Can't find NREM/REM cycles...

[SunsetRunner]

I bought the Charge 5 yesterday (my first Fitbit) because I wanted to track REM/NREM sleep cycles and after a lot of research and recommendations from friends that use it, I got it just for this purpose.

But the graph on my Fitbit looks completely different from what my friends see on theirs. Instead of showing light or deep sleep, it just shows asleep/awake/restless—and it doesn't show me exact hours of the night that these are recorded either, so this information is totally unusable. 

I've tried clicking 'learn more'  under sleep quality in the app, and it just loads endlessly (tried multiple times, it never loads anything). I tried opening my dashboard on the website to look for this graph, and multiple sections won't load. I can't click on anything and there's no graph. I tried it in Chrome and Safari browsers. 

I tried subscribing, thinking maybe this was a paid feature, but even with a subscription it doesn't show the graph that has the REM/NREM information I purchased this device for. 

Starting to feel like I just threw a lot of money at nothing, and am really close to just giving up and returning it. 

I tried chatting with support, and got an error message. Tried calling support. Was told to press a button on the charger, but I couldn't find any buttons. I'm legally blind so if this is a tiny button, I may simply be unable to locate it. 

I tried disconnecting from Bluetooth, resetting phone and Fitbit, made sure it was fully charged. 

How the heck do you guys view the graph that shows light/deep sleep? This is the only reason I bought the Fitbit and I feel like this might just be a user error problem. I can't find the information anywhere.

[SunsetRunner]

Hello @SunsetRunner 

Like you I have vision issues (double vision) so I thought sending you a YouTube video that breaks it down would be better. You can view it here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=X4l3dIE8TLI It also shares how to view graphs. Also to restart your Fitbit Charge 5 you can view this YouTube video here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xETQUTUzMqM

Please let me know if this helps you and answers your question. 😃 Happy Stepping!

[SunsetRunner]

Hello again @SunsetRunner 

Did the videos help? 😃

[SunsetRunner]

Thank you for the video! I reactivated my account for now and I’m going to try again. Maybe I’m just using it wrong.

Unfortunately my device still does not show light/deep sleep. When I click on today’s sleep, it shows me a completely different graph called ‘Sleep Patterns’ which only displays sleep, restless, and awake data. There’s no overall sleep score or additional data for sleep cycles like the ones shown in the video you sent (even though I’m going through all the same menus).

Last night, I told the device that I was going to sleep and then clicked another button to tell it that I woke up. i’m not sure if maybe this is the reason why it’s not showing me all the sleep data. After reading through more of the support topics by people who had similar issues, it sounds like I need to let it just automatically track my sleep. 

So I’ll try that tonight and see if the data appears tomorrow.

[SunsetRunner · Accepted solution]

Hello again @SunsetRunner 

In order to get a more detailed analysis of you sleep in a deeper way as you are describing you might consider the Fitbit Premium Subscription. It is detailed here in this forum posting by @SilviaFitbit and is broken down for you: https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Fitbit-Premium/Difference-between-free-and-Premium-sleep-information/td-p/4271436

Maybe this can clear up some of the questions you might have. I hope you have a fantastic evening 😉

[SunsetRunner]

Oh I see. Thank you for the additional information!

I actually did have a subscription active this morning and it didn’t make any difference. I still didn’t have access to any of the deep or light sleep information. Only sleep patterns. So I canceled the subscription and was going to return the device.

My friends with fitbits don’t have subscriptions, but they are able to access the light and deep sleep information. When I was researching the Fitbit, it didn’t say anything about requiring a subscription to access this feature, which is why I purchased it. if I had known it would be locked behind a paywall, I wouldn’t have bothered. 

But anyway even with the subscription it doesn’t seem to work. I’ll just go ahead and return it. Thank you for your help! 

[SunsetRunner]

Just want to add, I was willing to pay a subscription before all of this, but having bought the device thinking I wouldn’t need to pay for this particular feature (per researching it), then having to troubleshoot this device all day, having half of the features not work (I couldn’t get it to update, buttons didn’t work, the sleep FAQ loads endlessly, the website also loads endlessly, I had to restart my phone just to exit the subscribe menu after subscribing to premium because the button didn’t work, amongst other things), and then finding out I need to pay $10 a month just to try to troubleshoot it some more even though it already didn’t work with the subscription I had before.

just doesn’t enhance my life like I hoped the Fitbit could 🤣

Nothing against you, again thank you so much for the support! 

[JimVA]

You do not need the subscription to get the sleep details.  I was told by customer service (and one of those "Learn More" links within the app) that you won't get the sleep details if the Charge 5 was unable to get a consistent heart rate throughout the night.  So you might have to adjust where you have the band while you sleep.  The recommended location is 2-3 finger widths from wrist bone. 

You also need to let the Charge 5 determine when you go to sleep and wake up.  Don't set it yourself (which is an option). 

I have had the Charge 5 for 2 weeks and I have not yet seen the details.  I keep playing around with the location of the band but no success yet. 

Good luck.