Charge 5 sleep tracking after several hours

[Chrissullivan]

My Fitbit charge 5 consistently fails to start sleep tracking until several hours after I've gone to bed. While the information after that is interesting, I want to see all of it.

Moderator edit: clarified subject.

[ManuFitbit]

A warm welcome to the forums @Chrissullivan.

Thank you for providing the details regarding the difficulty you're experiencing with your Charge 5.

When your body is completely at rest and you haven’t moved for about an hour, your device should record that you’re asleep. 

Moving around a bit before bed can be beneficial, especially since activities like reading or watching TV often involve long periods of stillness. A short walk or some light activity before bed can help your device better detect the change in your heart rate as you fall asleep, leading to quicker and more accurate sleep tracking.

In addition, please keep in mind that there are some factors that may prevent your tracker from recording your sleep. Please make sure of the following:

• If you slept in a position that prevented your device from getting a consistent heart-rate reading or wore it too loosely. For best results, wear your device as described in this help article.
• If you slept for less than 1 hour for sleep patterns or less than 3 hours for sleep stages.
• If your device’s battery is critically low.

If you haven't done so already, please follow the steps listed here below: 

1. Complete a three pulse restart procedure using the charging cable. 
1. Try adjusting the sleep sensitivity on the Fitbit app and check if you continue to have the same problem.

Besides that, please wear your device on your non-dominant hand and monitor it for the next few days.

[Chrissullivan]

Thanks for your reply. As an experiment, I've changed the sleep from normal
to sensitive. I am curious whether Fitbit waiting for an hour to see if I'm
sleeping always leaves off that hour or goes back and takes it into account.

[RiekoC]

Hello @Chrissullivan 

I've been using a Fitbit device for about 3 years. It's been my experience in the  that my sleep log will show when I've fallen asleep. So, it seems to me that it does go back.

We'll be interested in what your experiment shows for your experience.

[Chrissullivan]

Yesterday I changed the sleep setting to sensitive. My sleep tracking this
morning shows me going to bed when I actually did. That doesn't of course
answer the question about whether it goes back and picks that up
retroactively or whether it picked it up at the time. I'm going to try this
setting for the next several days.

-------

After changing the Fitbit sleep sensitivity to sensitive from normal, day, one worked accurately. Day two left off the first hour. Waiting with curiosity to see what happens day three. Or should I say night three?

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I'm curious about the benefits of the three pulse restart procedure. I haven't done it yet because I had hopes for changing sensitivity instead.

[RiekoC]

Hello @Chrissullivan 

Restarting a Fitbit device is often the first recommended troubleshooting step to resolve various issues. 

[Chrissullivan]

Makes sense. So far after changing the sleep sensitivity from normal to sensitive, I've had it accurately pick up the beginning of me going to bed two out of three nights. I'm going to see whether it becomes five out of six or two out of five. I'm presuming that the pulse reset is a soft reset. But I guess I'll look into it if it becomes two out of five. Thank you.

[RiekoC]

Hi @Chrissullivan 

You're correct. The pulse reset is the "soft" restart. This help page (<-- click link) lists the other 2 ways to do a soft reset.

A hard reset is the factory data reset which deletes the user data on the Fitbit device. There's only 1 way to do a factory data reset on the Charge, which is from the Settings menu on the device. This is unfortunate since you can't do the reset when the display goes black & is not responsive.

[ManuFitbit]

Hi @Chrissullivan. Thank you for the update. 

I'm sure that this information that you are sharing is going to help other users with similar difficulties. 

I'd like to invite you to visit our Health & Wellness board where you can share your experiences, meet people and create new topics.