlytic shows Recovery each morning from overnight HRV and resting heart rate against your own baseline. Its App Store listing says an Apple Watch is needed for most features.
- Bevel shows a Recovery score alongside Sleep, Strain, Stress and Nutrition scores. Its site lists Apple Watch, Oura, Garmin and Amazfit as compatible.
- WHOOP gives a Recovery score from its own band rather than from an Apple Watch.
Each one uses its own formula, and none of them shows Apple’s 0 to 10 score. For Athlytic or Bevel to see your nights from an Apple Watch, wear it to bed with Track Sleep with Apple Watch turned on, and allow the app to read your sleep and heart data in Apple Health.
The differences, including where each app is the stronger choice, are on Vital vs Athlytic, Vital vs Bevel and Vital vs WHOOP.
How Vital does it
Vital calls its daily score Readiness. It does not use Apple’s algorithm or Apple’s 0 to 10 scale, and it is not the same as Apple’s Readiness score. Vital’s score is out of 100.
In Vital
Readiness in Vital leads with your body readings from Apple Health: HRV, resting heart rate, breathing rate and, from an Apple Watch that records it, sleeping wrist temperature, each against your own usual. Last night’s sleep, your recent training and your morning check-in follow. What drove today lists every reading behind the number. On a night with no heart reading, Vital gives an estimate and marks it as one, so it works with or without an Apple Watch.
Vital Club unlocks the app, with a 7-day free trial when you’re eligible.
Get Vital for iPhoneCommon questions
Does Apple Watch have a recovery score?
Not by that name. Apple’s closest feature is the Readiness score, from 0 to 10, on Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4 only. Other models on watchOS 27 have Vitals, Sleep Score and Training Load, but no single daily score.
Is Apple’s Readiness score the same as a recovery score?
It is a similar idea. Apple’s score uses activity and training load, vitals and sleep score. WHOOP, Athlytic and Bevel each build their own recovery score in their own way, so the numbers are not interchangeable.
How do I get a recovery score on Apple Watch Series 11 or older?
Use an iPhone app that reads Apple Health and builds its own daily score from what your watch saves overnight. Athlytic and Bevel are two of them. Vital does the same with its Readiness score, and also works without a watch.
Does Vital have a recovery score?
Vital’s version is called Readiness. It is a score out of 100 that leads with HRV, resting heart rate and other overnight readings against your own usual, then adds sleep, recent training and your morning check-in. It does not use Apple’s algorithm.
Can I get a recovery score without an Apple Watch?
From an app that reads Apple Health, only an estimate, unless another wearable shares overnight heart readings there. Without them, a score can only see your sleep, how you feel and your recent training. Readiness without an Apple Watch sets out what that estimate can and cannot see.
Vital gives general information about fitness and wellbeing. It is not medical advice, and it does not diagnose or treat any condition.
Sources
- Understand your readiness score on Apple Watch, Apple Support
- Use the Readiness app on Apple Watch, Apple Support
- Track your overnight and daytime vitals with Apple Watch, Apple Support
- View your sleep score on Apple Watch, Apple Support
- Track your training load, Apple Watch User Guide, Apple Support
- Introducing Apple Watch Series 12, with the all-new Health Sensing System, Apple Newsroom
- Athlytic: Fitness & Recovery, App Store (UK)
- Bevel (Works with: Apple Watch, Oura, Garmin and Amazfit), bevel.health
- Bevel, App Store (UK)
- Sleep Common Questions, Bevel Help Centre
- WHOOP membership options and FAQ (UK), WHOOP