Charge 2 not tracking sleep stages

[Tdog2010]

Had my charge2 for a week and it won’t track the deep sleep rem and the stages it to track when I’m sleeping.   What do I do to fix it. 

Moderator edit: updated subject for clarity

[CharlieDunkel]

Really? visit a cardiologist? I would try a different brand, in fact I would try all the other brands available before visiting a cardiologist, to be honest I don't trust Fitbit technology that much. I do annual checkups and I run 5K every other day and so far my heart hasn't show any condition whatsoever, why would no sleep stages on a Fitbit by itself predict a heart condition? 

More than a heart condition everything points out to a software flaw on Fitbit, it is so bogus that it cannot consistently gives sleep stages to everybody. Worse of all they have no idea how to fix it 

I just got an email from Fitbit basically saying me there is nothing else they can do, so I'm moving on to a different brand. After about 5 years with Fitbit I'm extremely disappointed but I take that's it

[st8_oftheHeart]

i don't know what the answer to this is, but consider this - fitbit had 17 million units sold in 2017 that makes them a global leader in the tracker market, and if you compare the number of people who come to the help forums like you and me, that makes us a very very tiny percentage of people with issues.

when my stages stopped i went to a cardiologist and they picked up that i have a slight flickering of my pulse rate, but i do get stages about 2 times a week.

i haven't approached fitbit support, however if you go to a corporate support center you would normally expect to receive a reference number so you do not get different answers from their various support staff.

one major question to ask yourself is . . does my tracker work ok on someone else ?

[Jmcm46]

My niece wore my charge 2 for a week and got sleep stages on all but one night. I wore it last night and got no stages. In 4.5 months it has worked 4 times for me!

Sent from my iPhone

[Mark2018]

If Fitbit is not able to fix all problems they have the possibility to quit the job!

The tracker are working! Thats a fact.

An it's also a fact that they have changed something in the algorithm, in February/March.

Why?

I don't know, but until that update I have had sleep stages.

It's quite easy, only to correct the bug can help.

Next is they are lying concerning the HRV. Do you know something about that?

If they really use HRV then we don't have problem with cardiac arrhythmia!

But they have changed something in the calculation and that's why some people don't have sleep stages.

Fitbit also can't show where and when the data us missing, also they can't show where and when the low singnal strengh is!

So, just to program correctly can help!

Maybe one day, 2030. 😉

My last Fitbit!!!

[Rich_Laue]

There really is no need for Fitbit to show you @Mark2018. 

Open the Fitbit app, 

Tap on the heart rate tile

Tap on the day with the sleep in question

Tap the chart to bring full screen

Place your finger on the chart at the missing heart rate. 

[Mark2018]

Hi,

Thanks for trying, but you are, unfortunately, wrong with that.

My wife shows also "out of range" but she has sleep stages every night with the same Charge 2 or the same Ionic.

Sorry!

So, Fitbit has to provide correct software, then we have all sleep stages!

They have changed the algorythm of sleep stages, otherwise HRV would provide correct sleep stages.

Fitbit can't show missing data!!! No chance!!!

Software was change February/March, and they don't learn to fix! That's very bad!!!

But thank you very much for your suggestions!

Regards,

Mark

[stevethompson49]

Edit: This isn't a problem with the software; it's a problem with the hardware design. The heart rate sensor protrudes from the underneath of the tracker. Because it has such a small area, about 1 sq cm, it either places too much pressure on the underlying blood vessels if the strap is a bit tight, or the tracker is not held still enough if the strap is a bit loose.

I've found a way to significantly improve both heart rate and sleep tracking with my Charge 2. I've placed a spacer under the tracker with a hole for the sensors to see though. This spacer holds the sensors just above the skin. Photo attached. Edit: This spacer effectively spreads the pressure from the tracker over a much larger area of the skin, about 7 sq cm rather than about 1 sq cm from the sensor alone. That means that I can have the strap tight enough so that the tracker does not move around too much, but loose enough so that it does not reduce blood flow.

If I go walking during the day, the spacer stays in place ok, but at night I place two narrow pieces of tape to hold it from moving.  Edit: I now leave the spacer and tape in place 24/7 and only remove it when I need to charge the tracker. The tracker now accurately records my heart rate and sleep all day and night.

[Mark2018]

Strange thing is, currently the heart rate is shown accurate at every time I show on the tracker.

But why is the heart rate missing when I sleep? No change, the tracker has the same position!

Misterious!!!

Bad thing is, there is no indicator or alert for low signal!!!

Hopefully they are correcting the algorithm and provide updates for app and firmware!

There is no other solution!

[Rich_Laue]

@Mark2018 you and a few others keep bringing up the Heart Rate Variable and get upset when people mention Heart Rate. Am I to assume that the Heart Rate Variable has nothing to do with the ability of Fitbit to read the users heart rate? 

According to Wikipedia you are not correct. (note I do not see Wikipedia as gospal)

Heart rate variability (HRV) is the physiological phenomenon of variation in the time interval between heartbeats. It is measured by the variation in the beat-to-beat interval.

