Can someone explain how the auto sleep detection is supposed to work?

lorib642

I fall asleep quickly, but I wake during the night. The Fitbit will only detect a partial time of when I was asleep. Last night it only measured a point where I slept between 5-6 am but I slept much more. I have reset it many times. It is not on the sensitive setting. I have tried turning the HR feature off.

It reads much better if I set it when I go to sleep. (push the button til the timer starts) and off when I wake. I am just wondering if there is a better way.

I chatted with support and he didn't have any other advice. My husband won it and all the other features work so I am very happy with it, but I have no warranty if it is broken. But, I think it may be that I move too much for it to detect I am actually asleep.

minniestar55

My HR tracks pretty well with my sleep time. I don't have it on sensitive setting, but it does see how many times I get up, & the times I'm restless. I never press the button, it just seems to sense when I'm still. Maybe try a night with the sensitive setting on & see what you get?

NancyN795

Fitbit's sleep detection algorithm is, I suspect, proprietary. That is, they're not going to tell us exactly how it works. I do know it won't detect naps of less than an hour.

I've found that works pretty well for me, but sometimes needs tweaking to accurately reflect my sleep. I generally try to note the time I actually go to bed because it consistently misses that, underestimating the "time to fall asleep". It doesn't surprise me that it can't detect that easily, so it doesn't bother me. Then, when I get on my computer the next morning, I go in and adjust the time I went to bed and sometimes end up editing the wake up time, too. If it has broken the night up into multiple sleep records when it shouldn't have, I delete all but the first one and change the wake up time on that one to my actual wake up time.

I go to the trouble of messing with the sleep record because improving the quantity and quality of my sleep is something I feel is important. Paying attention to it is helping me improve my sleep hygiene and I am actually getting more sleep (usually - I have a cold right now and I'm not sleeping well at all).

Some people don't find the feature useful to them and just ignore it. They take the tile off their dashboard and just don't worry about it.

kuranda10

I found it to be fairly accurate. It's amazing to look at the before/after graph once I re-crate trained the dog and after my husband started working away ... a nice solid blue line ;-)