Fitbit needs Sensitive mode for Sleep Stages

[WandaWoman]

The old Sleep tracking had sensitive and normal sleep modes. I always used sensitive mode as normal mode was totally inaccurate for me, and for sleep stages, the Light Sleep stage is totally inaccurate for me. I KNOW that most of the time it says I am in Light Sleep stage, I am actually TOTALLY awake and tossing & turning. Why doesn't Fitbit have a sensitive and normal mode for sleep stages. This makes more sense for someone like me, and I know there are many like me.

[WavyDavey]

Hi @WandaWoman,

I have the new sleep stages, and the Normal/Sensitive is there under advanced settings, then sleep sensitivity. I'm not sure how it interacts with sleep stages because I've only had the new sleep model a couple of days, but I do know that sensitive and normal sleep are still there. Hope this helps.

[WandaWoman]

I just noticed mine is set to sensitive but it still tracks a lot of my awake time as light sleep. It's very inaccurate for me!

Sent from my iPhone

[Kalakian]

I don't have much data to go on yet, as I only got the update a couple of days ago, but ...

For the first night, no sleep was registered at all, under either the old system, or the new sleep stages.

For the second night, my recorded sleep in the sleep stages was way higher than I normally get under the old system. Checked, and I still have it set to 'sensitive', but it does seem closer to what I was getting when I first got my fitbit and was using 'normal' (showing me as asleep when I was actually out my bed and walking about).

[Julia_G]

@Kalakian and @WandaWoman, in the "old" system all periods marked either "restless" or "awake" were subtracted from your total sleep.  If your sleep was set to "sensitive" (as mine was), then you might easily find that "restless" was a very big proporton of your time in bed, indicating very little sleep.

In the new system, only awake times are subtracted.  Sleep detected as "light" "rem" and "deep" are all counted.

I found under the old system "normal" missed a lot of my awake time in the night -- I had actually to get out of bed and take steps to get counted awake -- but "sensitive" under reported how much sleep I was getting.  With the new sleep stages, for me, I feel I am getting much more accurate information.  Also I am interested to learn that even with so much sleep counted as "light" I am getting about the benchmark for women my age.  So I am finding sleep stages really helpful.

I've had sleep stages for 9 days.

[jjuelzz]

100% I am in the same boat

[Kalakian]

@Julia_G, that being the case, the "old" system is far more accurate for me than the new system. Sure, I could just subtract the time in REM from my overall sleep time to get closer to actual values, but that's just a workaround.

It's a shame there is no equivalent for "sensitive" under the new system, as it looks as though it would be really useful, if done properly. As it is, it just looks like I'm suddenly getting far more sleep than I was before, which throws out any comparisons I can make of old vs. new data 😞

[Julia_G]

@Kalakian, well, perhaps I don't understand, but unless you know you were awake when REM was tracked then there is no reason to subtract it.  REM is a really important part of sleep.  

In any case, since you have only had it one night, you might want to try it for a few days before coming to any firm conclusions about its accuracy.  Like you, I am suddenly showing more hours sleeping, but in the 9 days I have had it I have found it interesting to compare times in deep vs light vs REM.  It actually seems to be showing completely awake MORE often for me, so I think the "sensitive" setting IS working (though I don't know for sure)

I do agree with your point that it is difficult to compare sleep tracked under the previous system with sleep tracked under sleep stages.   Maybe you will find it more useful when you have had it more days.

[Kalakian]

@Julia_G, I was just suggesting the subtraction of REM as a value so that it would come closer to giving me a total value of sleep which was closer to the truth. I will keep an eye on how the data looks over the next few nights, but I know for certain the value I received last night is over-inflated by a significant margin.

At most, if the data continues on with these high values of sleep, I can look at it as percentages of the overall time spent asleep in each stage, but without having a proper value for the overall sleep in the first place 😞

Time will tell ...

[Kalakian]

Update: Another night recorded, another night with over 7 hours sleep ... my target is 6 hours, which I rarely get, and now I'm magically getting over 7 hours.

Yup, the sleep stages method is currently useless for me 😞

[Filledwithstraw]

I'm having the same issue. You can see from my graph that I downloaded the new update on the 6th and now I'm magically getting 6-8 hours of sleep a night when nothing has changed.

I also noticed that when it exports sleep minutes to MyFitnessPal it's using the old system. Last night Fitbit says I got nearly 7 hours of sleep, but it told MyFitnessPal 255 minutes (which seems accurate under the old sleep tracker)

[Rich_Laue]

@Kalakian and others, are you looking at the app dashboard, which one, or the web based dashboard. There have been many reports that the web is fine but the app dashboard is not. However tapping through to the sleep logs has been reported as being correct. It 

[Jaxxu]

Same! I wish there was a sensitive version.

I have a condition where sleep is not refreshing for me, so even if I get good sleep, I can still wake up as exhausted as if I barely or didn't sleep at all.

However, the other day, I was awoken by a family member and we were speaking for quite some time. I was absolutely shattered, so I didn't get up, but the FitBit was unable to realise that I was awake at all. Or at least it didn't look like it did.

Due to the lack of 'restless' (which basically meant awake for me, for the most part), I am not sure how to better track things yet under this new system.

I had been using sleep tracking to help me understand how to get better sleep. Maybe I have achieved it, as my sleep has seemingly doubled under this new way of looking at things. It's hard for me to tell with my condition, as good sleep makes no difference to my fatigue.

Unless you move about to stimulate it (which I don't do because I don't wish to wake myself up any more than I am already), I suppose it's a lot to ask of a watch to certainly know when you're awake.

But one thing I'd like to be improved is being able to zoom in on your sleep. It's so tiny, I can barely see it to begin with. Being able to zoom in on its detail would be great!