While Fitbit does not use the word Heart Rate Variability, they have always said that Fitbit looks at the changes in the heart rate pattern. 

Now let's get back to my post and your question about missing data .

If I read your question correctly, "Fitbit also can't show where and when the data us missing, also they can't show where and when the low singnal strengh is!

So, just to program correctly can help!

Maybe one day, 2030. ;-)"

My screen shot simply showered how a user may see the answer for them self. In what way was my answer wrong. 

If it is of any help, with the Charge 2 the sleep is not anylized on the tracker, all the math is done in the cloud after the tracker syncs after the user wakes up. Therefore if the tracker itself doesn't try to determine sleep but simply passes on what it records. I'm wondering how valid the HRV claim really is. 

BTW if the sensor doesn't see the changes in blood density, maybe Fitbit needs to do more testing with more skin colors and different blood pressure readings. 

[Mark2018]

@Rich_Laue

I'm sorry, you are wrong.

HRV is exactly that what you mentioned a pattern.

Also already confirmed from support that they use HRV:

As previously mentioned, while you’re sleeping, your device tracks the beat-to-beat changes in your heart rate, known as heart rate variability (HRV), which fluctuates as you transition between the various sleep stages. ....It is important to know that HRV data is different than standard heart rate data. ........Please note that receiving sleep stages can be affected by a combination of your movement during sleep, HRV data, and personal physiology.

I hope this is helpful for you to understand that problem.

But it doesn't matter!

They have changed something in the calculation and lost some details!

And the details are important for the sleep stages. That's a fact!

And I'm very happy that the Ionic is working for the most people!!!

So hopefully they are going to fix the software problem, because the hardware is OK.

Thank you for your help.

Regards

Mark

[mjperry51]

---

@Rich_Laue wrote:

@Mark2018 you and a few others keep bringing up the Heart Rate Variable and get upset when people mention Heart Rate. Am I to assume that the Heart Rate Variable has nothing to do with the ability of Fitbit to read the users heart rate? 

According to Wikipedia you are not correct. (note I do not see Wikipedia as gospal)

Heart rate variability (HRV) is the physiological phenomenon of variation in the time interval between heartbeats. It is measured by the variation in the beat-to-beat interval.

While Fitbit does not use the word Heart Rate Variability, they have always said that Fitbit looks at the changes in the heart rate pattern. 

Now let's get back to my post and your question about missing data .

If I read your question correctly, "Fitbit also can't show where and when the data us missing, also they can't show where and when the low singnal strengh is!

So, just to program correctly can help!

Maybe one day, 2030. ;-)"

My screen shot simply showered how a user may see the answer for them self. In what way was my answer wrong. 

If it is of any help, with the Charge 2 the sleep is not anylized on the tracker, all the math is done in the cloud after the tracker syncs after the user wakes up. Therefore if the tracker itself doesn't try to determine sleep but simply passes on what it records. I'm wondering how valid the HRV claim really is. 

BTW if the sensor doesn't see the changes in blood density, maybe Fitbit needs to do more testing with more skin colors and different blood pressure readings. 

---

Rich -- you are incorrect about FitBit's usage of HRV for sleep patterns.

Support explained to me in an e-mail they utilize HRV data to develop Sleep Pattern results. The message regarding Heart Rate measurements when they fail to calculate Sleep Patterns is a bit misleading; it is accurate in a broad sense, but not specific enough.On nights where I fail to get a sleep pattern result the raw Heart Rate data is there.Clearly some other non-specified data is missing, or the server algorithms are flawed.

I'm of the opinion there are multiple failure points in this matter. First is the tracker hardware/firmware,which does not provide a consistent data source. Second is the software used on their servers to analyze the data (given a good number of users have problems after updates, etc.). From a PR perspective I'm really disappointed with how the issue has been handled. I'll certainly stipulate the number of forum users posting about the matter is a small percentage of worldwide FB users; that doesn't make the problem any less pervasive. Data sampling would suggest it's a higher percentage than the number of forum "complainers"...

[Mark2018]

---

@Rich_Laue wrote:

@Mark2018 you and a few others keep bringing up the Heart Rate Variable and get upset when people mention Heart Rate. Am I to assume that the Heart Rate Variable has nothing to do with the ability of Fitbit to read the users heart rate? 

According to Wikipedia you are not correct. (note I do not see Wikipedia as gospal)

Heart rate variability (HRV) is the physiological phenomenon of variation in the time interval between heartbeats. It is measured by the variation in the beat-to-beat interval.

While Fitbit does not use the word Heart Rate Variability, they have always said that Fitbit looks at the changes in the heart rate pattern. 

Now let's get back to my post and your question about missing data .

If I read your question correctly, "Fitbit also can't show where and when the data us missing, also they can't show where and when the low singnal strengh is!

So, just to program correctly can help!

Maybe one day, 2030. ;-)"

My screen shot simply showered how a user may see the answer for them self.

And this is not correct!

The data from my wife shows also "out of range" but she has every night sleep stages!!!

So something is wrong with your suggestion! Sorry!

In what way was my answer wrong. 

