Recent models of Apple Watch–the Series 8 and later, to be precise–are equipped with a temperature sensor. That might sound useful for a variety of health purposes, but in practice, there are limitations. One of which is that you can’t simply ask your Apple Watch to measure your body temperature right now. Let’s see what’s going on.

Why isn’t my Apple Watch recording my temperature?

Before we begin with our explanation we need to point out that in order for your Apple Watch (8 or later) to collect your temperature data you need to wear it while you sleep for five days so that it can collect your baseline data before it will even begin to record your temperature.

To set it up you need to enable Sleep Tracking and Sleep Focus on your Apple Watch. Read How to monitor your sleep with the Apple Watch for advice on how to set this up.

How to get an Apple Watch to show my correct temperature

If you open the Health app on your iPhone and tap Browse > Body Measurements you’ll notice that wrist temperature trends are given in terms of variance “from baseline.” In the screenshot below, for example, it’s “-0.3°C from baseline.” Very interesting, but what if you want to know the absolute temperature rather than how much higher or lower it is than a standard/average reading?

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David Price / Foundry

Fortunately, that information is available, and it’s relatively easy to find—you just need to slog through a few menus. Scroll down on the Wrist Temperature screen shown above to find a section headed Options. Tap on the option labelled Show All Data, and you’ll see a long list of the dates and times when the watch measured your temperature. Tap one of these and you’ll see an absolute temperature reading: in this case, for January 11, 2025, the reading is 36.37°C (97.47°F).

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David Price / Foundry

Alternatively, you can look on the Apple Watch itself. Open Settings and scroll down until you start to see an alphabetically ordered list of apps (probably starting with Activity and App Store). Find Health in this list and tap it.

Now tap Health Data > Body Measurements > Wrist Temperature. You’ll see a list of recorded temperatures, beginning with the most recent. In the screenshot below you can see that the absolute temperature the last time I took a reading was, once again, 36.37°C.

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David Price / Foundry

Can I take my temperature right now on Apple Watch?

There are some more limitations that it might be worth mentioning. The Apple Watch’s temperature sensor isn’t the equivalent of a digital thermometer, something you can u