Not tracking sleep whilst on aeroplane

[georgiacaudell]

I'm cabin crew and therefore travel a lot and sleep on aeroplanes. However, my Fitbit does not track my sleep whilst on the plane. Does my Bluetooth need to be on for this to happen? As my phone is on aeroplane mode whilst on the plane. Thanks 

[FerdinandFitbit]

Hi there @georgiacaudell! Good to see you in the Fitbit Community! 🙂

This is very strange and I'm not sure if the fact of being on a plane will prevent your tracker from recording your sleep. Normally, the tracker needs to be completely still for it to record your sleep. Now, since you're on a plane and the plane might create any type of vibration, this could be causing your tracker not to record your sleep properly.

It doesn't matter if your bluetooth is on or off but maybe someone else who has slept while in a plane can give us some advise about this.

[Pierre_W]

I bought my Fitbit Alta HR 2 days ago and experiencing the same issue on 14-hour flight where I slept more or less 2 hours but no data recorded and 7-hour flight with 3 hours slept and no data again. 

[Julia_G]

@Pierre_W, I think @FerdinandFitbit's reply is the correct one: planes vibrate quite a lot so the Fitbit will not detect sleep accurately.

[mattyboy]

The suggestion about the vibrations resulting in the Fitbit device not recognising sleep sounds reasonable to me, but I think I might have a workaround for you:

The movement and heart rate will still be recorded, so if you add the sleep manually then the data recorded by your Fitbit will be applied, and maybe this will generate a sleep pattern as the processing is done server-side anyway.

Give it a try and let us know the results 

You can log your sleep manually at https://www.fitbit.com/sleep, or in the app's [Sleep] page by tapping [+]

Hope this helps!

Matt

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[honglong1976]

wouldn't you have to be horizontal for the Fitbit to detect you were sleeping?

[Rich_Laue]

No, but the tracker might not want to think about sleep when it moving across the sky at 600mph

[mattyboy]

Nope, mine registers sleep while I drift off sitting up on the sofa after work when I try to watch three straight episodes of STTNG.

[FerdinandFitbit]

Hey there @mattyboy.  Good to see you around!

This also has to do a lot with movement. Your tracker works based on autodetection. Autodetection is based on your movement. When you haven’t moved for about an hour, your tracker assumes that you’re asleep. Additional data—such as the length of time your movements are indicative of sleep behavior (such as rolling over, etc.)—help confirm that you’re asleep. Morning movement tells your tracker that you’re awake. If you’re not moving but not asleep for long periods of time it’s possible for your tracker to falsely record sleep, in which case you can delete the sleep log from your history.

Any other question you may have, let us know! 🙂

[DFDan]

I noticed plane sleep is not recorded as well. So if I log sleep the tracker will learn when I sleep on planes?

[Rich_Laue]

Others have also noticed this, my guess is the plane is bouncing around to much. 

While you can manually log the time as sleep, not it will not teach the app to learn. 

You also could use the apps sleep now switch. 

[Jgreenman]

I’m not on a plane, but last night I put my phone on airplane mode and when I synced this morning to check my sleep patterns, it showed only the basic tracking, like if shows when I’ve slept less than 3 hours, but I had really slept  almost 8.

[Rich_Laue]

Not sure what happened, but durring sleep the tracker doesn't need to cicateviwith the phone. Having the phone on airplane mode should not have affected the sleep recording. 

You would need to turn airplane mode off to get it to sync .

Fitbit said that their was a problem with a consistant heart rate reading. This would be why no sleep stages are being seen. 

[FerdinandFitbit]

Hi there @Jgreenman. Good to see you in the Forums! 🙂

I do agree with @Rich_Laue. When it comes to sleep detection, this has nothing to do with being connected with your  tracker while it records your sleep, so I would recommend -based on the insight shown on your app- that you wear your tracker a little bit snug on your wrist to make sure it will be able to pick a steady heart rate signal and that way for your tracker to be able to calculate your sleep more accurately.

Also, just in case, it would be worth giving your Blaze a quick restart. You can easily do this by pressing the left and lower right buttons for 10-12 seconds. This will make your tracker to reboot.

Let us know how it goes!

[Sharadc39]

The same issue is there with train travel .I think due to vibration Fitbit does not recognize the sleep

[Rich_Laue]

Between the vibrations and that your moving hijackings odd miles per hour,  yes the tracker does not see the user motionless enough. .

Has anybody tried the sleep Now option found in the spp?

[naveen0025]

True. Not just aeroplane, it doesn't track sleep while travelling in train as well. I've noticed the same. The fitbit needs to be still to measure sleep.

[Rich_Laue]

Really the best thing to do would be to use the begin / end sleep command found in the fitbit app. 

 

Auto sleep not only looks at heart rate but also movement and it is not easy to tell that a person is not moving around when the plane or train is causing the tracker to continually bounce all over the place. 

[girlabouttown]

Yes! This has happened to me. I always put my phone on aeroplane mode at night and my sleep tracker records like this too. When it’s not on aeroplane mode then it tracks normally. 

[Rich_Laue]

Hi @girlabouttown this thread is not about putting the phone on airplane mode, but about sleeping on an actual airplane. 

For your tracker to detect sleep, your phhone is not needed to be nearby.