If it is of any help, with the Charge 2 the sleep is not anylized on the tracker, all the math is done in the cloud after the tracker syncs after the user wakes up.

Yes, and here could be a problem! Really all data uploaded?

Therefore if the tracker itself doesn't try to determine sleep but simply passes on what it records. I'm wondering how valid the HRV claim really is. 

BTW if the sensor doesn't see the changes in blood density, maybe Fitbit needs to do more testing with more skin colors and different blood pressure readings. 

And why should this be only while I sleep?

---

Also Fitbit support has confirmed that there is a problem and they are working on it.

Hopefully they can fix soon this problem.

Thank you for you ideas.

Regards

Mark

[Rich_Laue]

That could very well be what support told you, can you find this in the user manual or fitbits online Help site? Fitbit simply uses the term heart rate patterns. Looking at the HRV or as Fitbit says in their documentation Heart Rate Patterns will be dependent on the ability to detect a heart beat . you did post the support stated that your heart rate was not consistently being read, but support could not show you where or when it was not being read. 

Just one question I have. 

How am i wrong in saying that the heart rate needs to be monitored for Fitbit to be able to analyze the heart rate variability? 

[Mark2018]

According to a developer, each tracker collect every data an the calculation and graph is after synchronizing avalable, so somewhere around that is the problem.

Interesting idea whith the skin color.

Three month I have sleep stages and after an update one day I have non.

Strange!

Yes, it is also true that I have sometimes -- heart rate, and a couple of seconds I have 78 heart rate.

Nothing changed.

I think the electronicel components have a hugh tolerance, an for the most people is it working pefect!

But for a few other people, it's out of the range. And this can be adjusted in the software. 😉

Hopefully soon!

[Rich_Laue]

@Mark2018 your simply avoiding the main contention. I'm still curious as to why people insist that Heart Rate Variability has nothing to do with the ability to be able to detect heart rate? 

I've been told time and time again that Fitbit does not look at heart rate in determining the sleep stages, and that missing heart rate data is not the the problem. 

You yourself was told that there where periods of missing heart rate data. hence your question of "why can't Fitbit tell me when the data is missing". (7th paragraph)

I apparently was absolutely wrong in showing how to find the missing data that customer service mentioned. 

BTW: we already agree that Fitbit uses the HRV (we never disagreed on this point) even if we look at the different ways Fitbit expresses the idea. Using the term patterns is a lot easier for the typical user to understand. 

[Tessfully]

I didn't get sleep stages for a couple of months. I was so annoyed. I tried everything everyone suggested and nothing. So, I tightened the band one notch. It feels slightly too tight and I had to get used to that, but I have not missed sleep stages since. I also regularly clean the back with rubbing alcohol and make sure I don't wear body cream where the watch sits. One other thing I do but this is my superstitious nature coming out, I no longer force sync. All these random things and I no longer miss out on sleep stages. (Hope I didn't just jinx myself ;- )

[CharlieDunkel]

Got another answer for Fitbit Support. I have lost count on how many times I have received the paragraph stating "Fitbit estimates your sleep stages using a combination of your movement..." They have nothing else to say at this point and there is nothing this does to solve my problem. As some has pointed out here, if your tracker is not working for some people, which statistically seems to be important based on this forum, you have a problem with the way the software is doing the interpretation, if the data captured is not enough then you need to make sure your software works with the minimum data the tracked can capture, if not then it is flawed

Yesterday the tracker not realized I was asleep and didn't give me even simple sleep. This is getting worse. Counting the days I can stop wearing my tracker and delete the Fitbit app for good form my phone

"Thanks for your reply. It is quite unfortunate that you have had issues with the trackers. It is definitely not the experience intended. 

While our product tracks sleep, it is designed to give a general holistic overview of your sleeping habits. The time shown on the graph is when Fitbit was able to estimate that you were asleep - from falling asleep to waking up - based on your movement.  

Fitbit estimates your sleep stages using a combination of your movement and heart-rate patterns. When you haven’t moved for about an hour, your tracker or watch 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. While you’re sleeping, your device tracks the beat-to-beat changes in your heart rate, known as heart rate variability (HRV), which fluctuate as you transition between light sleep, deep sleep, and REM sleep stages. When you sync your device in the morning, we use your movement and heart rate patterns to estimate your sleep cycles from the previous night. 

We apologize for any inconvenience that may cause you. Let us know if you have additional questions"

[Rich_Laue]

We also know the unstandard things that have fixed sleep problems for some. 

Restart tracker. 

Change sleep to sensitive

Turn heart rate from auto to on. 

[Mark2018]

You can do that when you will wast time!

I try that since March!

Maybe I should consider earth rotation and moon! 😉

Fitbit should provide correct software.

That's the only thing what can help!

Sleep stages worked until update!!!

So, when is Fitbit going to fix the problem!

When your tracker is working well, you are a lucky man, don't read such threads, and save your time. You can't help here! Sorry!

[Rich_Laue]

Im just adding what has been proven to work for a group of users, for me I've never noticed a sleep period longer than 60 minutes not recorded.