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Not quite convinced about the precision and quality of the sleep tracking service

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One of the main reasons I bought my Charge 5 is the sleep tracking service and the information I could get from it, but, after a few months of using it, I´m not quite convinced about its precision and quality.

Somedays I feel like I slept very good based on my sensations, mood, energy, aspect, etc., but my band tells me that my sleep quality was not as good as other nights when I feel that my sleep was disastrous and I feel exhausted. So, it is contradictory based on my own sensations.

 

The other day I was just laying in my bed reading, for like 2 hours, and when I finished and went to the bathroom before going to sleep, I realized that the band had measured those 2 hours as if I was sleeping; it even showed different sleep stages during that time, as deep sleep or REM. That is CRAZY. It doesn´t make any sense, because I didn´t sleep at all during that period.

 

Those things make me wonder if the band is actually measuring my sleep or is just throwing random information for me to believe something that is not happening, and it´s a disappointment.

I hope someone related to the company could explain to me why my band measured me as asleep when I was not sleeping, with stages and all. Of course, I was quite still, but not sleeping.

 

Regards.

 

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1 BEST ANSWER

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The fitbit decides whether you are "sleeping" by how much your body is moving, and your heart rate. If you are essentially stationary and your heart rate has dropped below resting (seated and quiet for a time) heart rate for a certain amount of time, it'll read that as "sleeping". 

 

Likewise, the brief periods of "awake" it registers during the night are where you're tossing and turning. You won't necessarily be conscious and responsive, able to have conversations, etc.

 

Tightness of the band influences measured heart rate; a slack band misses some beats and measures heart rate as lower, a tight one the reverse. The thickness of your wrist will vary through the day, for example you may set it loose, go for a walk on a warm day, and the warmth and the gravity pulling your blood into your hands as you walk will make your wrists swell slightly, thus it may read a wrongly-low heart rate when you start walking, and a wrongly-high heart rate towards the end. 

 

It will register "light", "deep" etc sleep by your movement and heart rate, and so things like your hands being outside or inside the covers and thus more or less swollen, these will influence how it interprets your sleep. 

 

Of course, there are factors other than the amount of "deep" sleep and the total sleep you have which influence how you feel the next day. If you didn't drink anything after dinner and it's a hot night, you may have a lot of deep sleep but be dehydrated on waking (sleep is commonly an 8 hour period without water), and so feel awful. But maybe mid-afternoon you're just a bit weary, have a twenty minute nap - far too short for "deep" sleep - and then feel great. 

 

Fitbit, then, provides these numbers which purport to be both accurate and precise, but which really are just a rough sketch. What they're useful for is trends. It's like if you want to gain or lose weight - your weight will vary naturally day-to-day, and simply going to the toilet or eating a meal can be the difference of 0.5-1kg. So for weight gain or loss you look at the trend over weeks or months.

 

And then there's cardiovascular fitness. If you go for a hard run today, your resting heart rate tomorrow will probably be higher than it was today - you've stressed your body and it's now working hard to recover. But the day after that you go for another run anyway, and so on. Bad sleep makes it go up, as does worry about work, etc. Maybe it drops on weekends and when you spend time with good friends. So it's up and down day-to-day. But over weeks or months your resting heart rate trends downwards. 

 

Likewise the data Fitbit offers you. Look at the data, and look for patterns. You keep doing X, and Y happens. You stop doing X, and Z happens. Depending whether you liked Y or Z result, you decide whether or not to keep doing X.

 

That's for things like heart rate and sleep. There are other things like the oxygen saturation and heart rate variability which are complete fiction. Ignore them. Basically all the premium data - the workouts are good, but the data are fiction. 

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4 REPLIES 4

Hello, 

Have a look on this very interesting test 

https://youtu.be/sPiYdJVjx-g

 

 

I tested the Fitbit Charge 5 against a scientific sleep EEG device, and I tested the Heart Rate, GPS and Step Counting accuracy. Subscribe to my weekly Newsletter(!) on www.robterhorst.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/quantified_scientist/ Twitter: @QuantifiedRob Max's blog: ...
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Hi, thank you for your answer.

 

I saw the video. I expected more accuracy of the charge 5 regarding sleep tracking. However, the guy in the video used very few sample nights to arrive at his results. Maybe more samples would have been needed for a more realistic evaluation.

 

In any case, that doesn´t answer why my charge 5 detected a sleep period when I was not actually sleeping, just still in my bed, reading. I´m sure the company is working hard so that the next version of this device has higher accuracy. I really don´t know if that is possible with just readings in the wrist.

 

Regards.

 

Best Answer

The fitbit decides whether you are "sleeping" by how much your body is moving, and your heart rate. If you are essentially stationary and your heart rate has dropped below resting (seated and quiet for a time) heart rate for a certain amount of time, it'll read that as "sleeping". 

 

Likewise, the brief periods of "awake" it registers during the night are where you're tossing and turning. You won't necessarily be conscious and responsive, able to have conversations, etc.

 

Tightness of the band influences measured heart rate; a slack band misses some beats and measures heart rate as lower, a tight one the reverse. The thickness of your wrist will vary through the day, for example you may set it loose, go for a walk on a warm day, and the warmth and the gravity pulling your blood into your hands as you walk will make your wrists swell slightly, thus it may read a wrongly-low heart rate when you start walking, and a wrongly-high heart rate towards the end. 

 

It will register "light", "deep" etc sleep by your movement and heart rate, and so things like your hands being outside or inside the covers and thus more or less swollen, these will influence how it interprets your sleep. 

 

Of course, there are factors other than the amount of "deep" sleep and the total sleep you have which influence how you feel the next day. If you didn't drink anything after dinner and it's a hot night, you may have a lot of deep sleep but be dehydrated on waking (sleep is commonly an 8 hour period without water), and so feel awful. But maybe mid-afternoon you're just a bit weary, have a twenty minute nap - far too short for "deep" sleep - and then feel great. 

 

Fitbit, then, provides these numbers which purport to be both accurate and precise, but which really are just a rough sketch. What they're useful for is trends. It's like if you want to gain or lose weight - your weight will vary naturally day-to-day, and simply going to the toilet or eating a meal can be the difference of 0.5-1kg. So for weight gain or loss you look at the trend over weeks or months.

 

And then there's cardiovascular fitness. If you go for a hard run today, your resting heart rate tomorrow will probably be higher than it was today - you've stressed your body and it's now working hard to recover. But the day after that you go for another run anyway, and so on. Bad sleep makes it go up, as does worry about work, etc. Maybe it drops on weekends and when you spend time with good friends. So it's up and down day-to-day. But over weeks or months your resting heart rate trends downwards. 

 

Likewise the data Fitbit offers you. Look at the data, and look for patterns. You keep doing X, and Y happens. You stop doing X, and Z happens. Depending whether you liked Y or Z result, you decide whether or not to keep doing X.

 

That's for things like heart rate and sleep. There are other things like the oxygen saturation and heart rate variability which are complete fiction. Ignore them. Basically all the premium data - the workouts are good, but the data are fiction. 

Best Answer

This was a very elaborate response. Thank you for your time. Very useful info there.

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